Ally Condie's A Modern Brave New World

A Modern Brave New World
Ally Condie is the critically acclaimed author of the Matched Trilogy, a #1 New York Times and international bestseller. A modern twist to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Lois Lowry’s The Giver; Matched is set in a seemingly perfect society where the governing body, known as the Society, dictates the people’s occupation, who and can they will marry, as well as when they will die by dividing them into one of the three social castes. The Society’s is controlling and oppressive, yet they also feel safe and secure. The narrative explores the individual sacrifices of societal perfection and the loss of free will. Condie’s prose, skillfully employs several traditional themes that are characteristically used in dystopian

There are Officials at each activity, event, or commonplace watching intently. Monitoring the citizen’s dreams is another abuse of an invasive surveillance tactics of the Society to be omniscient and remain in control. In another attempt to prevent their citizens from becoming overwhelmed, the Society “created commission to choose the hundred best of everything: Hundred Songs, Hundred Paintings, Hundred Stories, Hundred Poems. The rest were eliminated” (Condie 29). Each citizen is allowed one artifact of the past which must be approved and logged by the Society. Cassia’s Grandfather gave her a compact that was her Great-Grandmother’s for her birthday. On his 80th birthday, he showed Cassia a secret compartment that contained Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night poem, which is not one of the 100 approved poems, any other poem found in someone’s possession would receive an infraction and possibly be reclassified as an Aberration or an Anomaly. He took a great risk keeping this poem. With one of his last breaths, Cassia’s Grandfather said to her, was that “I am giving you something you won’t understand yet. But I think you will someday. You more than the rest. And, remember. It’s all right to wonder” (83). With that poem and permission to think for herself, Cassia started questioning the rules of her