What Role Does The Testing Play In A Dystopian Society

Many examples depict what a dystopian society looks like, but in The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau, surveillance, distrust of nature, and the fearfulness of the outside world are shown. Dystopian literature shows the cataclysmic decline the world in it is going through. The characters in dystopian literature face many challenges, for example, environmental and technological. In a dystopian world, the citizens have almost no access to privacy. The citizens in a society like this are also easily influenced by the government. Governmental oppression also plays a key role in The Testing. In The Testing, a series of wars destroyed the world, but after the leaders declared peace, the world continued to demolish itself. To prevent this from ever

From the beginning of Cia’s Testing experience, she has noticed the strict surveillance the officials have on the candidates. While Cia and the other Testing candidates are in the skimmer heading towards The Testing center, “Tomas grabs a box of crackers and starts to open them when Michal yells back, ‘We’re going to stop for lunch in a few minutes. You might want to wake up your friends’” (Charbonneau 52). This caught Cia’s attention and caused her to be suspicious of the idea that certain cameras are watching the candidate’s every move. After secretly searching, Cia discovered a camera in the skimmer (Charbonneau 54). Another situation happened after Cia’s roommate, Ryme, hung herself, Cia notices a camera in her room. After she notices the camera, Cia realizes that “[the officials] watched as [Ryme] stepped off the chair…They could’ve saved her. Instead, they let her die” (Charbonneau 96). This led Cia to believe that even though they are under constant surveillance, the officials do not care about the candidates, but they care more about The Testing. With an official watching the candidates in their room and on the skimmer, it perceives the idea of constant surveillance, causing the candidates to become paranoid about what other extremes the officials might go to to control the