The establishing motives of most dystopian civilisations is to improve the progress of the race, however these objectives are able to unintentionally develop into undesirable environments. Through the Dystopic, Science Fiction novel, “The Knife of Never Letting Go” the author, Patrick Ness, intends to convey that although, the settlement of Prentisstown has immoral ethics, at the time of creation, the town had justified and admirable intentions. Similarly, the infection of “Noise”, was the cause of the men in Prentisstown to lose their judgment; however this cannot entirely justify all of Prentisstown’s unforgivable actions.
The creation of the civilisation, Prentisstown, was simply for the reason of wanting a fresh start. In the beginning of the novel, the people of Prentisstown were introduced as people from “the old world” who had “wanted to start over”. This shows that the people who first landed on New World never had the intention of forming a civilisation similar to Prentisstown, instead they had the intention of finding somewhere to live new lives, in safety. The primary reasons the people of Prentisstown began civilisation on New World was definitely not corrupt, instead reasonable.
Throughout the novel, Patrick Ness suggests that Noise is the reason why the men of Prentisstown became irrational and diverted from their set motives. Every man who landed on New world was soon contaminated with the “Noise Germ”, causing “nothing but noise in this world”, which led to “(driving) the rest of the men mad”. This conveys that noise was a key reason why the men of Prentisstown became averted from their primary intention, as they did not expect the very invasive Noise, which consequently, directly them away from their founding ideal. The men of Prentisstown’s intentions were changed as they were preoccupied with the effects of the Noise disease.
Although, the core of