The Idea Of Being Matched In Ally Condie's The Society

What if you lived in a world where someone decided who you loved, where you worked, when you died? Cassia Reyes, the protagonist in Ally Condie's novel, Matched struggles with living in The Society where everything is fair, evenly distributed and individuality is scarce. On her 17th birthday, Cassia is matched with her best friend Xander (Condie 15). When Cassia attempts to read her match guidelines, she sees a face that is not Xander's (Condie 35). Is it possible that the officials have made a mistake? In The Society where human error is unacceptable, nothing is left to chance and nothing is a mistake, how can Cassia learn the truth and break free? Questioning herself, the idea of being matched, and the entire society she lives in, Cassia
To assert individuality, some citizens have artifacts from the previous society. For instance, Cassia has a silver compact from her great-grandmother (Condie 5), and Xander has gold cuff links from his father (Condie 6). These simple objects are soon taken away because it was not fair (Condie 202), seeing as all citizens did not have one. Citizens also are allowed to choose their own clothing for special occasions. For her match banquet Cassia chooses a green dress. Although Cassia chose the dress without first looking at data, it was still the dress she would most likely pick due to the information The Society had collected on her (Condie 25). Nothing is left to chance or good judgment, but rather probability and statistics. Cassia assumed that she was acting out of character by rebelling, however, the officials ran data on her showing she may have a rebellious side. These people were able to know this before Cassia herself (Condie 245). Knowing this so far in advance allowed the officials to lower Cassia’s food servings in attempts to weaken her (Condie 350) and experimented by giving her two matches (Condie 343). The Society has fool proof systems that allows no error and only allows what they want to
Living in The Society where information is limited to only one hundred of everything and any research is monitored, she found ways to research essential information . She also plays to The Society’s expectations while they monitor her dreams. Questioning how structured and routine The Society is, Cassia toys with the ideas of defining her own path, finding her own match and unraveling the lies about death as opposed to murder. Citizens must carry a tablet container, Cassia challenges the officials saying that the citizens are strong enough to go without the use of the tablets. With the uses of probability and knowledge the officials were able to see Cassia’s rebellious side. However, Cassia fought this, refusing to allow them to break her down by limiting her food or allowing them to use her as a puppet to do their dirty work. She wished to go beyond to find out when knowledge and power become to much. The Society becomes a totalitarian government; involving itself in all aspects of society, controlling values, and beliefs of its entire population, seeking to create the perfect society (the free dictionary). This is very similar to communist countries, where many of their freedoms are restricted and fairness is held beyond all else. These countries can show that dystopia is not only something you read about in far off fantasies. Dystopia can be in our society as well as the ones portrayed through these novels. Who is to say