Hope (A Tool of Coercion in Totalitarian Governments - Part 4/4)

In many dystopian novels—indeed, in many novels with any sort of totalitarian or dictatorial government, and even some novels that don't have that in there—there are those oppressed individuals known as the masses. The repressed populace. They suffer the indignities of cruel governments and/or rulers, undergo horrific things in the name of "the greater good." But what about their good? What about the welfare of the individual? What stops people from rising up against these terrible things?

I'm going to use six different dystopian series, as well as references from history, as my examples when answering these questions, but it really all boils down to four very simple things: apathy, fear, blame, and hope. This blog will actually be broken up into four separate posts to prevent having to scroll through a lengthy research-paper-length post if anyone wants to look for something specific.

Hope

The fourth factor is hope. According to the dictionary, hope is aspiration, anticipation, optimism, faith, possibility—something good that people wish and strive for. But what does this, of all things, have to do with corrupt governments?

In The Hunger Games film, President Snow (one of the bad guys) sums it up fairly nicely. He explains that one way to redirect fear and resentment is with hope. Give the people something to hope for. And that is a useful tactic in any corrupt government.

The most obvious example of this I've ever seen is in the BBC Robin Hood series. Almost everyone knows the story of Robin Hood, how he robbed from the rich to give to the poor and how the Sheriff was so horrible and taxed the peasants into starvation and blah-blah-blah. Well, there's an episode in this particular series where the Sheriff does something completely off the wall, something no one would expect. When Robin's right-hand guy, Much, gets captured, instead of executing or torturing him, the Sheriff makes Much a lord.

Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming either. Gave him a nice house, some land, pretty servant girls, wealth, good clothes, etc. Now why would a bad guy do that? The Sheriff explains it to his right-hand man, Guy of Gisbourne—because of what it does to the peasants. "Look at that," they say. "That could be us," they say. "That could've been me. It still could be me if I play my cards right. We could go from cruddy poverty to that." Now because this is a TV show, Much of course is still allied to Robin and helps him out and so because of this loses all of his nice stuff, but that's not the point.

It was only after I'd seen that episode that I realized how this applied to what President Snow is talking about in The Hunger Games. That hope, that sense of "that could be me" is one of the things that helps promote the Games. The victor of the Games gets a super nice house, never has to worry about food again, gets nice clothes, a very generous stipend from the Capitol for the rest of their lives…and this applies to their family, as well. So Katniss winning the Games? All that good stuff goes to her mom and sister, too, whom she's been struggling to support for the last four or five years. The kids from Districts 1-4 actually volunteer (which is why they are almost always either seventeen or eighteen) in order to have the chance to get all of that.


Basically, when despair is rampant, people want to cling to hope, to the long odds in their favor—so long as the reward/outcome of those odds is kept fresh in their minds. Each district has a Victor's Square with lovely houses smack in the middle of it. Each district has a victor living in one of those houses. This only reinforces the idea, "Hey…that could be me someday, if I play my cards right." The slogan for the Games reinforces this too: may the odds be ever in your favor. 

We see a similar—though far less deadly—version of this "that could be me" ideology in The Selection, by Kiera Cass. In The Selection, there's a competition similar to The Bachelor television show, except the guy up for grabs is one of the princes of the royal family, and the girl selected will marry him, thus improving her lot in life as well as her family's lot. In a culture where social class is a rigorously upheld way of doing things, that's a pretty big deal. Of course, it might not seem like that if—like the main character, America Singer (I know, it's like the only major flaw in the book so far, but really?)—you have a boyfriend already and then get selected for the competition, since the hopes and dreams of your family will be riding on your shoulders. But again, this is a good example of the system-that-isn't-really-fair offering the-thing-you-really-really-want in order to keep the populace from exploding.

Sometimes, it's not even the prize in a competition. Sometimes it's just the hope or dream that you've wanted all your life, and the system can help you get it. In Caitlin Kittredge's The Iron Thorn, Aoife wants to be an engineer more than anything else in the world. It is her fondest, most desperate dream. And in order to get that dream, she has got to be careful, she has got to walk the line, and she has got to stay out of trouble, or that dream will go poof.

The same thing is in Matched, by Ally Condie. A lot of the adults, Cassia discovers as she goes through the plot of the book, have made the conscious decision to sacrifice certain things in order to hold onto what matters most to them. Cassia is exposed to the hope that if you play by the rules, you get rewarded with the thing you want the most—even during those times when the rules may or may not be fair. Cassia wants to be a sorter, a particular job she loves; that aspiration is threatened when she tries to flout the rules. She backs down (at first) in order to hold onto that dream.

"Eyes on the prize" is a technique used by a lot of totalitarian governments, but in small doses, to help maintain the status quo. Basically the corrupt ruling institution, whatever it is, continually reinforces the idea that "this thing you want could happen to you! As long as you don't screw up." By itself, it's a weak and ineffective tool. But combined with the other three…hey, it works.

Show Your Face? (Sometimes a Pose Is Just a Pose Part 1)

So I came across an interesting article about book cover trends a little while back and read through it, and one of the points sort of surprised and actually disturbed me.

Now, one of the first things that attracts someone to a book usually is the cover. Does the cover look interesting? And of course we have a lot of covers with pictures of people on them. The Once Upon a Time YA novel series from Simon and Schuster actually revamped their covers from illustrated to photographic, rereleasing every book in the series so far except two (Scarlet Moon and Spirited) and I actually like these covers a lot better. They're beautiful. I'm a big fan of photographic covers.

But the point that was made by this article was that a certain trend in photographic covers is having a negative impact on feminine identity among teens. This trend is the image of a girl whose face is hidden in some way from the camera. You see this in the Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie (Cassia is always looking away from the reader), in The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (you see Cinder's foot, Scarlet's arm and part of her upper body but no face, Cress's back and her hair), The Mortal Instruments (hard to see any faces), and in a lot of other books. Then there are the books where only part of the face is revealed (Kiera Cass's The Selection, where part of America Singer's face is hidden by her arm).

According to this article, the trend of hiding a girl's face from view somehow takes away from her strength, from the strength of her identity as a strong character, and from her ability to be viewed as a role model by the reader. I find this interesting, since a lot of novels with strong female leads (The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.) don't even have images of their stars on the cover at all.

This reminds me of something my sister once told me. Now, I'm biracial. My father is African-American, my mother is Caucasian. When I was little, I had this idea (not because of my parents) that I couldn’t do anything that a biracial person hadn’t done before. As an example, I would play A Little Princess with a friend of mine from down the street, and I was always Sara and she was always Becky, because I had lighter skin than she did and I thought that was how it was supposed to be (in the 1993 film, Sara is white and Becky is black). It wasn’t until I got older (say, eight or nine instead of four or five) that I realized that wasn’t necessarily the way things had to be, and I learned it was acceptable to put myself in the shoes of a character who didn’t necessarily look like me.

What does this have to do with this book cover trend?

A lot of readers will take in the text description of the main character when they first come across it, but then they'll push it aside and put themselves in the situation instead. It's one of the fun things about reading. This lack of facial imagery on the cover is actually rather conducive to doing that, since the reader isn't stuck with a fully realized image of what the main character is supposed to look like.

I know that when I'm reading a really good book, I have a hard time slowing down enough to visualize everything, so if I don't have an established picture in my head, the MC looks like me, even if she's black or Greek or blond or red-headed or a green Martian with no hair. It's just easier to insert yourself into that character because the physical characteristics are less prominent. Which is probably one of the reasons the publishing companies do it so often.

The other reason? It looks pretty. One of the most beautiful trio of book covers I've seen is for the Matched Trilogy and what the poses tell us about the state of mind of the main character. They're gorgeous. Sometimes a pose is just a pose. Sometimes it's purely aesthetic.

But I doubt the industry is trying to weaken the feminine identity of the female teen masses. At least not most of them. I'm not worried, and I hope that when I'm published, I can have a cover as beautiful as the ones I've listed here.

- LA Knight

The Selection - Kiera Cass

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself—and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined


I've never really been a fan of reality television. I watched the first season of The Bachelor and one season of Survivor (guys VS girls) because my mom asked me to. I am fond of Project Runway, but that's about it. So when I heard about this book, The Selection, by Kiera Cass, I was like, "Whatever. Dumb." But then the sequel came out, The Elite, and I was like, "I don't get the connection between these two words." Then the final book was announced, The One, and I got really confused. So I read the summary to see what it could tell me, and the summary of book three was enough to get me to try book one.

I am so glad that I did.

In The Selection, the royal family of the kingdom of Ilea has this tradition of marrying the daughters off to crowned heads of state in other countries, but their sons must marry a woman from their kingdom. No specific woman, just a woman from their country. Okay, I can get behind that. Makes sense; there's no reason why this is a bad idea, especially in a kingdom where rebel forces sometimes are like, "The monarchy sucks!" Gives every girl a shot at being part of that monarchy, and by proxy, her family.

So the first thing that put me off was how the summary presented the situation, but we'll get to that in a minute. The second thing was the MC's name. America Singer. I kind of wanted to bash my head in when I saw that. They explain why that's her name later on in the book, and it's a really cute little family story, actually, but it needed to be earlier on, because the name otherwise is terrible. Her last name, Singer, makes sense—she's from the artisan caste of her country, as is her entire family. But the first name needed to be explained waaay earlier.

Onto the other thing. In the summary, they make it seem like America enters the Selection (the "Princess and the Pea" type contest for the prince's hand) even though she has a boyfriend, which gives off the impression that she's at best fickle and at worst a bit of a slut. So color me surprised when they explain why she signs up for the Selection in the text of the book.

In Ilea, society is broken up into different castes, which have number-designations. Your caste dictates how people treat you, what kind of work you can have (which in turn determines how much money you make), etc. Ones are the royal family. Twos and threes are rich people, celebrities, the aristocracy, etc. Fours are factory workers and the like, Fives are artisans (singers, musicians, sculptors, painters, etc.), Sixes are indoor domestic service, Sevens are outdoor domestic service, and Eights are homeless people.

If a girl who's a Five marries a Four, her caste number goes up to Four. If a girl who's a Five marries a Six, her caste number goes down to Six. America's sister Kenna married a Four. America is in love with Aspen, a Six.

You can see the problem:

- One, her parents would never allow it (and she's sixteen, so she's still a minor, and two years is a long time to be forbidden to see your boyfriend whom you've already been dating in secret for two years).

- Two, you can't just get married outside of your caste in Ilea. There's a lot of paperwork and red tape to deal with. Anyone who's been married knows that this actually costs some money.

- And three, Aspen already provides for his entire family. His dad died when he was sort of young, so it's him and his mom working and providing for a family of like, eight or nine people. That's a lot of mouths to feed. And once he and America get married and start having kids, it's even more mouths to feed, with only one extra person contributing to the cash flow—at least at first. So yeah, big problem. And it's not as if America makes much money herself, since she has to help provide for her family of five people as well.

One of the things that happens when a girl gets Selected is that her family receives financial compensation for the entire time she's at the palace. Reason one of why America agrees (her family needs it; they're not well off).

Reason two: if America is Selected, whether she wins or not, she (and I think her entire family) have their caste elevated to Three, and even if she marries Aspen and becomes a Six, I believe her family stays Threes.

Another reason is that America's mother has agreed that America can keep half of what she earns from her performances to do whatever she wants with if she agrees to sign up (which is not an automatic guarantee of being included, since thousands of girls sign up but only thirty-five get picked). She needs that money because she and Aspen need to save up to deal with all that inter-caste red tape.

But the fourth reason was the most surprising, and one that had me rooting for Aspen to win America's heart…for a little while. Because the fourth reason was Aspen himself. He asked America to sign up because it was such a great opportunity for herself and her family, and he never wanted to be someone who held her back. I was like, "Awww! He's so mature! I like him."

No. No, he's not. He's a little punk. But we'll get to that later on in this review (though I have an entire essay about why I despise him so much right here).

So she signs up, never believing she'll get Selected…but she does. However, right before she gets Selected, guess what happens? Aspen the Jerk decides his pride is worth more than his so-called true love and dumps America.

You saw that right. He—dumps—her. Why?

Pride. I was so disgusted by this, I wanted to scream. Not at the author, at him.

Let me quickly paint a picture for you guys. These two have been dating for two years. Two years. It's been understood between them that they're going to get married for at least a year. Both of them have been saving up as best they can for that long so they can get married. A year. They’ve been engaged for a year.

So America is so happy about everything that's been going on—her new income thanks to her mom, her sister's going to have a baby soon, she found out Aspen's been saving up a lot of money to get married when she thought it was only a little because his family's so strapped—so she makes a dinner for Aspen that they can have in their little tree-house where they have their rendezvous. She likes cooking, does America, and she's always given him leftovers to snack on during their trysts because she knows his family is so poor. And she's so happy about everything, so she goes a little crazy and makes him dinner.

Let me reiterate this: she made the guy dinner.

His reaction: he got mad. You saw that right. He got mad. Not at her, supposedly, but at the situation, because oh gee, due to her being a Five and him being a Six, she makes more money than he does and it hurts his Big Heap Caveman heart to not be the big provider for her.

So after dating for two years, during which—for one of those years—they were engaged, he dumps her. Just cuts it off. He's not going to talk to her anymore, he's not going to meet with her anymore, they're done. The end. Even though she's crying and telling him money doesn't matter and blah-blah, even though when they marry she'll be a Six too and make the same amount of money he does, he's basically like, "I was stupid to think this could work. I'm done. Bye."

Now I know guys in real life like this, so it's not that it's unrealistic of him. That's why it's a flaw with the character, not the author. It's just that Aspen's a moron. When I read that, I was like, "Da frack?"

And then comes the fifth reason why she goes into the Selection instead of backing out after this trauma: to put some distance between her and Aspen so she can heal without being all pathetic and mopey over him. Which surprised me, because I expected her to be like, "I'll show him. The prince will LOVE ME! And then Aspen'll be sorry!" And she's totally not. She's surprisingly mature about the whole thing, though understandably hurt.

So she gets to the Selection, meets the prince (who's a total sweetie, if a tiny bit sheltered; I blame the king), and realizes the two of them could be friends. Now, what I like about this scenario is that she's open and honest with him from the beginning. She tells him she's there because she needs to get away from home for as long as possible, and he's such a sweetheart, he doesn't question it. He can tell that someone hurt her in some way and he's like, "You know what, I'll keep you here as long as I can."

Oh, side note: the thing I like about the Selection (the event) is that the Selection can last as long as the prince needs to find a wife. Unlike with The Bachelor, there's no time limit. Which makes sense because you can't rush love, you know?

So when Prince Maxon says he'll keep her there as long as she wants to be there and as long as he can, that's basically saying, "I'll give you this thing you really need until you don't need it anymore."

And when America tells him, "I don’t think I can fall in love with you," Maxon is okay with that. He's just glad she's being honest. And what's nice is, he doesn’t hold this against her or use it as an excuse to withdraw his support. And when she tells him about Aspen, the whole story, he doesn’t get mad at her. He doesn’t make her leave. He comforts her and says Aspen's a dog (I agree). The whole relationship between America and Maxon is one of honesty, and I really like that.

Then Aspen shows up. What, you say? How? How did he get to the palace? He was drafted into the armed forces, and some people in the military get assigned to standard guard duty at the palace. Luck (bad luck) of the draw, I guess. So the moment he arrives, practically, he's in America's room, being like, "Oh, America, I love you, I was an idiot, I'm so sorry, please forgive me and love me and have my babies!"

Sweet, right? At least he apologized, right?

WRONG!

First of all, what they're doing is treason. America was warned about this before she started the Selection. Treason is a capital offense in Ilea. Does Aspen care? No. And every time America tries to protest? He's just like, "Baby, I missed you so much, smooch-smooch-smooch." And because it's only been a few weeks and she loves him still (you don't get over two years in two weeks), she succumbs to his nefarious charms the first couple times.

Second of all, the reason he dumped her? His pride? He hasn’t gotten over that. The problem has been erased. When a guy joins the military, he becomes an automatic Two or Three. So if America marries him, he's making the same if not more money than she is (remember that was his problem before), even with her new elevation to caste Three. He hasn’t learned anything! He's just horny and sad!

Now, here's what I really, really love about this book. America and Aspen have three secret meetings. Once, he kisses her and she's so shocked and happy to see him and confused by her own feelings that she just goes with it. Second time, it's the middle of the night, he woke her up so she's all groggy and confused, and then he kisses her while she's barely conscious. Boo both times.

BUT!

The third time. The third and final time, she is awake and aware and she tells him they can't be together while she's part of the Selection. Not that they can't be together ever, but that while she's part of the Selection, it isn't right or fair to Maxon for them to see each other. And then she goes on to tell Aspen that for right now, she doesn't want him to treat her romantically like he's been doing, and that she does intend to stay part of the Selection (she's in the final six because Maxon is falling for her).

At which point Aspen, the immature "douche canoe" (to borrow a phrase from The Lux novels by Jennifer L. Armentrout, soon to be reviewed here as well), basically throws a quiet hissy fit and says, "So you're picking him over me, even though you're not in love with him."

Here is where Kiera Cass rewarded my patience in reading this book, because America has the BEST answer to the love-triangle situation and this is the ONLY time I have EVER seen it used.

She tells Aspen this: that no, she's not choosing Maxon over him, or Aspen over Maxon. It's not about choosing them. She's choosing herself. She's choosing to do what feels right for her. She explains to Aspen that he really, really hurt her with what he did, and that hurt and her love for him are a confusing mix and she needs to sort out of her feelings before she can make a decision. She also explains that Maxon has never hurt her as Aspen has, that he's her friend, that he needs her help with something very important, that he's done a lot for her (he started a Welfare Program for the poor and starving based simply on the fact that America told him she and her family have been super poor before and had to choose between having electricity/heat in the winter or having something to eat), and that while she may not be in love with him yet, she cares for him and finds him attractive. In effect, she needs time to sort herself out.

This is one of the most mature responses I've ever seen in a YA novel. And honestly, I think America deserves some time, since Aspen's the one who dumped her and Aspen's the one who tried to drag her back. She reserves the right to need to think about it first. I'm impressed with her for standing up for that right. Above all, a girl has the right to choose. A guy shouldn’t be able to pressure her into something, especially after he's hurt her the way Aspen hurt America.

Kiera Cass, I am hooked on your work simply because of this (though the rest of your plot doesn't hurt). America is a nice girl, I like her, I'm rooting for her, and I'm impressed by her maturity. Thank you for delivering a realistic heroine with enough strength to stand up for herself both to her enemies and her friends. To paraphrase from Albus Dumbledore, "It takes a great deal more courage to stand up to your friends than to your enemies."

I give The Selection 5 out of 5 stars. I'm asking for it for Christmas, as well as the other two books (though book 3 will come later, like in May…). And I think there's two combined novellas in print-format, too. If so, I'm getting them.