Saturday, 16 March 2013

Matched in Today's World

Ally Condie has written about many social justice issues that citizens in the Society face in Matched. Many of them are real issues that are faced today.

The most obvious and prominent social justice issue in today's society is eliminating the individual. As we are all struggling to become 'normal' and to fit in with the crowd, we are getting rid of the creativity inside us, and soon enough, that is all we'll ever be: the same. In Matched, Condie stresses the point that without the power of free will, we have nothing. We live nothing lives doing nothing jobs and eating nothing food. We live to procreate and keep the human race from dying out. In the Society, where no one is free to think the way they want to, there is nothing to live for.

These days, when everyone is striving to wear the same clothes, have the same hair, and live the same life, we are becoming more and more what the Society wants us to be. We are becoming monkeys that will follow every command without a blink of hesitation. They want us to be the same, so that we can all be easily controlled.

We live in a time where we are free to be ourselves; even encouraged to do so. In a few hundred years, we may not even have that.


Something good that Ally Condie is showing us about The Society that is different from our world is discrimination (or lack of it). She is showing us how much better we function as humans without judging others by their skin colour, and looking past their stereotypes to see what they're really like. In the Society, where skin colour isn't mentioned, or looked down upon (we as readers don't even know whether there is more than one 'normal' skin colour), everyone is treated as well/badly as the next person. They are not given jobs based on their race (because there is none), or gender, but rather on their skill sets. Everything functions more smoothly when there is nothing to judge others by, or discriminate them in any way.

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