In Ally Condie’s novel “Matched”, a teenage girl name Cassia lives in a world strictly delineated by rules created by a higher power known as Society. The centralized theme of the novel is the freedom of choice, or the lack there of in Society. The society follows a strict set of rules, times and regulations to ensure everything is running efficiently, but when Cassia begins to fall in love with a boy outside of Society’s jurisdiction she begins to long for freedom of choice. “I realize that the Officials are right. Once you want something, everything changes. Now I want everything. More and more and more. I want to pick my work position. Marry who I choose […] Decide which poems I want to read and what words I want to write. There is so much …show more content…
Ky follows the rules and doesn’t deviate from them, metaphorically swimming along the surface. When Ky does defer from the rules, he is very deceptive in an effort to remain to appear still swimming along the surface. After playing games with Ky, Xander suggests that he knows Ky is losing the games on purpose, in an effort to remain in on the surface and not stand out to Society. ““Why would he throw so many games? He knows the Officials watch us. He knows they’re looking for people who can play well. He knows our play probably influences what vocations they assign us. It doesn’t make sense.” (Condie, 227) It is only in an experience in the theatre, when Cassia catches Ky crying. “When they do, [Ky] is calm and composed and back to the Ky I know. Or the one I thought I knew. No one else has noticed. Ky does not know that I have seen him.” (Condie, 91) This raises a new point In the novel as Cassia now has to lie about Ky, pretending not to see him crying in the theatre. Both Ky and Cassia have a lot of secrets, but as they begin to get closer they begin to share secrets, and eventually work together to deviate from the rules of the society, in an effort to stray from the surface and dive