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I recently re-read A Wrinkle in Time, and found that it had a lot of similarities to the more recent Matched. If you haven’t read either book, I highly recommend them.

In a Wrinkle in Time, teen Meg Murray’s father has gone missing. Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and her new (boy) friend Calvin are swept away by powerful beings to help save him. They travel to Camazotz, a place where the The Black Thing (a dark, mysterious force) has overtaken the planet. The Black Thing is also trying to overtake Earth and other planets throughout the universe. It turns out that Meg’s father was sent to the planet to try to help save it.

Once on Camazotz, Meg, Charles and Calvin experience a Stepford-like utopia. Every house is exactly the same. Every child bounces a ball and jumps rope to the same exact beat. When the mothers come out to call the children in, each front door closes at precisely the same moment. Conformity rules in Camazotz.

Meg and her posse discover that Camazotz is run by IT, a giant brain that brainwashes people in to doing “the right thing.” IT speaks to them through an intermediary, saying:

…I thought perhaps it would save you pain if I showed you at once that it would do you no good to try to oppose me. You see, what you will soon realize is that there is no need to fight me. Not only is there no need, but you will not have the slightest desire to do so. For why should you wish to fight someone who is here only to save you pain and trouble? For you, as well as for the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet, I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision.

I won’t tell you how it ends, but it’s far better than I remember as a kid. I highly recommend it.

Let’s move on to Matched, a dystopic future novel. In this universe, all decisions like marriage, career choices and leisure pastimes are chosen by The Society. Learning to write or express yourself is forbidden. Even music and poetry is strictly guarded.

The Society uses sophisticated algorithms to determine optimum outcomes in all situations. All personal choice is basically removed for our main character, Cassia. She has reached 17, the age of which marriage partners are chosen for all citizens. Her best friend, Xander, is chosen for her. Everything seems perfect, until a mistake shows her matched, for a brief moment, to Ky. As she and Ky grow closer, Cassia begins to question her match to Xander, and later The Society as a whole and what it means to let her life be determined by someone else. Cassia says:

They are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. They have perfected the art of giving us just enought freedom; just enough that when we are ready to snap, a little bone is offered and we roll over, belly up, comfortable and placated like a dog…

Another great book, and I definitely recommend it.

So what do these books have in common? The ability to choose when to bounce your ball, or what music to listen to. The ability to go against the grain. The ability to make decisions. The ability to make mistakes.

Both books, written 46 years apart, are talking about freedom. I think that’s what makes dystopic future books so captivating is the idea that your freedom to make choices can be taken away from you. Imagine not choosing your own partner like Cassia, or not being able to bounce a ball to your own rhythm like the children of Camazotz. Imagine being thrown to a Roman-type circus of blood like Katniss Everdeen for the entertainment of the masses, or thrust in to outer space like Amy on the ship Godspeed.

Or if I wasn’t allowed to write this blog – or if you weren’t allowed to read it.

As I read A Wrinkle in Time, it really struck me how much of a recurring theme freedom is in literature. Do you have any favorite works that speak to you about freedom? That could be freedom of expression, freedom of country as so bravely fought for by our soldiers? It’s a fascinating and humbling thought that we here in the US are extremely lucky to hate what we want, choose to eat potato chips, and sit all night in front of bad TV. We have the freedom to make good choices, too.

Like reading a Wrinkle in Time or Matched!