Summary:
The
Selection by Kierra Cass
is a series of adolescent novels set in a dystopian world known as Illea, with
sixteen-year-old American Singer as the main character. America’s society is dominated by a caste
system, where your caste determines your occupation, your value to society, and
ultimately who you can or cannot marry. The caste system is ranked one through
eight, where ones are the royal family and eights are the lowest of the low.
Escaping the lower caste is nearly impossible because there are only select
ways to do so. America is a five, along
with the rest of her family, and her forced occupation is the arts. In Illea, America is forced to partake in a
never-ending life of poverty and obeying Illea’s rules simply because of her
caste until her family learns of The Selection.
The Selection has the potential to not only change America’s life, but the
entire Singer family as well.
The Selection is a process in which
Illea’s prince, Prince Maxon, will choose a bride, a daughter of Illea if you
will, who will become his princess. Any
young woman who falls into the age can choose to enter the lottery for the
Selection. However, only thirty-five
girls will be chosen to compete for the love of Prince Maxon, the crown of the
country, and for America, the ability to escape being from a lower caste. However, there is one problem for America,
she does not have the heart to compete for Prince Maxon.
America Singer has no interest in
competing for Prince Maxon’s hand because she is in love with someone from her
hometown. America is in love with Aspen
Singer, who is a caste below her, a six, and their romance is almost forbidden
due to this. America is content with
stepping down a caste to be with Aspen if they get married, but Aspen ends their
relationship because he believes that life, as a six, is not good enough for
America. Thus, America willingly goes
into The Selection believing at the very least she can escape the pain of
seeing Aspen everyday.
However, later in the novels,
America’s feelings for Maxon begin to change once she begins to realize that
Maxon is more than a prince. Once
America realizes that she could imagine a future with Maxon the competition becomes
fierce. On top of this, Aspen has been
drafted into Illea’s military and is now a palace guard, whom America sees
every day. America must navigate the
waters of having feelings for both Maxon and Aspen, figure out if she wants to
be the princess, and decide what her role in this competition is.
Argument:
Kierra Cass’ novels present a
dystopian world where poverty and social status are supposed to be the main
issues of the book. However, the role
that females play throughout the book is worrisome compared to other young
adult dystopian novels. In other dystopian novels such as Suzanne
Collins’ The Hunger Games and
Veronica Roth’s Divergent the main
female characters, Katniss and Tris, have both been inspiring role models for
young woman by leading rebellions and changing their own worlds. However, in the book Cass portrays America
Singer as a woman who is compliant.
America accepts the fact that she is supposed to follow certain roles in
her society and does not fight the gender stereotypes that are in front of
her.
What I want to focus on in my paper
is how in Cass’ novels there is an underlying issue of oppression of women that
is not fully addressed and barely acknowledged by the characters. While the issues of social class are
addressed throughout the book, with potential solutions to ending the castes in
Illea, Cass does not address the oppression of women in this novel and does not
create a character that rebel against what is or is not expected from her. While some of America’s actions go against
the stereotypical behavior of females in this book, overall America complies with
falling in line to Illea’s mold of what women should do. America Singer is not
a strong female protagonist compared to other young adult dystopian novels.
America Singer lacking the ability
to be a strong female character in this adolescent series is problematic
because it sends a message to young women that they must obey these gender
roles. The gender issues that are present throughout
these novels are the fact that women were supposed to be beautiful, their goals
were supposed to align with marriage, and in some instances they were
considered to be property. This is
problematic because young adult novels have recently been used as a tool to
encourage female empowerment and show that women can do anything they want,
including things that are not considered to be a female role.
One source I plan to use in my paper
is “Gender Issues in Young Adult Literature” by Kathryn Jacobs. Jacobs’ article
goes into details about some of the problems that adolescent literature faces
when it is targeting females, and one of these issues is the fact that female
characters main goal is to find a boyfriend.
Jacobs states, “Another criticism
of young adult literature for girls is that it is often dominated with the
notion that attaining a boyfriend is the ultimate success in a female’s life”
(Jacobs 21).
There are many instances when the
reader can tell that America’s main goal is to be married throughout The Selection, but one quote in
particular is when America says “Would I live out my days as an officer’s wife
or a king’s” (Cass). In this scene, it
is one instance where America can only see herself as someone’s wife, and that
is her ultimate goal. Whether America
chooses Aspen or Maxon, she ends up being someone’s wife. America does not give any insight whatsoever
about what happens if neither of her suitors marries her. Marriage is her ultimate goal.
Overall, what I want to do in this
paper is to explain why The Selection
series follows gender roles and to some extent oppresses women, and to explain
why this is problematic when young women read these novels to find role models
and inspiration to defy gender roles.
There are numerous occurrences in these novels that show women being
degraded and treated as property or show women whose main motivation is winning
the affection of a man and I want to prove that this is a problematic example
of adolescent literature due to these influences.
Works Cited
Cass,
Kierra. The Selection. Harper Teen, n.d.
Jacobs, Kathryn. "Gender Issues in
Young Adult Literature." (n.d.): 21.
Hi Carleigh,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you have a pretty good grasp on what it is you would like to write about. As you are searching for sources, you may also want to include searches for articles about more well-known books with similar tropes (Twilight, The Hunger Games) so you can apply their arguments to this text and mine those works cited pages. There is an edited collection titled Female Rebellion in YA Dystopian Fiction that might be useful for you as a counterpoint. For example, the article "Female Focalizers and Masculine Ideals: Gender as Performance in Twilight and The Hunger Games" might be useful. Because, while you mention Hunger Games as a positive example, it also falls into this trap as portraying a girl's choice between two boys as the most important decision of her life. This love triangle patternappears and reappears in YA literature, and it suggests girls must choose between two male options and reinforces a lot of the issues you argue against in this piece. "The Twilight of Feminism" may be another useful source for you to check out.
Carleigh,
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your thoughts and ideas for this text. I do find it interesting that most YA novels are used to encourage empowerment, but the protagonist in this one is so weak. Is the writer maybe trying to promote empowerment by making her weakness look unappealing? She is so heavily reliant on the man to get her out of poverty. I'm excited to see what you do with this one. I don't feel it necessary to focus on a critical lens since there isn't really any one quote or idea that is being focused on, but if I were to use a theoretical lens, I would probably use liberalism/ idealism, where the institution decides the behavior. A huge point to be made is the fact that these people are forced into roles based on their numbers rather than abilities, education, etc. Something that you could possibly refer to for a few ideas is Publisher's weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/57170-moving-on-up-the-selection-by-kiera-cass.html
Carleigh,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post for your individual text feature! Prior to it, I had never heard of this novel or its author. But, I am now very intrigued by it and how you will argue about its conflicting representations of women.
Like your novel, the novel I am working with sacrifices discussing particular issues like gender in order to focus on the issue of class. This alone, I think, should be something you ought to look into! It's pretty interesting and I wonder if there are even more texts out there that do the same thing.
To add, like your text, my text doesn't empower women (in fact, hardly any women exist in my text) despite it being written by a woman. I think this is also quite interesting and I wonder how that fact, the fact that The Selection was written by a woman, will affect your argument (if it does at all).
I found this article on UF's database that might be useful for your final paper: "Women Empowerment and Economic Development" by Esther Duflo. Good luck!