Selection In Kiera Cass's Illea

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. Kiera Cass’ The Selection takes place in a country known as ‘Illea.’ This country has been separated into a caste system. Many years ago, a man named Gregory Illea made these castes based on how wealthy the people that lived there were. In present Illea, the children of the ancestors are forced to work where they had to work. America, an artist, gets sent a letter from the prince to be part of the Selection.The Selection is used to find a companion for the prince and provides entertainment for the citizens of Illea. Her parents keep pestering her about it and use persuasion to get America to sign up, but her heart is somewhere else. She is not able to tell her parents since …show more content…
Cass uses thoughtshots (words that show what the narrator is thinking or feeling) to show what America was thinking when she was picking her outfit. “My shoes I got to pick. I chose worn-out red flats. I figured I should make it clear from the start that I wasn’t princess material” (Cass 71). America explains how the Selection is making her feel and how she wants the people to see her. She believes that there was nothing special about her and the fact that she was chosen for this type of event bewildered her. In this exact same scene, America goes off to say her farewells to her providence. As she was leaving for the palace, a crowd was judging her on how she presented herself. The author uses irony because the townspeople were gathered and were surprised that America was a little attractive for a Five. “... gathered crowd of my attributes, slyly mentioning that I was very intelligent and attractive for a Five” (Cass 74). Someone who has the nerves to say something like this about a girl that may be their future princess is very disrespectful because that is not how people in lower castes should be viewed. As I said before, America has the chance to become a princess and whomever that gentleman was, will most likely regret those discourteous comments.This scene is significant because later on Prince Maxon ends up thinking she’s beautiful, when he is not aware of her caste. In addition, …show more content…
While this is a good point, it fails to account for the fact that when the participation handouts for the Selection came out, America refused to sign up because she did not want to be separated from her family and her first love. She fought to stay with Aspen and to change his mind about leaving her. America went against her ideals in the Selection when she became a part of it. At first, her plan was to stay at the palace (so she was away from Aspen), but as a few days went by, America realized that she missed her family and how her life was before the Selection took place. Maxon did not believe in letting people he loved slip away so easily. Furthermore, when America says that she does not think that her and Maxon are working out, Maxon decided to tell her how he truly felt. His words touched America so much that her final choice was to stay and enjoy her time with Prince Maxon. As you can see, this story’s lesson is not formed through the main character. It is created through multiple characters to make it