Delirium

“I don’t like to think that I’m still walking around with the disease running through my blood. Sometimes I swear I can feel it writhing in my veins like something spoiled, like sour milk. It makes me feel dirty. It reminds me of children throwing tantrums. It reminds me of resistance, of diseased girls dragging their nails on the pavement, tearing out their hair, their mouth dripping spit.”

In this quotation, it is clear that Lena has been indoctrinated to believe that love is not just a disease, but a deadly source of contamination that lurks within her and threatens her very existence until it can be eradicated by the government-approved “cure.” The depth of her conviction on this point demonstrates just how profoundly the government’s propaganda has influenced the populace as a whole, and it also creates the basis for just as profound a contrast when she eventually rejects this thinking and embraces the positive aspects of love as the story progresses.

“Sometimes I feel as though there are two me’s, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she’s supposed to nod and says what she’s supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams and says “Gray.” Most of the time they move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I’m two whole different people and I could rip apart at any second. Once I confessed this to Rachel. She just smiled and told me it would all be better after the procedure. After the procedure, she said, it would be all coasting, all glide, every day as easy as one, two, three.”

In this dystopian world, common existential concerns like these are made to seem abhorrent, unusual, and necessary to eradicate. Lena condemns her own natural feelings and doubts as being out of place and unusual: something that marks her as less than normal. Faced with the unanswered questions raised by the wordless yearnings within, she seeks help from those around her but receives only the unsatisfying answer that all such questions will cease to matter for her after the cure. These dual, competing sides of her personality set the stage for her eventual rebellion during the course of the novel.