Gender roles
It becomes clear from the first chapter of the novel that the society in which Kira lives has a set hierarchy regarding the roles women and men can have. While men can occupy more positions than women, the females have no other choice but to work in the fields, weave and have children. The society is run entirely by men who live in the Edifice and no woman is allowed to occupy a position that gives her any power. Women are also not allowed to learn how to read and write because they are not considered intelligent enough. The village assigns roles considered appropriate to men and women and the women are constantly reminded that they have no rights in comparison with men. They also have less freedom to do what they want since they are expected to do certain things to be considered useful. In this sense, the village is very sexist and misogynistic but men do not have an easy life either. They are expected to risk their lives constantly and to do it without showing any fear and without hesitating to do it. The only field where girls and boys are equal is when it comes to arts and creative crafts. Thomas’s work and Kira’s work are seen as being equally important, something that would not have happened if the two were normal villagers.
Society
Another major theme focuses on how society works and how it tries to control the artistic process to make it work in their favor. The figures of authority in the novel are the Elders who live in the Edifice. They dictate what is acceptable and what is not, what is right or wrong and who deserves to die and who deserves to live. The Elders seem to have complete power over the population of the village and it is hinted that they don’t hesitate to kill if it is in their best interest. The society described is extremely dysfunctional and affection and love are almost inexistent. Family relations were also affected as a result and family became defined as parents and children and other distant relatives were completely ignored. What resulted from this was a society that did not know how to show any type of compassion and treated its members as animals. What the novel thus proved is that if the governing class influences society and the community they govern over immensely and that if they are not careful, they can do more damage than good.
The power of art
The children who have artistic abilities are treated differently from the ones who are ordinary. Those children are taken away from their families and put to live in the Edifice where they are trained to become better in their field. The children who manifest some type of artistic abilities are all treated the same, no matter if they are boys or girls and the artistic field represents the only place where boys and girls can be treated the same. But the author stresses the idea that artistic-gifted people can be a danger for the governing class because they have the means to touch the hearts of the people. As a result, the government will always try to control the artistic process in one way or another and to use the gifted children and adults to their advantage, making them work for the governing class, creating propaganda for them and promoting the ideas the government wants to.
