How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"The gym is always open, except when it's closed." (11.42)
The students at the Institute, once they've been fully indoctrinated, have no problem whatsoever with these kinds of statements. It's a kind of doublespeak that defies logic (something can't be both always open and sometimes closed), but none of the students—not even Martina Crowe, who seems pretty intelligent—have a problem with it. They just accept both parts of the statement without question, much like the sheep in Animal Farm.
Quote #5
"You can wear whatever you want, just so long as you have on trousers, shoes, and a shirt. You can bathe as often as you like or not at all, provided you're clean every day in class. You can eat whatever and whenever you want, so long as it's during meal hours in the cafeteria. You're allowed to keep the lights on in your rooms as late as you wish until ten o'clock each night. And you can go wherever you want around the Institute, so long as you keep to the paths and the yellow-tiled corridors." (11.70)
The rules of the Institute give the students a lot of false freedoms. They can wear what they want, stay up as late as they want, and go wherever they want… except that they can't. Each of these statements is immediately followed by specific instructions that actually limit freedom.
It's like asking your dad if you can have chocolate cake for dinner and having him answer, "You can have whatever you want for dinner… as long as you choose from the food I've put on the table." And you know as well as we do: there's not gonna be any chocolate cake.
Quote #6
"I'm sick of studying. […] It makes no sense! 'You must work longer hours to have more time to relax'? 'You must have war to have peace'? How are these 'logical conclusions'? Please tell me!" (15.5)
Whoa—did someone say 1984? Yep—we did, back in the summary of Chapter 15. And we're saying it again because these slogans remind us so much of the slogans in Orwell's famous novel. But they also remind us of something else. Do they sound familiar to you at all? Have you ever been told that you need to study hard now so that you can get into a good college so that you can get a good job so that you can be successful and have the money you need to do the things you want to do?
It kind of goes along with the first logical conclusion Kate mentions in the quote above: you have to work more to have more free time. Don't get us wrong: we're not saying you shouldn't study hard now. You should always work hard and do your best. That's a given. What we are saying is that sometimes—both as kids and as adults—we find ourselves on this weird sort of treadmill that has us running non-stop in order to rest, and it really doesn't make sense. Does it?