The Other Side of the Isand; Dystopian Society

Throughout the novel, The Other Side of the Island, a girl named, Honor, comes to realize the truth about her seemingly utopian society that consists of rules, order and supposed perfection. The community was created by the collaboration of Earth Mother and the Corporation, after the Flood. There is now New Weather and the world is apparently safe and secure. As a citizen, Honor feels obligated to follow the rules, but eventually comes to realize that the rules are not everything. She works with her friend Helix to find their parents that have disappeared, they evidently find them and their parents explain everything. As a result of this, Honor starts rebelling against the Corporation. She finds that her society is in fact, a dystopian society with government control, environmental issues and an unfair distribution of resources.

The seven Councillors of Earth Mother have Watchers, watching your every move and orderlies to perform tasks. The Watchers will kill anything thing that is out of line. "Without the Watcher neighborhood felt wild and lost." (54). Although the population fears them they make them feel safe. The orderlies are in a similar position. The children are told not to interact with them and to avoid them. However, at the end of the book, we find out that the orderlies are actually the parents that have disappeared. The Corporation removes their memories and alter their vision. "Pamela cried out in pain. . . Her eyes were no longer fixed and motionless." (257) It seems that they lose their freewill, they ignore small amounts of pain and are solely focused on the task at hand. All this is done by the Corporation, the only seven people that have any freewill.

Honor lives in a time after all of the polar ice caps melted, after floods covered most of the land, widespread war breaks out, and the survivors begin putting society back together. The infamous Earth Mother is some form of savior in the eyes of the community, they worship her, pray to her and they even have a picture of her in their houses. Earth Mother is the publics protector, because during the time of all the natural disasters, she rose up and created The Enclosure. A protective barrier that makes New Weather, a mostly perfect barricade from the original weather. A part of children's education is to recite history paragraphs. "The Northern Lands were uninhabitable because of ice and snow. The Southern Lands were desert. . . The tides rose. . . Houses, businesses and streets filled with mud." (92). Although most of the time the weather is perfect, there are some rare occasions that the Enclosure has a malfunction