Freedom and Confinement Quotes in The Selection

America often feels hemmed in by her family, and this only gets worse once the Selection rolls around. Rightly or wrongly, her mother sees the Selection as a way for the family to escape poverty, and she's not giving America any choice in the matter.

While America is taking part in the Selection, she's completely under Prince Maxon's control. She can't even sneeze without him signing a permission slip. No matter the payoff, it's never fun to have your personal freedom so constrained.

Although Silvia tries to frame this as a safety precaution, it's hard to believe that there's not something deeper going on here. The entire Selection is built around these thirty-five women being under the thumb of the prince, after all, so it's counter-intuitive that they'd be allowed any degree of freedom.

America doesn't take very well to palace life. In part, this is due to the vast class differences between America and the royal family: she's so out of her comfort zone in the palace it's not even funny. Regardless of the reason, however, America quickly feels stifled by the constraining nature of the Selection as a whole.

In a surprising twist, Prince Maxon comes to America's rescue and allows her to get some air in the garden, despite it being against the rules. We did not see that coming.

It's bad enough that the minute-to-minute experience of being a part of the Selection is a bummer, but America must also reckon with the fact that her life will be forever changed after the competition concludes. No matter the outcome, America will lose some of her precious freedom.

America thinks that she has it rough, but being Selected is a dream compared to being an indentured servant at the palace. Anne, Mary, and Lucy have zero freedom, but, unlike America, they have no hope of ever gaining it. That must feel really constraining.

Maxon feels confined by the Selection, too, but in a much different way from the America feels. America feels constrained because she's out of her comfort zone and forced under the thumb of some princely nerd (or is it a nerdy prince?). For Maxon, however, the situation is emotionally constraining because an entire country is watching him date for the first time. We don't envy that.

As America grows closer to Maxon, the palace starts feeling less like a prison and more like a sanctuary. What a completely and utterly unrelated coincidence. Now, America still doesn't feel entirely comfortable in this bizarro place where crowns are considered casual wear, but it's a good start.

It's not until the back half of the novel that America fully understands how her feelings towards Aspen have been holding her back, preventing her from making herself vulnerable and taking a chance with Maxon. In other words, her feelings towards Aspen have, in her mind, kept her from being free.