Delirium Setting

Within the first few pages of the book we already know that it is set in the good ol USA. A quote from the book that shows that is, “Of course we aren’t totally free of deliria in the United States." Civilization is concentrated in those cities which escaped the severe bombings of decades past. Travel between cities is highly restricted. Electric fences separate the city from the Wilds—unregulated territory which was presumably mostly destroyed by bombs. It makes you think, what if our government said love was a disease? What if they prevented us from love? I wonder if the government would even be allowed to do that. I guess anything is possible. The US government in this book deprives its people from such an important emotion. They see only the pain love brings, they don’t see the happiness and wonderful things it brings. Any town or city could have been chosen for the setting in my opinion. No matter what city, there would be no love anywhere. (Thanks to the wonderful US government) But, it is set in Portland, Maine. No matter where you are in the US though, you can’t love, can’t choose who to marry and get told how many kids they can have. The government watches them like people watch a reality show. In the book, the US still celebrates some holidays. The government held the value of the fourth of July. A quote that proves this is, “the day of our independence, the day we commemorate the closing of our nation’s border" So there are some similarities with the world in this book and our world. Even though in that quote, the border closing really represents their total dependence for the cure of love. The US is totally cut off from the outside world. The people are not allowed access to the outside world. It's kind of like a communist country, but worse.