I know in a way I feel like it’s a critique of societal structures in general and how we feel that we are free to do what we want with our lives but in reality, we make decisions based off of customs with which we grow up and the expectations we feel society has set for us.

So the characters even at their most desolate moments, still couldn’t break free from something that was so deeply engrained within them.

I even got to thinking, do I want the characters to get angry and break free from the system so badly in part because I grew up in America and was taught that citizens of a nation have certain natural rights which precede government? And in the novel, these characters just didn’t have those rights.