She believes with all of her heart that the government’s enactment of the cure is to keep everyone safe. Lena wants the cure because she desires to feel peace and live her life in neat, predictable routine.

She follows rules, trusts in the procedure, and faithfully reads the Safety, Health and Happiness Handbook (Book of Shhh) which acts at a Bible for all citizens. As a result of these losses, Magdalena, or Lena, has deep feelings of anxiety that seem to dictate all the decisions in her life. She is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her procedure because, as the story reveals, she has experienced a tremendous amount of loss in her life. The cure or, procedure, as Oliver alternately calls it, is given at the age of 18 and required for all citizens.Īt the beginning of the story, Oliver introduces us to Magdalena Ella Holoway Tiddle, who is the heroine of our story.

They call the disorder, Amor Deliria Nervosa, or the deliria for short. Travel between cities is restricted and electric fences surround the boarders in an effort to keep everyone safe.Ī group of scientists, called the Consortium, have proven that love is a type of mental disorder that affects the part of the brain that allows humans to make rational decisions. Four World Wars have come and gone and cities throughout the United States have put up boarders to protect their citizens. In the novel, Oliver creates a society that has concluded that love is the reason for all that is wrong with the world. This is the world that the Lauren Oliver’s Delirium is centered around. To them, it is a disease that infects the brain and eventually leads to lunacy. Now imagine a society that has deemed love illegal. Whether it is romantic, family ties or even loyalty, we all long to experience it. Our core aches with longing to understand the meaning of true love and the passion it brings. In the deepest part of our souls, we crave love. Works of epic literature have been woven together to demonstrate the lengths mankind will go to taste its fruit.

Great and terrible wars have raged on in honor of it, taking no heed of the casualties claimed in its wake. Love is the very foundation on which humanity stands. When the letters are pieced together, it creates a word that holds the meaning of the deepest emotion known to man. The four most powerful letters in all the world.

Delirium oliver