From the wise words of Oscar Wild, "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing" (Wild). Government, in a since, is humanity's way of trying to form a governing body in which the people think they will lead to a perfect society. In many ways, it is almost impossible to create a perfect, Utopian society because in the path to perfection, the society will turn upon itself and turn into a more dystopian society. When the government attempts to even out society so that everyone is equal, it will almost always unintentionally force totalitarianistic ideas on the people. In the novel, The Giver, by Lewis Lowry, Lowery attempts to establish the idea of a Utopia through the story of a place that attempts to establish equality of all through "Sameness." In this plan, any emotional aspect was removed the memory of all people so that everyone would become equal. In a similar novel, Matched, by Allyson Braithwaite Condie, the society of people are raised up the same way then "matched" with another person to marry based on a government prediction. This was done so that there would not be any unfair advantages such as marrying into money or marrying someone with a job that would provide an income much larger than needed to survive and live a normal life. When comparing and contrasting the motives and outcomes of the society's, the novels attempted to create Utopian Society's, but as a result, both stories ended in a catabolizing ending because the idea of perfection is not obtainable by the abilities of a human race.

In the novel, The Giver, by Lewis Lowery, an attempt to establish equality amongst the people is achieved by making every person the same. This goal was achieved by taking the emotional depth from the lives of the people living in the society. The people did not feel any emotion beyond what was necessary to live. This included the ability to hear music, to see color, to have memory of heritage, to feel deep emotion such as anger or love, and the ability to be intellectually different from another person. The people of the society had no concept of the climate the were in such as the weather, the terrain, the geological location. If the people of the society wished to know this information, they would have to seek it out from the Giver, the holder of all memory for the society. The people had all of these above feelings, thoughts, emotions, and concepts taken from them because the governing body of the society thought that they would cause inequality among the people. If a person could hear music, then they could become intellectually proficient because they may benefit by learning to play an instrument. A person would not be able to experience deep emotion because it may enhance or hinder their quality to hold a stable job. For some time, this worked for the society, but in time, being the Giver of the society holds great burden, and once the people of the community were given the opportunity to experience what they were missing, they of course turned on the government. The society fell apart and what once was an idea of a perfect world had turned into a world with fear, anger, hatred, murder, and many other things that the government had attempted to remove. The people of the society could not bear the unpleasant things in the war, and it ultimately made them turn upon the government that they once trusted.

In Allyson Braithwaite Condie's novel, Matched, the novelist tells the story of a very tight run society where every person will have a strict timeline to their life. A child will be matched at age 17, married at 21, and every person in the society will die at age 80. In this novel, the main character is to be matched at the age of 17. She could have been put with a stranger she had never met, but instead she got matched to a childhood friend of hers. At the matching ceremony an error occurs and she receives two matches. The government does not mess up, it never messes up, and this one mistake brought light to the flaws of the Utopian society that the main character, Cassia, lived in. This one flaw causes many other errors in the government to unfold as the novel continues. The main character soon realized that the society killed the sick. If a child was born diseased or an old person developed cancer they were killed. No person was able to live past the age of 80 because the society believed that this would caused them to develop unnecessary disease.  What was once a Utopian society that is now a society that kills off the sick, kills its old, forces the intellectually dumb to be banished, and much more. An impurity of the society was banished, and in the end of the novel, the society has completely fallen apart because the people never knew about the terrible imperfections that existed amongst them.

When comparing the two novels, one can see that each government tried to achieve the idea of perfection in it's own way. The giver attempted this through a "sameness" driven society, and the novel Matched tried to achieve Utopia by taking out the impurities of disease and intellectual differences. For some time, these strategies worked and the cities thrived. Both societies had strong governing bodies, and happy citizens. Every person had a job at witch they achieved. In both novels, each person was able to establish a great family connection. They could have children, and those children would grow up to have great jobs and families in the future. They did not have to worry about having a kid excel more them in school because they could play an instrument or because they could play a sport better. An individual living in the society did not have to worry about being poor, or coming down with disease. Sickness was not an issue. 

When contrasting these two novels. A person could look more specifically at how the Utopian society was achieved. In Matched, the government had more control over its people. The government not only chose the jobs of the people like in The Giver, but it also picked the people that they claimed would be the best matches for a person. In the Giver, the government mostly controlled the jobs of the people but they were still free to chose the people that they wanted to marry. The largest downfall to the the society in the Giver was by putting the burden of all the impurities of the society on one person. The giver was the person that had to hold all the bad qualities of the government where as in matched, all the "impurities" of the government were eradicated by killing off who the government thought were imperfect.

In a perfect world, both of these ideas of achieving Utopian societies would be a great idea for a society except no world can be ever be this perfect. When a governing body attempts to make a society the same, the not only take away all the creative freedoms of its people but it will also take away the impurities that drive our current society to become better. Without disease, the human race would not have been able to evolve through medical innovations. Without smart minds, society would not have had Albert Einstein to develop the light bulb. A society needs to have diversity so that people can be rewarded for what they achieve in life so that they have the incentive to do better and be better. A government can not simply eliminate the bad things in the world, because without war, or making grave mistakes, a person or society can not learn from their mistakes and get better. For both of these novels, Utopia was fine in the beginning, but over time the impurities will start to show and the people will become unhappy and retaliate. The once happy government will eventually turn upon itself and cause the society to wrap itself apart over the horrible impurities that the government worked so hard to remove in the beginning.

