Wells 1

Wells 1
Megan Wells
Mrs. Cramer
Comp Pd. 1
9 Feb. 2018
To Love or to Not
Love is a normal sensation that every high school student experiences. However, in
Lauren Oliver's books, Delirium, love is considered a deplorable disease that the people of
Portland, Maine need cured and protected from. The government of Portland has devised a
medical procedure to cure the disease, deliria, along with installing strict rules and guidelines for
citizens to follow in order to prevent from catching the disease. The main character, Lena
Haloway, is an anxious high school student waiting until she is eligible for the cure procedure. In
the meantime, she endeavors to avoid trouble, but she soon discovers the exhilarating sensations
of forbidden love with a boy, Alex. Lena's anxious personality gradually transformed into
perilous and risky with the ideas of undermining the government. Lauren Oliver wrote this love
electrifying book, Delirium, by including various love themes and complex characters.
First, love is a reoccurring theme in the book, Delirium. In consideration, this book is
engulfed with the topic of love, from the government banning it and deeming it a disease, to the
discovery of love between the main characters. Thus, Oliver did an astounding job at
incorporating love as a theme throughout the entire book. The first notable theme is people are
nothing without love. On page 230, Alex confesses to Lena that he fell in love at first sight of her
by describing to her his thoughts, "Everyone is asleep. They've been asleep for years. You
seemed... awake... I'm tired of sleeping" (Oliver 230). With Alex saying this to Lena, he was
trying to tell her how the government's cure made everyone as though they are a robot. Without
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the factor of love in people's lives, it made them seem as if they are nothing and had no purpose
to life. Alex fell in love with Lena because he saw that she had concealed love within her soul.
Secondly, another prominent love theme in Delirium is love is a force for happiness and
fulfillment. Oliver incorporated this theme by first showing the reader the development of Lena's
personality. At the beginning of the book, Lena is an anxious and tense person that sticks to the
rules and never does anything for herself. As soon as Lena discovered her sensation of love with
Alex, she has uncovered a whole new perspective of life. To take an inside view on Lena's
thoughts, the text states, " This is what I want. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. Everything
else- every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss-
has meant nothing." (Oliver 232) At this moment, Lena has truly felt the first sensation of love.
After understanding what love feels like, Lena now knows that she has been missing out her
entire life. The absence of love in Portland makes it seem like the people are unexpressive and
impassive. Now that love is present in Lena's life, her life now has purpose, importance, and
significance.
Along with the influence of theme, Delirium is composed of a fine knit web of complex
characters. When writing this book, Oliver constructed Delirium in such a way that she
developed the plot through her main character, Lena Haloway. At the beginning, Lena is an
anxious person that wants to avoid the subject of love at all costs. She's one to always follow the
rules, keeping her mind focused on receiving the cure. However, Lena's mind habitually wanders
to the thought of her lost mother, who had committed suicide. Oliver constructed the story in the
way that because Lena had lost her mother, she would imagine that she was still alive and had
escaped to the Wilds. Thus, giving her the desire to go see if she had been right (Oliver 232). As
the plot develops, Lena's personality develops with it. Oliver created Lena as a complex
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character by slowing progressing her personality from anxious, to daring as she begins to fall in
love (Oliver 273). While Lena becomes more complex, she begins to lie to her loved ones to
seek out love and adventure.
Moreover, Oliver created Lena as a complex character to develop the intention that Lena
would gradually change to go against what she has been taught all of her life. Growing up in
Portland was like growing up with a rule book that shaped how life is supposed to be lived
through every action. At a young age, children in Portland were taught that the government is
protecting people from the dangers of love and the 'Wilds'. For the longest time, Lena believed
that was true. However, the multiple different intricate aspects of Lena's personality allowed her
to form her own ideas of the government and life. Lena began developing her own ideas of how
Portland's government is abysmal when she got the first-hand experience of how the raiders
attacked and killed people at a party. From seeing heads getting destroyed by raider's clubs, to
hearing the desperate screams of people being attack, Lena ultimately realized that the
government is rendering more harm to the people than they are good (Oliver 214- 221). Lena
continues to develop as a person once she also finds out the truth about the blitz. The blitz was a
yearlong campaign that was when the government of Portland bombed the Wilds to get rid of
any Invalids or resisters pf the cure. As Lena first hand experienced this, she realized that the
government had killed innocent people and that the people should be going against the
government and not the Invalid. (Oliver 283-284) Through Lena's complex character, she begins
to mold her own opinion about the world as she develops.
In conclusion, the book Delirium is a thrilling love story. It's author, Lauren Oliver, was
able to successfully achieve such an interesting, event-filled book by the way in which she wrote
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it. By incorporating diverse love themes and complex characters, Lauren Oliver was successful
in creating a renowned bestseller that will truly capture the hearts of all its readers.
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Works Cited
Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. Harper, 2016.

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seek out love and adventure.

to mold her own opinion about the world as she develops.

Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. Harper, 2016.

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