A Deadly Education

Class and wealth inequality are significant contemporary issues in our world. Novik’s novel analogizes the “haves and have-nots” concept within the novel by constructing the enclave system and highlighting the struggles of those who exist outside of it. As the novel’s narrator, Galadriel is aware and critical of both the origins and the effects of the enclave system and the way it shapes the school’s social hierarchy and resource allocation. The difference in privilege manifests in three primary ways: security, service from others, and access to resources.

El explains the school originated as a way for the enclaves to educate and protect their children from the mals infesting the outside world. The school was built partially in the void to allow its architects to seal it off from mals. El explains, “The enclaves built the school because outside is worse […] As much as I roll my eyes at the placards everywhere, the design’s really effective. The school is only just barely connected to the actual world, in one single place: the graduation gates. Which are surrounded by layers on layers of magical wards and artifice barriers” (19). This was necessary because “Even enclave kids were getting eaten more often than not before the school was built, and if you’re an indie kid who doesn’t get into the Scholomance, these days your odds of making it to the far side of puberty are one in twenty.