The List

John Noa’s best chance at achieving his goal of a society that never destroys the planet again is to control all of the citizens of Ark. He can only accomplish this if he can control their thoughts. One way to do this is to exert control over how they are capable of thinking. His idea to limit language to an increasingly smaller List specifically limits people’s capacity for analytical and abstract thought, further, the decreasing vocabulary hinders communication, thus collaboration, almost non-existent. Worse, Noa convinces many people—including Letta, for much of the story—that this process is for their benefit. Letta thinks that it is worth sacrificing art if it will preserve Ark’s mission and ideals. Censorship primarily works as those who are controlled support their own controlled status.

Noa’s best chance at shaping people’s ability to think is to begin when they are children: “Most people could read a little but rarely saw the written word apart from the odd poster with information from John Noa” (19). Letta also observes that, “Children in Ark were taught the bare minimum when it came to reading. Enough to allow John Noa to communicate with them using the written word—but no more” (61). As can be seen throughout a variety of historical dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, children and their education play a very important role in stabilizing censorship and the control of whatever leader. Because children tend to be more open-minded than adults, Noa knows that limiting whose ideas they have access to will increase the likelihood that the growing generation will not question him as they get older. Letta compares this type of control to a monster puppeteer controlling the strings of marionettes who are scarcely aware that they are being manipulated. Or worse, who are grateful to have Noa making their choices for them.

Outside of List language, the most obvious form of censorship is Noa’s illegalization of art. Art brings beauty into life. It reminds people of their feelings, bonds them in a shared interest, and has an indescribable effect that moves people in ways that they find hard to describe outside of the vocabulary of, for instance, music. Labeling art as subversive eliminates the possibility of rebellious artists who might use their talents to raise questions, draw attention to values, or otherwise remind people of the vast diversity of the human experience. Hugo, the painter, receives a brutal punishment for displaying a beautiful painting of a forest scene. Leyla has to play her saxophone as an act of guerilla warfare, ready to flee at a moment’s notice so she won’t be captured.

Noa censors art and language through the legal system, but he is willing to go further—and has gone further—than most people know. The curbing of language via the List is disturbing and controlling but has not violated the physical bodies of his citizenry. Noa shows he is quite willing to use physical torture to achieve his desired result of a wordless people and to further keep people under his control as they work to avoid the fate of those tortured. He says, when discussing the plot with the Nicene, “There is no other way. I cut out their tongues. I instigated List. Nothing works, Letta. Language is what makes man ungovernable” (336). In other words, language makes censorship and control harder to maintain, which justifies his decision to impair everyone’s ability to communicate physically. Dictators remain in power through select uses of force that make other methods of control seem more tolerable.