The Selection takes place in a dystopian version of the United States set in the future, sometime after the Fourth World War. Years of war and poverty have halted the progress of the once-progressive country, and the country of Illéa has established an unsteady system that enforces purity culture and strict gender roles. Cass uses America’s experiences to demonstrate how an oppressive governing body like Illéa will attempt to claim ownership over the bodies and lives of its citizens.

In the first chapter, America notes that the rebels in Illéa orchestrated a jailbreak and “released a teenage girl who’d managed to get herself pregnant” (3). In the first pages of The Selection, Cass makes the Illéan government’s stance on premarital sex and pregnancy clear: These things are not just frowned upon, but they are considered criminal acts that result in jail time. America explains that “[t]he law, Illéan law, [is] that [they] [are] to wait until marriage” to engage in sexual activity (65). America claims that these laws are meant to protect the citizens and the castes, and extramarital pregnancies are met with shame and punishment. Not only are unwed pregnant mothers jailed for their indiscretion, but the children of these affairs are punished as well, and “[i]llegitimates [are] thrown into the street to become Eights” (65).