Masterminds

The ironically named town of Serenity holds symbolic significance in the novel given the more sinister aspects of the town’s purpose. The town’s name evokes a sense of peace and calm, and the entire atmosphere of the place projects a model community in which nothing can go wrong. Serenity symbolically relates to the theme of Nature Versus Nurture because it was carefully designed to counterbalance the influence of the criminal masterminds whose DNA was replicated in the Osiris test subjects. Criminals are expected to exhibit certain tendencies, such as violence, bad temper, greed, and duplicity. While these characteristics exist in the human population in general, any reference to such traits has been carefully weeded out of Serenity’s environment. Outside newspapers featuring murder, theft, or other violence are censored. Even the mention of the American Revolution is excised from any reading material the children might see. Their television programs are designed to foster the three Essential Qualities of honesty, harmony, and contentment—specific traits assumed to be lacking in career criminals.

The downside of such a suppression of negative behavior in an entire community is a facade of human civilization. Malik is the first to note how boring Serenity is. Randy frequently echoes the same sentiment. Hammerstrom’s desire to exclude any disturbing element in his test community may represent a distortion of its own. In fact, not knowing what the real world is like places the Osiris subjects at a tremendous disadvantage when they first confront it. Eli says, “We’ve only been in this town a few minutes and already we’ve been caught, chased, and almost run over. Has our Serenity upbringing left us so clueless that we’re doomed to blunder from near miss to near miss?” (316). Clearly, in designing Serenity, Hammerstrom wasn’t thinking about the hazards of Utopia.