Like many of Christopher's novels, The Guardians examines the nature of freedom and independent thought. A sobering and relatively realistic account of life in the near future, The Guardians is set in an England that has deliberately been divided into two mutually suspicious camps by a small group of "dedicated men who . . . act as guardians over the rest." Although The Guardians' professed aim is benevolent, the effect of their coercive policies is to deprive all peopleboth the teeming masses in the Conurb and the leisured gentry in the Countyof any real freedom of thought or action.