"The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared." (Lowry 154) The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a boy named Jonas who lives in a perfect society, but his life changes once he is assigned the job of Receiver of Memories. As Jonas and The Giver continue to protect their society from the outside world and memories, they make a plan to try and return their perfect world to a more loving one, but it also becomes a more dangerous place because of the memories that were released. In this novel, Jonas realizes that memories are a necessary part of everyone's life even if they are painful, because they can help you learn from your mistakes and can cause true happiness. The importance of memory is shown throughout the novel and explains how it can give you wisdom for your future. The Giver and Jonas are the only people in the entire society who can experience memory, and have emotions towards those memories. "Without wisdom I could not fulfill my function of advising the Committee of Elders when they call upon me." (111) This is important because …show more content…
Shortly after Jonas was assigned to Receiver of Memory, he experienced a good memory from The Giver and it was new to him because he had never experienced anything like it. "Jonas felt the joy of it as soon as the memory began." (122) This is important, because it shows the impact one memory can have on someone, and there are also bad memories, but one good memory impacted Jonas' life because it changed the way he looks at the world. Think about how much that could change their society for the better. This is important, because if everyone in the society experienced a good memory from The Giver or Jonas, than they could have hope, and would know the true feeling of happiness. Memory is important for people to know what happiness feels like and it can affect their life in a positive
Jonas, the protagonist, is assigned the job of holding memories for the community. This is so that not everyone has to experience sad or painful memories. The Giver's job is to transmit these memories to Jonas and, in doing so, reveals the wonders of love, and family, and pain, and sorrow to this young boy. Jonas begins to resent the rules of sameness and wants to share these joys with his community. After receiving his first memory, Jonas says, "I wish we had those things, still." (p. 84)
A common theme that’s developed in The Giver, by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is that people need their rights and freedoms. In both texts the citizens have no power nor rights. In The Giver, if people make honest mistakes they are released, a nicer term for being killed, not to mention they have no trail, and this is only one right the citizens don’t have. The receiver of memory is the only person in the community that sees what is wrong, because they have the memories of the past. One receiver, Rosemary, kills herself so the memories would go to the citizens, and influence them to rebel. Although she failed because she did not have enough memories to give the people, she influenced the next receiver, Jonas, to give
What are memories to you? In the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry. There is a boy his name is Jonas. He is the Receiver of Memories. Jonas experiences the memories over the course of the book. Memories help us understand there are consequences to your actions. Although some readers may believe that memories are not important. The memories Jonas had helped him with the journey at the end of the book.
The Community keeps the memories away from the people, which means that they ignore their past, and cannot gain wisdom or bliss. For example, when the Giver was explaining what memories are to Jonas, he says, “There’s much more… I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future,”(Lowry 78). The Giver describes how wisdom comes in this quote.
The term The Giver refers to the old man, the former receiver who transfers all his memories to Jonas. The names giver and receiver remind us that memories are meant to be shared, the function of the old man is not holding memories but passing them from one person to another. That is why the title is not memory keepers' .The old man becomes the giver as Jonas becomes the receiver. Jonas also becomes the giver when he transfers his memories to Gabriel. But more interestingly, Jonas becomes the giver when he gives his memories to Gabriel (Booker10).
He starts to believe that a world of sameness where no one can decide or make choices for themselves is boring. Lois Lowry is warning readers that living in a world of sameness is not something to create as it is boring and dull, but if the world follows conformity and does not value diversity and difference enough, society could become that of Jonas’s. When he turns twelve, his job for the rest of his life is decided as the Receiver. His job is to receive all the memories the previous Receiver has held on to. While this is beneficial for Jonas as he is able to leave the society and his job of the Receiver behind and get freedom, the community is left without someone to take the memories from The Giver.
In an early discussion with the Giver, Jonas concludes that "`We really have to protect people from wrong choices... [It's] much safer'" (99). However, it is with the progression of his training as Receiver of Memories that Jonas learns the impact of the sacrifices his community makes. After receiving a memory of a family celebrating together, Jonas speculates with the Giver about the emotional potential of the situation. He contemplates "`The family in the memory seemed... complete...
Jonas, the main character in The Giver by Lois Lowry, is a very strong person, which allows him to go farther in life then the people that surround him. Throughout Jonas's life he has known nothing but "sameness". He lives in a Utopian community where there are no choices and everyone in his world has their lives laid out for them. But, Jonas is given the job of "Receiver of Memory". He alone knows the truths of the world, a world with colors, pain, and choices. What he does with these truths will bring obstacles to his life that will show the readers not only his strengths but his weaknesses as well.
Jonas is the protagonist in The Giver. He changes from being a typical twelve-year-old boy to being a boy with the knowledge and wisdom of generations past. He has emotions that he has no idea how to handle. At first he wants to share his changes with his family by transmitting memories to them, but he soon realizes this will not work. After he feels pain and love, Jonas decides that the whole community needs to understand these memories. Therefore Jonas leaves the community and his memories behind for them to deal with. He hopes to change the society so that they may feel love and happiness, and also see color. Jonas knows that memories are hard to deal with but without memories there is no pain and with no pain, there is no true happiness.
We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others” (97). In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, no one has seen a rainbow after a storm, no one knew what colors were; what choosing was; what it meant to be an individual. Everyone lived in complete Sameness, and never learned what it meant to be an individual. By eliminating as much self expression as possible in Sameness and society, Jonas's community has rejected the individuality of a society where people are free to move society forward. In The Giver individuality is represented by colors, memories, and pale eyes.
Jonas hates how his society decides to keep memories a secret from everyone. Jonas says: “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared” (Lowry 154). Jonas feels that memories, whether it be good or bad, should be shared with everyone. Furthermore, memories allow the community to gain wisdom from remembering experiences of the past. As for The Giver, The Giver disagrees with how the community runs things. He believes that memories should be experienced by everyone as well, because life is meaningless without memories. The Giver says: “There are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable–so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen [...] It’s just that… without memories, it’s all meaningless. They gave that burden to me” (Lowry 103). The Giver is burdened with the responsibility to not share memories even though that is what he feels the community deserves. In addition, he believes the community lives a very monotonous life where nothing ever changes. Everything is meaningless without memories because the community does not know what it is like to be human without feelings. Overall, Jonas and The Giver’s outlooks on their “utopian” society change as they realize that without
In Chapter 8, when Jonas was announced he would be the “Receiver of Memory” many people said he could not handle it. Later on in the book, Jonas is given many painful, excruciating memories of warfare, blood, loneliness, and death, but on many occasions the giver does not have the ability to transmit memories because the pain of the past overcomes him and he is put in deep despair. Another reason being the new receiver could be a punishment is because he could be lonely, although he can apply to have a family he would not be able to share the pain. Eventually, Jonas leaves the community for good because he feels that “The Receiver” should not keep the secrets from his community and he wants to give them
Jonas has always been an inquisitive and curious person, even more so when he obtains the role of Receiver of Memory. One example of this important trait occurs after the Ceremony of Twelve. Jonas was still confused about his role, but he was anxious to learn about the incident involving the previous girl who was supposed to take the position of the
So the Giver and Jonas decide that he must leave to go elsewhere, so that everyone in the community can regain their memory. The author of this book, Lois Lowry, wrote this book about memory after seeing her father lose his which made her inspired to write and to imagine what it would be like if we could control people’s minds. Lowry just happens to hate books with messages and says she never intends for her books to have a message, but I believe this story relays many different meanings and messages but I only attained a few. A message I receive from this story is that it is better for one not to be shielded from experiences and feelings that could possibly make one stronger. I believe the Giver and Jonas wanted to release the memories not to punish the community, but to let them experience what life truly is for themselves so that their society could fully prosper. Which I think life is having those happy and sad memories and moments but in the end they make you and the people around you. Another message I gather from this novel is that sameness is not always the way to go and that you should be your own
But the Giver argues and asks “Do you know what is means to love someone? Possibility of love? With it comes hope, faith and a beautiful feeling. “ But the commander says that people are weak, selfish and when people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong. Giver believes that in this community “people are living the life of shadows, of faint, distant whispers of what once made us real.” People are living in the shadow, because their right to choose is taken away. The movie does not show what happens after Jonas crosses the boundary of memory, but we can hope that after everyone got memories back they found the real