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Critical review of the giver
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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. The sincere awareness of colors is not only forgotten, but dismissed into mere memories, and consigned into oblivion. Jonas, after gaining the awareness of colors, comes to the conclusion of wanting the choices that he could make in his daily routine. “I want to decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?” (97). After The Giver asks Jonas why it is not fair that nothing has color, Jonas realizes that, for him, color is not just an nature. It also represents a level of individual freedom and choice that he has never known in his rigidly controlled society. This forces Jonas to face the disadvantages of living in such a community where self-expression is stifled. Jonas is talking about the sameness in the community and how he has to wear the same, old gray tunic. The Giver points out that choice is at the heart of the matter; when you can’t choose, it makes life very dull. “It’s the choosing that’s important” (98). Because the world in which Jonas has grown up has no color, the appearance of color in the story is important and meaningful. Color represents Jonas’s want for more individual expression. Colors brighten in a special way and Jonas, coming fro... ... middle of paper ... ...ee any differences, if there were any. The way the community is shaped, they may not want people to think less of themselves, or want an attribute from someone that they don’t have themselves. Instead of being an individual, a person with pale eyes, feels shameful of their difference. Jonas’ community chooses Sameness rather than valuing individual expression. Although the possibility of individual choice sometimes involves risk, it also exposes Jonas to a wide range of joyful experiences from which his community has been shut away. Sameness may not be the best thing in the community because Jonas expresses how much he feels like Sameness is not right and wants there to be more individuality. Giver leads him to understand both the advantages and the disadvantages of personal choice, and in the end, he considers the risks worth the benefits. “Memories are forever.”
On the surface, Jonas is like any other eleven-year-old boy living in his community. He seems more intelligent and perceptive than many of his peers, and he thinks more seriously than they do about life, worrying about his own future as well as his friend Asher’s. He enjoys learning and experiencing new things: he chooses to volunteer at a variety of different centers rather than focusing on one, because he enjoys the freedom of choice that volunteer hours provide. He also enjoys learning about and connecting with other people, and he craves more warmth and human contact than his society permits or encourages. The things that really set him apart from his peers—his unusual eyes, his ability to see things change in a way that he cannot explain—trouble him, but he does not let them bother him too much, since the community’s emphasis on politeness makes it easy for Jonas to conceal or ignore these little differences. Like any child in the community, Jonas is uncomfortable with the attention he receives when he is singled out as the new Receiver, preferring to blend in with his friends.
In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the author portrays a utopian society where important items such as emotions, customs, and diversity are lost and forgotten. Universal feelings such as love and hatred are eliminated from Jonas’s community. Jonas is the main protagonist in The Giver. Throughout his journey from a regular twelve year old to the most important citizen in his community, Jonas learns about many important themes, such as the important of love, sameness versus diversity, and the role of memories.
Even as a child Jonas was unusually perceptive, this is characterized through his pale eyes which appear deeper than the other children’s dark eyes. While he gets along well with his peers he still feels different. Jonas has a heightened sense of people and who they are, the reasoning for things, and curiosity of new things. He particularly enjoys the freedom to make his own choices as to where he will serve his volunteer hours. Jonas never volunteered at one place more than another, which made it hard for him to predict what job he will be assigned. He liked being able to experience all sorts of positions in the community. Jonas is set apart in many ways, one is particular is his ability to see beyond. The closer the ceremony of twelve gets, the more often he see sees flashes of items changing for a second, flashes of the beyond (Lowry 94).
This astonishing novel shows a perfect example of a dystopian society, with the community starting off as a “perfect” neighborhood, and ended up being the complete opposite. Jonas showed his inner self throughout the story with the help of the Giver, and these magnificent traits is curiosity, to know and to improve his inner strength. As well as being proud of himself when he had just been awarded the superb job of being the Giver of the community to escaping with Gabriel on a treacherous journey to the next community. Lastly, sympathy got in the way of Jonas at any precise moment of the day. Thus, Jonas had undergone many obstacles, he ended up being able to bring about his goals.
In the story, Jonas, the protagonist, is assigned to receive all the memories of the past. In the beginning of the story when Gabriel, a baby from the community, is put into Jonas’ family unit, his sister notices “‘he has funny eyes like yours, Jonas’ ... Almost every citizen in the community had dark eyes… No one mentioned those things… It was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals” (Lowry 13). This shows that the community that Jonas lives in strives very hard for “Sameness”. Later in the story, Jonas realizes that differences were “the sort of thing one didn’t ask a friend about because it might have fallen into that uncomfortable category of ‘being different.’ Asher took a pill each morning; Jonas did not. Always better, less rude, to talk about things that were the same.” (Lowry 38). This reveals to readers that the community that Jonas lives in considers it rude to call attention to differences and make someone feel separate. This story warns readers that we could end up in a world where everyone is identical if the government strives too hard for
The Giver presents a community that appears to be perfect on the surface. Jonas's community is free of warfare, pain, sorrow and other bitterness we suffer in our society. The world seems to be secure and undergoes little conflict. Such a community seems flawless and is the idealistic society that we longed to live in. However, through Jonas's training, the imperfections of the Utopian community are revealed.
society, everyone wears the same clothes, follows the same rules, and has a predetermined life. A community just like that lives inside of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and this lack of individuality shows throughout the whole book. This theme is demonstrated through the control of individual appearance, behavior, and ideas.
In the book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, a 12 year boy named Jonas, lives in a world where everything is the same. There is not any diversity in Jonas’ world, just sameness. Even though there is no pain or suffering, Jonas does not like his world. Jonas does not like this world of sameness because he wants to make choices, he wants to feel happy and be able to see colors, feel emotions, etc. Author Lois Lowry is warning her readers if the world is the same, there would be sameness, no diversity, people should value themselves. Too much conformity can lead to a dull society.
...t of change for the Community because of and how, through Jonas’s decisions, it could positively impact the Community’s way of life by letting the people exercise free choice in how they lived their lives. In the novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry implies that Civil Disobedience is sometimes necessary in order to improve the society’s way of life. This topics is seen all around the world today, people use civil disobedience every day when they stand up for what they believe in and we will continue to until the world is to their standards. The Giver once said “There’s nothing we can do. It’s always been this way. Before me, before you, before the ones who came before you. Back and back and back.” but Jonas proved him wrong. He showed him that there could be change even after all that time and I hope that maybe our world will have someone to prove all the cynics wrong too.
In the text, “‘Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished sunshine and did away with differences.’” After The Giver said that, Jonas started getting feisty and starting asking of questions about why we changed to sameness. There it shows that he is actually understanding the concept of how we changed so no one could be different and everything would be the same. He started to understand that everyone was different and everyone could chose their own lives and families. He started
It has been discussed how Jonas’s community do not represent a perfect or ideal society. One of the main reasons given that if a citizen in the community does not do what they elders tell them to do; they are going to be release, meaning kill them. Some of the other things mentioned are the types of things that they do not have freedom of choice. Jonas’s society was to believe to be the ideal of society having given the basics things for their survive, but at the end it reveals that the people in the community are not being told the truth about the things the elders do, or knew for examples the colors, feelings and all the things that were before sameness.
Jonas misses the way it was before he had memories where there was no pain or feeling, because everything was innocent. But he understands that although there was innocence nobody feels true happiness.Jonas thinks: “But he knew he couldn’t go back to that world of no feelings that he had lived in so long” (Lowry 131). Jonas wishes he could go back when everything was innocent and when he had no burden of pain, but although there was innocence the bad memories were stripped away to avoid the feeling of pain but also leaves everyone emotionless. But he knows it can never be the same again because of all the knowledge he gained from memories. He learns that memoires need to be valued, even the painful ones. Jonas feels that his community can change and things could be different. He thinks they should live in a world with memories. Jonas says: “Things could be different. I don’t know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colours [...] and everybody would have memories [...] There could be love” (Lowry 128). Jonas wishes that they could all have memories because everyone would be able to experience love. Love is one of the most important things in human life. He knows that there are bad memories, but without them, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the good ones. Eventually, with his feelings
The story in The Giver by Lois Lowry takes place in a community that is not normal. People cannot see color, it is an offense for somebody to touch others, and the community assigns people jobs and children. This unnamed community shown through Jonas’ eye, the main character in this novel, is a perfect society. There is no war, crime, and hunger. Most readers might take it for granted that the community in The Giver differs from the real society. However, there are several affinities between the society in present day and that in this fiction: estrangement of elderly people, suffering of surrogate mothers, and wanting of euthanasia.
Imagine living in world where there are no feelings, color, or pain, and everyone is the same besides you. Jonas realized he was living in a world without color, pain, or feelings. Without color, pain, and feeling Jonas wasn’t able to express true happiness, and he therefore left the community. “Lois Lowry’s childhood escapades inspired her books,”(Dellinger). Also Lois loved photography and it resulted in the cover of The Giver, which is a photo of a blind painter. This connects to the book because no one can see in color besides the giver and the receiver, which is Jonas. Lois Lowry uses the literary elements foreshadowing, symbolism, and imagery to express the theme that one cannot have happiness without pain, in the book The Giver.
The Giver is a dystopian book that should be a required reading in high school. It demonstrates that people are at times willing to make great sacrifices in order to have a sense of direction and normalcy which can lead to negative consequences depending on one’s viewpoint. In this case Jonas and the giver are the only living people in this society who are enlightened as to how their lives are dull, and realize pleasure and pain are worth fighting for.