Jonas, the protagonist in Lois Lowry’s The Giver experiences a rite of passage in which he overcomes isolation, changes and finally, renewal. When Jonas is selected for the job Receiver of memory, in his community of sameness, he feels isolated from all of his friends. As he learns about memories from the past, he overcomes many changes that confuse and frustrate him. When he experiences his renewal, he comes out, different, not the same little, innocent boy he used to be. Jonas experiences a rite of passage through isolation, change and renewal.
During Jonas’s Rite of Passage, he experiences isolation. First, Jonas is selected for a job no one else has. All of his peers are called onto the stage, everyone except Jonas. Jonas’s number is skipped and it is not until everyone has been selected, the chief elder tells him he was selected and not assigned. With everyone in his communities’ eyes on him, Jonas waits with baited breath, he feels different, he feels isolated. Jonas gets worried and nervous. He also feels different from his peers.
Next, when Jonas receives his job description. A thin leaflet in his small folder states everything clearly, yet confusion arises as Jonas carefully reads what he can and cannot do. With a feeling of horror, he reads that he cannot tell anyone about his job, and he can lie. While all of his friends are talking about their first day of training, Jonas must sit to the side keep his mouth shut. Also, In a society where lying has always been forbidden, Jonas feels different, isolated.
Last, when Jonas receives a harsh memory and cannot tell his friends why he is upset. Jonas memory is war. Cannons cracking in the distance, death, pain, and suffering. Blood drenching the ground, the croaking of sold...
... middle of paper ...
...ries will cause the community great confusion and fear, yet with the help of the Giver, they will not be emotionless anymore.
Before his about to leave, Jonas’s father tells him that baby Gabriel will be released since he cannot sleep through the night. Jonas had began to love Gabriel and decides that Gabriel must live. With baby Gabriel on his back, Jonas rides out of his community on his father’s bike. He releases his memories to the community, now they have the burden. He feels relieved when he hears music, this shows that the people have the memories. The memories had scarred Jonas’s mind, when his memories were released, Jonas feels a feeling of relief, now he share his memories with his community. Jonas lost his innocence through his rite of passage by way of harsh memories and realizations. Once he escapes, Jonas is relieved, but his mind is changed forever.
Memories can help you understand your past so you don’t make the same mistake in the future. On page 119 it said “One of jonas arms is immobilized in pain and he see through his shirt through his own his torn shirt sleeve something that looked like ragged flesh and splintering bone.”This is a memory
In the end, Jonas, with the help of The Giver, escapes from the community with an infant new-child at risk of being killed (released) and seeks out a life full of feeling and love. While he does get away, we don't know exactly w...
You know everything about the past and the present from your life, but the citizens of Jonas’ community don’t. Everything is hidden from them, except for Jonas and The Giver, who have all
Jonas decides to leave and change the lives of his people so that they can experience the truth. “The Giver rubbed Jonas’s hunched shoulders… We’ll make a plan” (155). Their plan involves leaving sameness and heading to Elsewhere, where Jonas knows the memories can be released to the people. He has a connection with Gabe, a special child who has experienced the memories, unlike the rest of the community. Jonas has a strong love for Gabe, and he longs to give him a better life. “We’re almost there, Gabriel” (178). Even with a sprained ankle, Jonas keeps pushing forward because he wants everyone to experience what The Giver has given him. He wants them to have a life where the truth is exposed. His determination allows him to make a change for a greater future in his community. This proves that Jonas has the strength to change his community for the
When he lies for the first time, Jonas does it to defend love. Jonas realizes that no one in the Community can be truly happy when they are ignorant to love. The dialogue between characters is very important to the development of the plot, but Lowry additionally uses Jonas’
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.
Jonas is also very determined, committing to a task fully when he believes in it and willing to risk his own life for the sake of the people he loves. Although as a result of his training Jonas possesses more wisdom than almost anyone else in his community, he is still very young and knows little about life in the community itself.
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).
When he becomes 12, he goes through a huge ceremony and all the elders assign them their jobs. In this community, there is no lying, stealing, racism, pain, sunlight, or color. Jonas was chosen to be The Receiver, and he didn’t know what to do because this job was such a big deal. Jonas then goes through training with the current Receiver, who is now The Giver. Training consists of The Giver passing down the memories from when the community was not what it is today.
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
In this part of the story, Jonas is getting ready for the Ceremony of 12’s and his friends were talking and teasing about not fitting in but not for Jonas. “It didn’t worry him. How could someone not fit in?
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.”
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
So Jonas, being a teenager, naturally rebellious and thinking he knows best; decides to share all his memories with his society. All the memories, good and bad. Like in our modern day society teenagers also are rebellious and think they know what’s best for everyone. So Jonas decided to leave into elsewhere. By doing that it would automatically send all the memories of grief, love, and war. Sometimes it’s good when teenagers do what they think is right but sometimes it can have consequences.