More handpicked essays just for you.
Collectivism vs individualism
Individualism vs community lord of the flies
Individualism vs collectivism in society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Collectivism vs individualism
Was it ok for Jonas to leave the community? He and the giver had an idea for him to leave the community and have everyone gain the memories. It was controversial because although there is good memories, there are also bad. When Jonas said to the giver “He killed him” he knew it was time to make a change to help the babies and old. These people in the community know almost nothing so this will be hard for them. This is a utopia because everyone one is the same and they do their best of making them the same. It was a bland place to live and he wanted everyone to see color like him. So this essay asks, was it the right choice for Jonas to leave the community. Jonas said yes and so did I, for 3 reasons, the community’s safety, Gabriel’s safety,
Do you think that by having twins, the one twin you don’t like gets killed? In The Giver Jonas’s Community has no freedom nor choice in anything they do. They think that by taking away all this freedom that they could have a perfect community newsflash, nothing's perfect. Do you think the Giver is a Utopia or Dystopia? In my opinion The Giver is a Dystopia because they don’t have color, they release kids for bad reasons, and why the Giver is a Dystopia not a Utopia.
At this point, Jonas has realized what release really means. He finds out that the little baby Gabe that has lived with his family is being released at the very next morning. And the large plan that has been made with The Giver, to get rid of sameness within his community can’t be carried out because he knows that he must save Gabe’s life. He starts to really understand what it means to truly live and truly love. He knows he loves Gabe and, therefore he must sacrifice himself in order that Gabe might live. So, he quietly leaves in the middle of the night, and takes Gabe with him and they leave the community. Jonas is running for their lives because he knows they’re being hunted down. He hopes that they will just give up and assume that maybe
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 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 gets freedom, the community is left without someone to take the memories from The Giver. This is an example of conformity because a few of the Receivers before Jonas had left the community due to the things they were learning and finding out about the community, which changed the way they viewed the society. They then realized that they do not want to do this for the rest of their life, and for their job to sit around and hold memories as no one else is capable of knowing them is not something they want to do. To conclude, Jonas’s action to run away from the society follows in the footsteps of the others, and if others follow Jonas, there may never be a Receiver for the Jonas’s
As Jonas receives these memories, he ponders how their community would be different if they could make more choices. For example, after the Giver transmits Jonas a memory of family, Jonas thinks how crazy it is that they have generations and he says about his community, “‘What if they were allowed to choose their own mate?’”...”’Or what if’”...”’they could choose their own jobs?’” (124). Jonas then thinks if people should make these choices, and things that could go wrong if they did. For instance, while he is thinking about how crazy these choices are, he says, “‘I can’t even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices’”(124). People in his Community don’t choose their own spouse, the Community leaders assign them a spouse and children if they want. Jonas’s Community is brain-washed into not having opinions or choices. Although they have no divorce and wrong choices, Jonas would rather have choices and a real
“But when the memory glimpses subsided, he was left with the gnawing, painful emptiness . . . The word was had been ‘starving.’ . . . Now he was. If he had stayed in the community he would not be. It was simple as that.” (172) Starvation was a real and eminent danger that Jonas should have considered before deciding. He also should have considered how he and Gabriel’s would survive the long journey to Elsewhere before leaving the community in the first place. “Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if only he had stayed.” (172 – 173) Jonas who did not take time to make a good and wise decision before leaving the community, now that he has the time to reflect upon his actions during the journey and he realizes that he had made the wrong choice. He now regrets his decision and wishes he had not chosen to leave the community because he was starving and there food was passed out throughout the community. Jonas clearly made a hasty choice and did not take factor in the possibility of starving when he decided to leave the
It states in chapter 13 that “my role is now to escape the community.” This relates to the topic the theme importance of memory because once jonas has the importance of memory Jonas knows the right decisions and choices to make. Such as running away from the Community to have freedom. Sure Jonas may have escaped due to the Giver telling him to but if he didn’t have the memeriors he needed it would have said no and stayed in the community because he would have classified it as breaking the rules.
Once Jonas begins his training with the Giver, however, the tendencies he showed in his earlier life—his sensitivity, his heightened perceptual powers, his kindness to and interest in people, his curiosity about new experiences, his honesty, and his high intelligence—make him extremely absorbed in the memories the Giver has to transmit. In turn, the memories, with their rich sensory and emotional experiences, enhance all of Jonas’s unusual qualities. Within a year of training, he becomes extremely sensitive to beauty, pleasure, and suffering, deeply loving toward his family and the Giver, and fiercely passionate about his new beliefs and feelings. Things about the community that used to be mildly perplexing or troubling are now intensely frustrating or depressing, and Jonas’s inherent concern for others and desire for justice makes him yearn to make changes in the community, both to awaken other people to the richness of life and to stop the casual cruelty that is practiced in the community. 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.
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.
But soon Jonas realizes the truth: You really cannot live a good life without pain; the pain makes the other things in life worth living for. Once the truth is uncovered by Jonas, he figures out even more secrets that ruin the image he has of the perfect community he lives in. Basically, he does not see it as the perfect place he grew up in, anymore. This ‘utopian’ community is definitely not utopian because no one here can precisely express themselves, the people have adapted to ‘sameness’, and they perform inhuman tasks, which all add up to a less-than-perfect society. To start off, the citizens in Jonas’s community are incapable of showing accurate feelings.
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
Jonas plans to change the community by escaping and releasing all of the memories to the community. Jonas thinks for himself he will accomplish escaping and giving himself a chance to go to elsewhere. Jonas hopes to accomplish change throughout the community by releasing the memories if he left so everyone could gain wisdom. In the book Giver says this a way to change the community. Jonas wanted to go to elsewhere and see snow as like he did in the memory. Giver also said the memories had to be shared so leaving would share the memories with the rest of the
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.”
Community Jonas lives could be described as a perfect society. The move starts in black and white, making everyone look the same, and confirming that differences were not allowed. There were no losers or winners and words like fear, pain, envy, and