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The giver memories essay
The importance of freedom of speech
The importance of freedom of speech
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In The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s community only has a generation of memory. They only have their lifetimes or less to remember what happened. People in this modern society would be better with memory. There are many reasons why memory is so key for a civilization. If this world’s memory of all history was lost then there would be a lot of confusion about rules because there would be no Constitution, also people would be making the same mistakes over and over again because there would be no history to remind the humanity of those mistakes, and there would also be nothing that would hold this country together such as holidays and American traditions. First of all, in Jonas’s community they have very strict rules of what people are allowed to do. In America there is freedom of many things, but also rules that people have to follow in order for a commonwealth to run smoothly. Jonas’s community has rules, but they have no freedom, and they are always being watched. In the modern America there is freedom of speech and everyone has their own …show more content…
Think about it. There would be no Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and even Fourth of July! Also in The Giver there are not any holidays. In their society, they want everyone to do and believe in the same things. See, not everyone in this world celebrates Christmas. This is because in America everyone has the freedom of belief. No matter their race, gender, or religion. The only thing in Jonas’s community that they look forward to is there age ceremonies, but in this modern world we have birthdays. The day of each year where people honor the day they were born. That is more fun than having a persons name called up on stage and having the audience clap for them. They do not even get presents or a cake. Birthdays are celebrated for an individual and not for everyone on the same day. It would also be absurd if everyone had the same birthday, on the same day, every
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.
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)
Certain rules can be broken and it isn’t that big of a deal, but in Jonas’ community you can get severely punished. Once you have three transgressions you get released, which means killed. Jonas’ father breaks a rule by looking at the Naming sheet. “His name-- if he makes it to the Naming without being released, of course is to be Gabriel”(12). However, Jonas’ father did not get punished for breaking this rule. His wife, Jonas’ mother, works in the justice department where her job is to punish people for breaking laws. It is unfair that certain people are severely punished for breaking minor rules and other people are not. If it was a utopian society the punishments would be the same for everyone.
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
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.
Jonas and the giver are the only ones allowed in the community to experience these memories; “I received all of those, when I was selected. ”(Lowry 78). All other citizens are hidden from them because they reveal the dark side of reality. By hiding them from their own mistakes, the community successfully creates the illusion of a perfect utopia. Legend’s illusion of a utopia is more dehumanizing because they tricked citizens into fighting for the right to be controlled.
“Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given.” said David Levithan. In her dystopian novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry is able to convey the same idea as this quote. In this book, people created the Community in which the members are in a supposedly safe and happy environment. The Elders choose Jonas, the main character, to be the next Receiver of Memory and his training helps him to experience the past and see the deep flaws in the Community.
Memory is everything to the human society. We communicate and build relationships off of our memories through the stories we tell. We are natural story tellers and have been telling stories since the beginning of time. More than half of the human race lives their lives based off of stories told by others such as culture, religion, and our general history. Have you ever asked yourself how real are these stories? Not saying that they are false, but it has been recently revealed that memory is false. So if memories are false then that would mean the stories that are being told are false. You probably looking at me as if I’m crazy but if you pay attention you will understand by the end of this essay. “It has been proven
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.
Set in a community with no climate, emotions, choices, or memories Lois Lowry tells the tale of Jonas in The Giver. Jonas is selected to be the receiver of memory, which means the memories of generations past, before the community was created, will all be transferred to him to hold. As Jonas receives memories his concept of the world around him drastically changes. Jonas starts out as twelve-year-old boy with perceptions different from those around him, he then begins to see the community for what it really is, and he makes a plan to change it.
The first issue that needs to be addressed however is what exactly is memory? “ Without memory we would be servants of the moment, with nothing but our innate reflexes to help us deal with the world. There would be no language, no art, no science, no culture. Civilization itself is the distillation of human memory” (Blakemore 1988). The simple interpretation of Blakemore’s theory on what memory is that a person’s memory is at least one of the most important things in their life and without it civilization itself could not exist.
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.
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
Nobody in the community knows what feelings or real, deep emotion is. They can’t live with music or color. They live in a bland community where everybody wears the same things. They live in a world of different shades of grey. They don’t have seasons, what would life be like without summer? Summers without sun wouldn’t be a problem in their community either because they have no weather. “‘What did you perceive?’ The Giver asked. ‘warmth’, Jonas replied, ‘and happiness’. ‘And--- let me think. Family. And something else--- I can’t quite get the word for it’. ‘It will come to you’. ‘Who were the old people? Why were they there?’ It had puzzled Jonas, seeing them in the room. The Old of the community did not ever leave there special place, the House of the Old, where they were so well cared for and respected. ‘They were called Grandparent.’ ‘Grand parents’” (123)? In this quote about Christmas Jonas learns more about family and being together, joyful. It’s sad that the community does not have anything special such as Christmas. Jonas learned the new concept (to him), of grandparents. He thinks grandparents are special but he doesn’t have real parents. At this point in the book Jonas understands real emotion and feeling for someone else, such as loving your family members, and he longs for that
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.