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Dystopian literature themes
Dystopian literature themes
Themes in dystopian novels
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The book The Giver by Lois Lowry is a different book. This book is a futuristic book, I mean showing beyond the present. It is mainly based on a child, and his future work and or destination, making history in a small community, where everything is quiet and could be said perfect and controlled. Each of its inhabitants is assigned to their job to avoid mistakes. Curiously, the book is about people, not their ignorance, but their lack of life experiences and knowledge of the outside world. This perhaps shows the day that the world will be a miserable world in my view and colorless, literally. It would be an empty, false and perfect life, without errors, and incomplete happiness, where the word love feels like it has lost its meaning and has become somewhat devalued. …show more content…
The cover and title of The Giver did not catch my curiosity and to be honest the cover image did not reveal much about everything that it was going to teach me or about the places that I would be transported to. “Giver, what causes you paint?. But I haven’t suffered, Giver. Not really. Oh, I remember the sunburn you gave me on the very first day. But that wasn’t so terrible. What is it that makes you suffer so much? If you gave some of it to me, maybe your pain would be less.” (Lowry). This fragment shows a little part of the story in The Giver, this is reality. I like this part, because it kind of showed me a little child who wants to learn to help his neighbor. This book reminds me to another, The siever and the Salamander by Ray Bradbury, both books talk about the people’s fear, about the danger of the wisdom, its power. Ignorance of people wanting to feel God. Wanting to have everything under control without knowing that take away life, the meaning of
The novel Night demonstrates that the human spirit can be affected by the power of false hope, by religion, and that one will do whatever it will take to survive for oneself and family.
This is my personal reflection about this book. First and foremost, I would like to say that this book is very thick and long to read. There are about nineteen chapters and 278 pages altogether. As a slow reader, it is a quite hard for me to finish reading it within time. It took me weeks to finish reading it as a whole. Furthermore, it is written in English version. My English is just in average so sometimes I need to refer to dictionary for certain words. Sometimes I use google translate and ask my friends to explain the meaning of certain terms.
The novels The Giver by Lois Lowry and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury are both very similar and take place in futuristic dystopian societies. In The Giver, the 12- year old protagonist, Jonas, is given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve. Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memory, shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. Likewise, in Fahrenheit 451 the main character Guy Montag recognizes how awful and empty his community is. He is a fireman in a community where all books are banned. His job is to start houses on fire that contain books. Guy loved his job until he came across a professor who told him of a future where people could think. Suddenly he realizes there is something he needs to do. Both Jonas and Montag live in highly disciplined societies that depend on an effective means of enforcing rules by acts of punishment. The conflict between the power of the individual and the power structures of the communities suggests that radical, yet positive social change may be possible through courageous acts of resistance.
We as humans tend to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. We look for knowledge about everybody and everything that surrounds us from our day-to-day life. Sadly though, we must accept that in the grand scheme of life we (as a society) tend to put pleasure above our quest for knowledge. The pursuit of knowledge tends to take time and energy, two things we call invaluable, and it also shows us things that might depress us. Contrastingly, ignorance takes no time and energy. Also, (as the common saying goes) ignorance is bliss. It keeps ugly truths away from us. But that is no reason to forsake knowledge for ignorance. In the early 1900’s, two books were published that would eventually be referred to the pinnacle of classical literature. The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451 both stand out as stunning literary works. But their success is not the only thing they share. Though they are very dissimilar in setting as well as genre, the two books have the same theme. The theme is the universal message the book is trying to inform the readers about. Fitzgerald and Bradbury both convey the theme of the pursuit of knowledge versus the pleasure of ignorance in The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451.
Even though both the society in The Giver by Lois Lowry and modern society are both unique in their own ways, our society is a better society to live in. Our society gives us more freedom to choose for our own benefits and
According to my research, the first part of any dystopian novel is the element of dehumanization. Dehumanization is to take away something which makes a person human, commonly freedom, feelings, thoughts, and memories. The giver has this part spot on because of the part where they take their memories away, take their capability to feel, and even take color as well, this was all located in chapter 13.
The Giver provides a chance that readers can compare the real world with the society described in this book through some words, such as release, Birthmothers, and so on. Therefore, readers could be able to see what is happening right now in the real society in which they live by reading her fiction. The author, Lowry, might build the real world in this fiction by her unique point of view.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
There is a saying that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I don’t always agree with the saying. I judge books--some of them, though--by their covers, and that’s what attracted me to this wonderful book, even more than its enticing blurb.
The third stanza starts by saying, “And when I could no longer look, I blest His name that gave and took,” (107). After everything was over she realized that God had given her everything she had lost in the fire, and that she could once again receive those things from God. This relates to me being robbed in the fact that everything I lost was something that was not needed. This helped me to realize that material things aren’t going to make you happy, but the Love of God is.
When asked why Lowery used a dystopian society she stated, “ I chose the setting because I wanted to give the reader a warring that society will never be perfect.”(Lowry) If she would have chosen a different setting the book I do not believe the book would have been the same. Lowry stated, “that when writing The Giver created a world that existed in her imagination only. She got ride of all the things she feared and disliked: violence, prejudice, poverty and injustice.
In conclusion, I thought this was a very thought-provoking piece of work and a fascinating exploration of the human soul without God in it. I would strongly recommend the book to readers with an open mind and a willingness to take a second look after reading. Its story, theme, style, and worldview, unify the book into an unforgettable portrayal of man's heart of darkness.
In the first 15 pages, while the plot is still forming, at least eight basic ideas are introduced: a spiritual awakening is occurring in the world (p.4); humanity is evolving into a higher spiritual consciousness (p.4); seek the experiential (p.5); coincidences have spiritual significance (synchronicity) (p.6); the knowledge contained in the manuscript's insights has been hidden from most of the world (esoteric, secret knowledge) (p.8); anti-Christian attitudes (p.9); discover truth through experience (p.10); and when the student is ready, the teacher appears (p.15). These ideas are not always expressed in so many words, but their principles are. For example, the basis of the story is that the spiritual insights humanity needs are hidden in an ancient document, and must be uncovered if mankind is to advance spiritually. Not everyone, according to the story, is ready for or able to comprehend these teachings. The insights are for those spiritually ripe, the spiritual elite. The book implies that in time others will accept these ideas but for now the more advanced must lead until a critical mass of people have grasped the insights.
Beyond the shield of civilization and into the depths of a primitive, untamed frontier lies the true face of the human soul. It is in the midst of this savagery and unrelenting danger that mankind confronts the brooding nature of his inner self.
Comparing The Giver and Farenheight 451 Here are two societies. One is the society in The Giver; there is no war, crime, and hunger. Every person has a job although the job is assigned by government. Another society is the one in Farenheight 451. Firemen are people whose job is to hunt down and burn books in the society. Both of the two societies are not normal. There are some similarities and differences between The Giver and Farenheight 451. First, there are main characters that have similar characteristics in two societies. In The Giver Jonas does not easily accept rules of the society since he wanders between the truth and rules of the community. Montag, the main character in Farenheight 451, is a book-burning fireman. One day he decided read the books which he burns. As a result, he steals some books and hides them in his home in violation of the rules of the community. Secondly, people in both of the two societies do not think the past seriously because the past has just passed. In The Giver people do not want to remind of a little dead boy in their mind. Also, people in Farenheight 451 do not read a book since the book such as biography of David Carperfield makes people remind of the past. However, an impression people can get from those two forms are quite different since one is a written book whereas the other is film. Written words have obvious and clear meanings so that readers can have crystal clear feelings.