Christopher Columbus once stated that, “Perfection is an illusion sought out by those who fail to understand that our flaws are what motivates us to always be better.” This shows ‘Columbus’s opinion. Columbus is one of the most famous explorers on the planet besides Dora. He and his crews of the 3 ships the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Niña, they believed that in order to find new land they needed to understand that perfection is an illusion. Which helped them keep from thinking that they would be able to live in a utopia. Authors of dystopian and science-fiction use characters and settings in the stories to present on how perfect worlds are really not and that perfection is an illusion.
In The Giver, by Lois Lowry, Jonas discovers that the world he lives in is completely different, worse, than he expected; that it is an illusion. The main character, Jonas, lives in a colorless community that seems perfect. But when he is
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given his assignment, he realizes that they have been living a lie, that everything is wrong. Jonas says to Gabe, a baby, “Things could be different. I don’t know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors.” (128) He whispers this while Gabe sleeps. Jonas is thinking of a future where everything is better, where people have those memories. Where there is no illusion that everything is well. At another place in the story, Jonas and the Giver are discussing the release of newborns because Jonas’s father mentioned that he had one later that day. Jonas wonders why they don’t do it somewhere else so other people can watch. The Giver then says that he can watch, he is the giver in training now, so they do. After the video, Jonas is shocked. He thinks “He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself… ‘Bye-bye, little guy’ Jonas’s father said.” (150) That was another example of how nothing was as it seems. How something that everyone got told was peaceful and nice was actually the opposite. Instead of the baby being released, he was killed. Those are two examples in the book The Giver that show how perfection is an illusion, and that the illusion, the curtain, can often be hiding bad things. In “The Veldt”, the author teaches that perfection and normalcy are illusions, that things lurk beneath the surface.
“The Veldt” has a particular way of telling the story, dark and deep. This story shows exactly how everything that seems so perfect could really go wrong. The story is about two kids named Peter and Wendy and how they kill their parents because their parents shut down the nursery. The kids have a high tech nursery that can realistically show any scene the kids can think of. The kids are relying on mechanisms and machines for every single thing. The machines and mechanics seem so perfect and have no way of making any mistake.This can be shown on page 9, “We’ve been contemplating our mechanical for too long…” But because the parents are letting children doing everything with mechanics and machines, it makes the children think that the mechanics are there “real” parents. So this is the reason why the children are so angry when the parents are shutting off the whole house. Everything in the house is all an illusion of
perfection. In “Examination Day”, the author shows how the government wants everybody to be below a certain intelligence quotient, and that because of that, what seems like perfection is only an illusion. “Examination Day” is about a boy named Dickie who, after he turns 12, has to take a Government Intelligence test. So he takes it a week after his birthday, and later that day his parents get a call saying that Dickie’s intelligence quotient is above Government regulation. Which means that he was too smart and that the government wanted people to not be that smart, so they killed him. But in the beginning of the story, Dickie’s birthday, nothing is wrong. Dickie’s dad, after bringing up the test for the first time explains it as: “It’s just a sort of Government Intelligence Test they give children at the age of twelve. You’ll be taking it next week. It’s nothing to worry about.” (1) That quote means that Dickie’s dad doesn’t realize the full impact of the test, that he thinks everything is perfect. Dickie’s father and mother soon explain the test to Dickie. By saying that he would have to drink a strange liquid that tasted like peppermint and it was basically something that would make the 12 year olds tell the answers truthfully. (2) Later that afternoon, the Jordan’s get a call from a government official. In that call, they get their first clue that something is wrong, as the official says that he is above government intelligence quotients and she says “Whether you wish his body interred by the government or would you prefer a private burial place? The fee for government burial is ten dollars.” (4) That is how the reader knows that there is something wrong going on behind the scenes, that everything's an illusion to mask this evil. That’s also when Dickie’s parents find out that their world is an illusion, that nothing is as it seems; they had learned the sad truth.
The kids become so obsessed with the nursery that turns into a veldt that they won’t even meet their parents and their parents think their kids were in pretty good shape. “When I punished him a month ago by locking it for even a few hours – the way he lost his temper! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery.” and Too much of anything isn’t good for anyone. And it was clearly indicated that the children had been spending a little too much time on Africa in the nursery.” In this quote the author says that the two children were so obsessed with the nursery that even if they leave it for a little bit they will always crave it back. The love between the parents and the children is lost because of this piece of technology, and at this point the kids truly do not like their parents quite immensely and are always very ill-mannered towards their parents. The obsession to the electronic nursery has changed the kids’ minds so much that they won’t want to meet their parents or leave the
First of all, I think The Giver is a dystopia because they don't have color. The article states, “The Giver told him that it would be a very long time before he had the colors to keep.” (Document E) This proves that they have no color, I think that by taking away color there would be no happiness or imagination. If jonas’s community had color there would be more happiness and personal opinions about things like, “ what color do you like”.Without color you would be taking away the freedom to have an opinion towards other people, but in jonas’s community they limit their freedom to do lots of things and the people in the community don’t notice it. Another Example is stated in the text it says, “But
“Allegory of the Cave”, by Plato, explains how reality is different for everyone. All of us do not have the same view of what reality really is. Most of us like to believe in what we see, like the shadows on the cave. We are like the prisoners, chained up from our feet to our necks. For example; in "The Giver", by Lois Lowry, the community selects jobs for each and every citizen. Jonas, the main character, was given an important job. He was the Receiver of Memory. The person that gives him memories is called the Giver. He gives Jonas memories from the past Givers/Receivers. The Giver and Jonas, in their society, see a different perspective of their world. The memories of pain, hatred and happiness were taken away from every citizen from the community. However, they are the only ones that see color in their world and know the truth behind the mask of their own world, while all the other people see the world as a plain and black-and –white world.
Lois Lowry describes a futuristic world with controlled climate, emotions, way of living and eliminates suffering in her book The Giver. The main character, Jonas, shows the reader what his world is like by explaining a very different world from what society knows today. Everything is controlled, and no one makes choices for themselves or knows of bad and hurtful memories. There is no color, and everything is dull. As he becomes the Receiver who has to know all the memories and pass them down to the next Receiver, he realizes his world needs change. 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.
Throughout the short story “The Veldt," Bradbury uses foreshadowing to communicate the consequences of the overuse of technology on individuals. Lydia Hadley is the first of the two parents to point out the screams that are heard on the distance where the lions are. George soon dismisses them when he says he did not hear them. After George locks the nursery and everyone is supposed to be in bed, the screams are heard again insinuating that the children have broken into the nursery, but this time both the parents hear them. This is a great instant of foreshadowing as Lydia points out that "Those screams—they sound familiar" (Bradbury 6). At that moment, Bradbury suggests that George and Lydia have heard the screams before. He also includes a pun by saying that they are “awfully familiar” (Bradbury 6) and giving the word “awfully” two meanings. At the end we realize that “the screams are not only awfully familiar, but they are also familiar as well as awful" (Kattelman). When the children break into the nursery, even after George had locked it down, Bradbury lets the reader know that the children rely immensely on technology to not even be able to spend one night without it. The screams foreshadow that something awful is going to happen because of this technology.
“But that evening everything changed. All of it---all the things they had thought through so meticulously---fell apart”(Lowry 204). In The Giver written by Lois Lowry, a bad community is created, and the main character tries to fix it in the end. The main character ,Jonas, changes when he is no longer a rule follower and figures out what release is.
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.
The so-called Utopia – the quasi-perfect society – flourishes in Margaret Cavendish’s “The Description of a New World, Called a Blazing World” and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. While the former is a dreamlike account of fantasy rule and the latter a pseudo-realistic travelogue, both works paint a picture of worlds that are not so perfect after all. These imperfections glitter like false gemstones in the paths of these Utopians’ religious beliefs, political systems, and philosophical viewpoints.
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.
A dystopian society is what all nations are hopeful to find. In the film, The Giver by Lois Lowry, it seems to be what was achieved. This film brings heaps of critical thought with symbolism and imagery thrown at the audience like there’s no tomorrow. Although the society looks perfect, it is actually quite pessimistic and scornful. Right off the bat, the main character, Jonas captures the audience’s interest with his wit and charm. The audience knows right away that something is different about him. In the film adaptation of The Giver by Lois Lowry directed by Phillip Noyce, the symbolism and imagery including the red apple, color and the triangle proves to be some of the most important elements to the story.
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.
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.
Since most people think that the “ideal” is impossible to reach, they are led to feel inadequate. The idea of perfection is a mere deception because, the obsession of trying to reach perfection is taken to extremes, perfection is based on individual opinion and there is no such thing as actual perfection.
Revolutions and civil wars have taken place and totalitarianism has become a fact that can hardly be ignored. Therefore, the modern age has become a time in which more anti-utopias have been envisioned than ever before. A lot of authors have expressed their views on utopia in their novels. Some have done it by creating their own perfect world, while others have chosen a different path. They have been selected to voice their opinions in anti-utopian novels, or dystopia.
We often think that our main goals are linked to perfection, however, we are unaware of the devastating effect this unattainable concept has on our outlook on life when we cannot achieve it. Though the textbook definition of perfection is, “the quality or condition of being perfect and without flaws”, it is a vice that harbors many doubts and insecurities and holds us back from things we want to do for fear of not being good. Perfection is a concept that cannot be achieved as it does not exist.