Sameness In The Giver

Picture a place where everyone is safe and nobody is burdened with decisions. The Giver is a fictional novel written by Lois Lowry and is about a young boy named Jonas who grows up in a community that has Sameness. Sameness in the community allows very little differences by taking away changes in weather, colors, and people’s characteristics such as eye and hair color. The community also makes all decisions up to a small number of the population, including all the jobs that people receive. Sameness in a community is an advantage because nobody is discriminated against and everyone is safe.

Sameness in a society is an advantage because nobody gets discriminated against. The Giver explains, “We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences” (Lowry 91). No one has any differences so everyone is treated the same. This is unlike our world where bullying is present because of personal characteristics such as if you are strong or smart. Since everyone is

Jonas explains, “We really have to protect people from wrong choices” (Lowry 93). Sameness in the community makes the resident’s choices, therefore, protecting them from the danger of choosing wrong. Choice means the selection of different items and if a citizen makes the wrong choice, it can lead to instability in the community, such as if no one wanted to be a birthmother there would be no children. Since Sameness is in place in the community, choices are made for the benefit of everyone and wrong choices are very rare. Likewise, the Giver adds, “... unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible” (Lowry 80). Since transportation was almost impossible, the community did not get any shipments of food. With only meager supplies, citizens would die or get sick. Sameness, however, would make the weather changes stop so people would get all their necessities and be safer. Thus Sameness makes the community