Summary Of The Giver By Lois Lowry

Imagine a world where Sameness has a part in everything. Where everyone sees the same colors, knows all the same things, and more. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character, Jonas, has to live in a world like this. As Jonas lives in his community where he grows by taking risks, he gains knowledge through memories and obtains intense emotions.

In Jonas’ world, if you aren’t like everyone else, you are considered distinctive. During the story, Jonas starts to question his society about this situation. And he takes risks to find out the truth. For example, Jonas notices a change while a throwing an apple, “But he had taken the apple home, against the recreation area rules”(Lowry 31). Here, Jonas takes his first step towards making a change

about everything he is questioning in his society. In addition to Jonas taking many risks like stealing the apple, Jonas believes that the people in his community should have to deal with the burden that he and The Giver take on with the memories. Consequently, he decided to run away from his home. And when, “Jonas reached the opposite side of the river, he stopped briefly, and looked back… At dawn, the orderly, disciplined life he had always known would continue again, without him.”(Lowry 207). Jonas is realizing that Sameness is taking away beauty and choices in his community. Therefore, he sacrifices the experiences he has had with the memories to give back to the community.
Along with Jonas taking risks, he recognizes that people in his community don’t have a lot of knowledge due to rules enforced in his community.

When Jonas receives memories from The Giver, such as a memory of war, he can see how the rules have made a big impact on his life. In fact, when Jonas’ groupmates are playing a war related game, Jonas interrupts the game and pleads, “ ‘Don’t play it anymore’ ”(Lowry 168). Jonas is having flashback of the war memory he was given and remembering the pain he went through receiving it. If Jonas’ society enforces Sameness, then no one disagrees; therefore, there won’t be war and pain in the community. Because of the knowledge that Jonas and The Giver hold from the memories of the past, it comes into play a lot during the novel. For instance, when The Giver is explaining the importances of his and Jonas’ assignment of handling the memories, The Giver explains to Jonas that, “ ‘when I am called by the Committee of Elders, I appear before them, to give them counsel and advice’ ”(Lowry 130). Since The Giver and Jonas are the only people who have the memories, when the Committee of Elders, the head of the community, needs advice about something they go to them since they don’t have the knowledge of the past to fix a certain

situation.
Similar to the community having no knowledge, they don’t show emotions either for the same reasons. Jonas feels that there is a risk involved in having emotions. For they can cause arguments and issues. To begin, when Jonas is given the memory of love, he goes back to his dwelling and asks his parents, “Do you love me?”(Lowry 159). His parents responded awed by him using that precision of language. For it is not a term that would be used frequently in their community due to Sameness and not wanting anything to go wrong. Furthermore, to prevent people from feeling these emotions, the community is required to take a pill every day. However, Jonas makes the decision that he doesn’t want to prevent himself from feeling the emotions. He woke up one morning and, “Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away”(Lowry 162). Jonas start to develop feelings for The Giver, Fiona, one of his groupmates, and Gabe, a newborn that his family takes care of during the book. Ultimately, the feelings that Jonas develops make him determined to leave the community at the end of the book.
In conclusion, because of Jonas’ actions during the book he learns that he can only grow by taking big risks, that knowledge is important, and emotions are powerful. Whether it’s sacrificing big parts of life for others, urging people to do certain things, or expressing his opinions to show how he feels. Overall, Jonas makes a difference by provoking the truth about his society all through memories.