Symbolism In The Giver By Lois Lowry

Feeling, choosing, or seeing color, no has them in this place. The Giver by Lois Lowry, in a community that has strict rules to never think for yourself or even feel pain. They took away the beauty of colors, originality and creativity. The public just calls them memories now and Jonas has to bear it all. The symbols hills, mirrors, and elsewhere all go into how the people need the past and the wisdom they get from it to shape their future, even if the citizens make mistakes they learn from them by choosing their life.

Humankind has made countless mistakes, but the biggest oversight was to hide them all. Why did the government take away agency? In the novel, it states, “Hills made conveyance of good unwieldy. Trucks; buses. Slowed them

down. Sameness he concluded” (84). The empire picked and chose what the world needed then made an artificial one. The command thought that if everything was predictable than they could control everything. In addition the novel illustrates, “ Our people made that choice, the choice to go to sameness. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences” (95). Although they obtained control over multiple things like geography, but threw away something that was very essential, the freedom to choose your own life. After that it explains, “It isn’t fair that nothing has color!; I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” (97). The authority did not want people to decide things because people are too unpredictable and unstable. Moreover, people are too hard to control, so if they do not have any feelings, then they do whatever you say. They gave them a new definition of right and wrong. In the end, what life is worth living if you do not breath in a world where you born to decide things.
In this community everyone is equal, but is it fair?

The sameness is what makes it that colony. In the novel, it emphasizes, “ He looked down at himself, at the colorless fabric of his clothing. But it’s all the same, always” (97). Mirrors let you look at yourself and regard things about yourself. In the place that they live they took away the color to form everyone the same, the people physically cannot be any other way. After that it says, “Life here is so orderly so predictable--so painless” (103). Thus in this life it is said that life in this society is superior and stable. The people never starve or ever feel pain. It is wonderful they do not have poverty since they are given everything they need and they work to keep the district going. Though they never experienced the actual world before and once they do, will they still love this place? As the text states “We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others. We shouldn’t have!” (95). Immediately upon Jonas caught a glimpse of the evident earth he thought that it might have been better even with such frequent potential risks and so much evil, it is the way we learn to do things ourselves. Even though we are unique, it is not fair to anybody that we cannot be who we

are.
Lastly elsewhere is where the community has never been and never experienced, It is the place no one dares to go. Though it is the only place where freedom lives. According to the novel, “ He heard people singing Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left” (180). Singing is an expression of emotion and freedom. Jonas has never heard anything like that in the place he was born, but when he left it he gained his own wisdom. Next the people think that Elsewhere is the place people go to rest or a place without order. As the story says that to be released is that they kill the person by injecting a chemical in them (150). The people do not know what it is and do not feel that it is wrong. Elsewhere is imperfection to them due to the fact that they do not know right from wrong anymore. They do not look at the pros only the cons of the world. However, choices are essential to life, even if they are the wrong ones as it illustrates, “We really have to protect people from wrong choices. It is safer” (98). Wrong choices are a very big flaw, but that is how we mold who we are, you have to find your own way. It is something no one there understands, but it is very important. Without decision, it defeats the point of living and this is something Jonas must learn.
All in all the symbolism in this novel ties all into how we cannot live perfectly; it is the misstep and evil that makes us strong. Through hills, mirrors, and elsewhere, it has an understanding that we use experience to be successful in life. We will never learn if someone just tell us what to do every time. By making mistakes and learning through them, we are able to grow as individuals.