The Giver takes place in the future and the location is never disclosed. I feel that the author did not disclose the information because he wanted to leave the destination up to the reader’s imagination.
It is written from the view of Jonas, an eleven year old boy who is part of a small community who lives a very structured life without the choice of options and decisions. Thus we are limited in only knowing what he knows and experiences. I think telling the story in his perspective adds mystery and suspense throughout the entire book. In addition it also allows the readers to imagine that they are in the story seeing what Jonas sees and feels.
Early on it is discovered that everything is decided for each and every one of the community members. For example, at the age of twelve each child is assigned a job or a profession based on their abilities or interest to get trained which is made by the chief elder and her committee. Their decisions would be communicated to the children in December at the Ceremony of Twelve the last and final celebrate of age until the time they are released from the house of old. Jonas lives with his father a nurturer to the new children in the community, his mother who works in the justice system and his sister Lily who is seven years old. Babies or new children are born from birthmothers whose only job is to reproduce for 3 years and the nurtures of the community are the ones responsible for the caring of the babies needs until the age of 1 when they are now eligible to be named and distributed to a welcoming family. Each family is eligible to apply for children; however each family is only ever given 1 boy and 1 girl child. Once their children are grown the mom and dad move into a home environment...
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...rturer for the new children in the community. He takes his job very seriously. However his one weakness is that even if he is attached to a child he is nurturing, he still releases them if he thinks it’s in their best interest but sometimes he doesn’t agree.
There are several themes that are brought up in this book. However, I will focus on one, the relationship between pain and pleasure. In our world it is often said you must have one to fully appreciate the other. One cannot enjoy the pleasures in life if one does not have a memory bank of the despair life can throw at you. The community has realized the importance of memory in one aspect that it knows memory is important in order to not make the same mistakes twice. And in order to fulfill that it made one person responsible for keeping the communities collective memories whether they were pleasurable or painful.
The author Lois Lowry grew up all around the world when she was a child due to her dad being in the U.S. Army. Since father was a dentist in the army and traveled the world she had gone to many countries which inspired her writing. At one point she had lived in Tokyo where she went to an American school on the base during her junior high years. One of her literary works later in her life is, The Giver, which had won a Newbery Award. In The Giver, the setting is a utopian society where the characters have no feelings, no memories, and no choices that they are able to make on their own. The names of the characters also have hidden meanings and relations behind them using allusion to recreate a religous matter along with how the novel percives morals. Lowry uses the literary elements allusion and setting to express the theme that memories and choice are worth the pain they might sometimes bring.
Do you think that by having twins, the one twin you don’t like gets killed? In The Giver Jonas’s Community has no freedom nor choice in anything they do. They think that by taking away all this freedom that they could have a perfect community newsflash, nothing's perfect. Do you think the Giver is a Utopia or Dystopia? In my opinion The Giver is a Dystopia because they don’t have color, they release kids for bad reasons, and why the Giver is a Dystopia not a Utopia.
Imagine a community that you live took away your personal rights; the things that you know and even the way that you think. This is happening to a boy named Jonas not only him but also the inhabitants of Jonas’s community. In the book The Giver Jonas and his community is living with no personal rights. I believe that the inhabitants of Jonas’s community and Jonas should be given personal rights. The community should be given personal rights because they can learn from their mistakes, to have memory and to have emotions. Those are the reasons why I believe that the community should be given personal rights.
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. When he turns twelve, his job for the rest of his life is decided as the Receiver. His job is to receive all the memories the previous Receiver has held on to. While this is beneficial for Jonas as he is able to leave the society and his job of the Receiver behind and get freedom, the community is left without someone to take the memories from The Giver.
The term The Giver refers to the old man, the former receiver who transfers all his memories to Jonas. The names giver and receiver remind us that memories are meant to be shared, the function of the old man is not holding memories but passing them from one person to another. That is why the title is not memory keepers' .The old man becomes the giver as Jonas becomes the receiver. Jonas also becomes the giver when he transfers his memories to Gabriel. But more interestingly, Jonas becomes the giver when he gives his memories to Gabriel (Booker10).
...st person. The narrator is looking back on this story and remembering things from a child’s point of view. The reader only sees the narrator’s opinion in the story, but that allows the reader to have his own opinions as well, questioning the literary work constantly. This makes the story more complex and permits the reader to wonder what is going on inside each of the characters’ heads.
The Giver is actually one of my all-time favorite books, so I’ve looked into why she left the book so inconclusive in the past. The Giver is basically about a boy named Jonas who lives in a perfect society. He lives in a household with his two parents and his little sister Lilly. When he becomes a 12, he goes through a huge ceremony and all the elders assign them their jobs. In this community, there is no lying, stealing, racism, pain, sunlight or color. Jonas was chosen to be The Receiver, and he didn’t know what to do because this job was such a big deal. Jonas then goes through training with the current Receiver, who is now The Giver. Training consists of The Giver passing down the memories from when the community was not what it is today. Memories that are passed down are things that are normal to us. Memories of sun, snow, pain, and sorrow.
“The Giver.” Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen and Kevin S. Hile. Vol. 3. Detroit, MI: Gale Research,1998. 167-81. Print.
The book The Giver is a dystopian book because you don’t get to make any of your own decisions. You would never know the truth about release. You would never experience life how you should experience it. The world may seem perfect from someone’s view inside the community, but from the outside it is harsh and horrible. Their world could be turned into a utopia eventually, but as of right know it is a
“The Giver” a novel by Lois Lowry (1993), is an, engaging science fiction tale that provides the reader with examples of thought provoking ethical and moral quandaries. It is a novel geared to the young teenage reader but also kept me riveted. Assigning this novel as a class assignment would provide many opportunities for teachers and students to discuss values and morals.
Jonas misses the way it was before he had memories where there was no pain or feeling, because everything was innocent. But he understands that although there was innocence nobody feels true happiness.Jonas thinks: “But he knew he couldn’t go back to that world of no feelings that he had lived in so long” (Lowry 131). Jonas wishes he could go back when everything was innocent and when he had no burden of pain, but although there was innocence the bad memories were stripped away to avoid the feeling of pain but also leaves everyone emotionless. But he knows it can never be the same again because of all the knowledge he gained from memories. He learns that memoires need to be valued, even the painful ones. Jonas feels that his community can change and things could be different. He thinks they should live in a world with memories. Jonas says: “Things could be different. I don’t know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colours [...] and everybody would have memories [...] There could be love” (Lowry 128). Jonas wishes that they could all have memories because everyone would be able to experience love. Love is one of the most important things in human life. He knows that there are bad memories, but without them, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the good ones. Eventually, with his feelings
One literary element that is cleverly written into the novel is irony. Jonas’ life is supposedly perfect, in an environment with everyone’s life controlled and documented by the Elders. The weather, the marriages, the child selection, the population, and the education are decided by the Elders. Even the career is provided for them; each December at the Ceremony of 12, the new recruits receive the career that they will continue with for the rest of their working adult life’s’. The job Jonas receives is the most difficult one, the Receiver, who has the duty of containing all of the intense experiences of life. Ironically, Jonas doesn’t enjoy this; he instead feels that the job is too painful for him. Yet the Elders’ decisions, although chosen w...
Lily stated that she wants to be a Birthmother because they are provided with every necessity and don’t have to do much work from what her friend told her. She also thinks that new children are adorable that’s why she desires to be a Birthmother so she can see them more often. However, Jonas' mother said that being a Birthmother is an assignment that takes 3 years and they can only have 3 births. After that, Birthmothers would become Laborers for the remainder of their adult lives until the day that they enter the House of the Old. They simply have 3 years in which they will be provided with delicious food, have exceptionally gentle exercise periods and can participate in games or amuse themselves when they are waiting. After that period of time, they would have to do hard physical labour until they are old. Jonas’ father then announced that birthmothers never get to see new
The movie starts when Jonas and his best friends, Asher and Fiona, are graduating from childhood and are founding what part they will take in the community. Jonas feels lost because he feels that he is different. He saw things differently, but he never said anything, because he was never wanting to be different in this perfect world. He felt scared that he does not belong in his community.