The Giver Dystopia

Dystopia Imagine a world where people have everything they have ever desired; friendly neighbors, money, amazing jobs, and individuality. Now imagine a world where you are constantly being watched and controlled you have no freedom and no rights, which would you rather live in? In the book The Giver written by Lois Lowry, it tells a story of a community that lives in harmony together. However, there is very little freedom and independence; the Elders of the community pick all the jobs, children, and partners for citizens so they do not make mistakes. The main character is named Jonas he receives all the memories for the community memories of happiness and love, but also memories of war, starvation, neglect, and pain. He holds all these memories
The Elders monitor citizens by using the announcement speakers in their houses to listen to their conversations. When Jonas is in training with the Giver he sees the speaker on the wall “ Jonas almost gasped aloud. To have the power to turn the speaker off! It was an astonishing thing” (Lowry 100). They are talking away the citizens right to freedom and privacy by listening in. Another way the Elders monitor the community is by planes. The night that Jonas ran away from the community to save Gabriel’s life there were planes searching for him all throughout the night “he was constantly vigilant, looking for the next nearest hiding place should the sound of engines come” (Lowry 213). This shows control, the community is watching over the people and taking away there rights to make sure they are following the rule the Elders
Throughout the book no one is celebrated individually even when it comes to birthdays no one knows there personal birthday. Instead they would have a ceremony off all the Nines, children who are turning nine years old, and celebrate everyone at once. Additionally, everyone in the community dressed the same, for the young girls they were required to wear their hair neatly up in a ponytail along with a bow. The third sign of a dystopia community is having strict rules to control everyone. There are many rules shown in the giver like precision of language, if you use a word improperly then you are punished often by smacks on the hand so you don’t do it again. Another rule is a family can only consist of four people, two parents and two children, one boy and one girl. The fourth sign of a dystopia community is violence, which is kind of hidden and unknown in The Giver. Although there is no real violence between the people there is what some may classify as government murder. In the book they have this ceremony called release, they perform this on the old, some new children, and on the people who misbehave. “He pushed the plunger very slowly, injecting the liquid into the scalp vein until the syringe was empty” (Lowry 187). Most of the citizens in the community do not realize that the word release really means to kill. By not telling the citizens what release really