It’s not easy to be brave when you are scared. Leaving the only home you have ever known is not a simple task. The science-fiction novel, The Giver written by Lois Lowry, was a story about courage and being different. Jonas, a Twelve, decided to escape his community to Elsewhere hoping to open new doors and find more opportunities. He was influenced by several people and events to leave the only home he had ever known. Jonas left the community because his experiences changed the way he saw the world. Making the decision to go to Elsewhere was not simple, but thankfully there are people who gave the decision a little push to make the dream a reality.
Jonas was definitely influenced very heavily by his mentor. The Giver supported Jonas all the way. His job was to pass the memories of the past to Jonas. When The Giver shared the memories
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for the first time, Jonas felt how empty his world really was. The past was filled with emotions and color, but now he lived in a community where everything had been the same. The Giver had already suggested that Jonas should get to Elsewhere, in chapter twenty. Jonas realizes that once he leaves and makes it to Elsewhere, the memories will be released to the people of the community. His outlook on this was that they would gain wisdom. They would notice the good in the past, and they would face the horrors in reality. Hunger, loneliness, and weather would be back. They would experience it like Jonas had, “overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours.” The community, he knew, was never going to be perfect, but both The Giver and Jonas knew “that things must change for the community.” They had the same understanding and saw what could happen if he ventured out to Elsewhere. The Giver reinforced Jonas’s decision to escape to Elsewhere because he showed Jonas the bright future, it would create for everyone that lived inside the trapped community. The turning point for Jonas was when he had seen his father release a newborn twin. This, for sure, reinforced his thought of escaping his community. In chapter nineteen, Jonas had no idea what release was since no one knew what it was. The Giver asked, “Do you want to see this morning’s release?” Jonas wasn’t sure if he wanted to, but The Giver insisted and the video appeared on the screen. He saw his father and then his jaw dropped. “He killed it! My father killed it!” Jonas now understood that release was basically death. The newborns, the old, the punished, could be released. They could die! This poor innocent newborn lost his life for being lighter than his twin, for he was a “shrimp!” The flaw in the community had been unveiled in front of Jonas’s eyes. This was the point where the escaping to Elsewhere had seemed to be the only answer to the problems. Death to those who didn’t belong was present in the community, but it had been hidden from the community for so long. Jonas was shocked and scared after seeing the true meaning of release. Lastly, what reinforced Jonas to escape to Elsewhere was his knowledge of the valuable memories The Giver had given to him.
The memories captured so answers to his questions and more opportunities for the future. They had emotions and feelings, ones that hadn’t been felt by anyone in the community. The life that Jonas would have without knowledge of these memories would be blank. He’d live the life that everyone had lived; he’d have to live a life full of “Sameness”. He wouldn’t know about color, of individuality, of choices, and the feeling of love. Jonas had seen a birthday party where they celebrated one’s individuality, he had seen color throughout his daily life, he had seen the world where not everything was controlled, and he had seen grandparents. The memories expanded the way he looked at everything he had once known. After seeing the memories, he had feelings. Jonas knew what love was; he knew what it looked like. When he saw the memory of Christmas, he saw people who “hugged one another”. They showed affection for the other person. This showed Jonas that love was the bandage they needed for the community’s cuts and
scrapes. Jonas made the decision to leave his community to go to Elsewhere. Making the decision to go to Elsewhere was not simple, but thankfully there are people who gave the decision a little push to make the dream a reality. The Giver was very supportive and his experiences combined with his memories was what they needed to take the people of the community out of their misery. Their community would be filled with choices. It would be filled with color and feeling. Their community would be like Jonas’s memories. There would be warmth and love in their lives. The people and events that made Jonas reassure himself to escape made a huge impact on everyone's lives, and now that the memories are returned to them, they can feel the hug of the sunlight bringing light and warmth to the world.
Jonas said “I gave him memories along the way to let him survive, but he’s cold.” The giver had started to give Jonas and Gabe memories to keep them warm and alive. Jonas felt the memory of him sitting next to a campfire and it was as hot as a hot bathing room in the house of the old. Jonas had remembered about his friends Fiona and Asher and asked the giver. “Where is Fiona and Asher.”
“...Jonas becomes the Reciever of Memories shared by only one other…” (Lowry,4). The author uses allusion throught the entire book almost through evryone and everything. The young boy that Jonas’s family was looking over was named Gabriel. In a biblical view his name is one of god’s messengers and in the end of the giver when Jonas takes Gabe with him to find another community unlike theirs they find it together. In a hebrew relation Jonas is another version of Jonah which is the son of truth were in his community he does not like how his father lied and said that the twin was going to released when he had killed the child. He also wants the community to know the truth of the past and not hide things. The Giver is the book is portrayed as God since he is the presnter to all life. Elsewhere is heaven in the novel when the elderly and the yo...
Without memories, nobody can make the right decision, which will lead to a bad choice. Without memories, one cannot shape his or her future. In addition, when Jonas describes the pain he feel when experiencing a sunburn when, “‘It hurts a lot,’ Jonas said, ‘but I’m glad you gave it to me. It was interesting,”(Lowry 86). This quote show that Jonas does not understand
Jonas decides to leave and change the lives of his people so that they can experience the truth. “The Giver rubbed Jonas’s hunched shoulders… We’ll make a plan” (155). Their plan involves leaving sameness and heading to Elsewhere, where Jonas knows the memories can be released to the people. He has a connection with Gabe, a special child who has experienced the memories, unlike the rest of the community. Jonas has a strong love for Gabe, and he longs to give him a better life. “We’re almost there, Gabriel” (178). Even with a sprained ankle, Jonas keeps pushing forward because he wants everyone to experience what The Giver has given him. He wants them to have a life where the truth is exposed. His determination allows him to make a change for a greater future in his community. This proves that Jonas has the strength to change his community for the
The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is an everlasting story that shows the importance of individuality. This novel is about a young boy named Jonas who was elected as the Receiver of Memories, a person who is given the memories from the world that existed before their current society, Sameness. In this society there is no individualism. People can not choose who to marry, or what they want to do for a living. Over time Jonas becomes more and more wise, and realizes that the supposedly perfect community actually has some very dark and negative aspects. The author, Lois Lowry is a 76-year-old writer who focuses her writing on helping struggling teenagers become individuals. Lowry had a very tragic childhood. After both of her parents were separated and killed in the middle of a war, she was devastated and the only way she was able to block and forget all of the horrifying things that were happening, were books (Lowry). “My books have varied in content… Yet it seems… that all of them deal with the same general theme: the importance of human connections,” Lowry explained in her autobiography. In the novel The Giver, Lois Lowry uses the literary elements symbolism, foreshadowing, and imagery to express the theme: importance of an individual.
The Giver provides a chance that readers can compare the real world with the society described in this book through some words, such as release, Birthmothers, and so on. Therefore, readers could be able to see what is happening right now in the real society in which they live by reading her fiction. The author, Lowry, might build the real world in this fiction by her unique point of view.
In an early discussion with the Giver, Jonas concludes that "`We really have to protect people from wrong choices... [It's] much safer'" (99). However, it is with the progression of his training as Receiver of Memories that Jonas learns the impact of the sacrifices his community makes. After receiving a memory of a family celebrating together, Jonas speculates with the Giver about the emotional potential of the situation. He contemplates "`The family in the memory seemed... complete...
Jonas, the main character in The Giver by Lois Lowry, is a very strong person, which allows him to go farther in life then the people that surround him. Throughout Jonas's life he has known nothing but "sameness". He lives in a Utopian community where there are no choices and everyone in his world has their lives laid out for them. But, Jonas is given the job of "Receiver of Memory". He alone knows the truths of the world, a world with colors, pain, and choices. What he does with these truths will bring obstacles to his life that will show the readers not only his strengths but his weaknesses as well.
It states in chapter 13 that “my role is now to escape the community.” This relates to the topic the theme importance of memory because once jonas has the importance of memory Jonas knows the right decisions and choices to make. Such as running away from the Community to have freedom. Sure Jonas may have escaped due to the Giver telling him to but if he didn’t have the memeriors he needed it would have said no and stayed in the community because he would have classified it as breaking the rules.
Jonas is the protagonist in The Giver. He changes from being a typical twelve-year-old boy to being a boy with the knowledge and wisdom of generations past. He has emotions that he has no idea how to handle. At first he wants to share his changes with his family by transmitting memories to them, but he soon realizes this will not work. After he feels pain and love, Jonas decides that the whole community needs to understand these memories. Therefore Jonas leaves the community and his memories behind for them to deal with. He hopes to change the society so that they may feel love and happiness, and also see color. Jonas knows that memories are hard to deal with but without memories there is no pain and with no pain, there is no true happiness.
In the book, The Giver, Jonas is portrayed as a kind, curious and rebellious individual with a keen sense of awareness. The beginning chapters revealed Jonas as a very naive and compliant person, similar to everyone else in his community. Instances, when he was a child and got reprimanded for small misunderstandings, made him like this. However, throughout the book, Jonas has grown into an independent and determined person, someone who wants to make a change. Jonas finds new strengths in his character which forms him into someone spectacular and distinctive.
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
Jonas always tells his dreams. He always was there for chastisement. He always shared his feelings at the evening meal. He also always took his pill every morning. “Now he swallowed the pill his mother handed him.”(Page 38). By the end of the book Jonas is rebellious. He stops taking pills for emotions that he is supposed to take everyday. Jonas stays at the Giver’s house when he sees his father kill a baby. Jonas also tries to escape from the community when Giver creates a plan to escape from the community which Jonas barely follows because of Gabe’s release. “But your role now is to escape.” (Page 162). This means that Jonas has to escape and the Giver must stay to help the community after he is gone.
We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others” (97). In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, no one has seen a rainbow after a storm, no one knew what colors were; what choosing was; what it meant to be an individual. Everyone lived in complete Sameness, and never learned what it meant to be an individual. By eliminating as much self expression as possible in Sameness and society, Jonas's community has rejected the individuality of a society where people are free to move society forward. In The Giver individuality is represented by colors, memories, and pale eyes.
The purpose of this book was to show us a possible version of a "Utopia".