Life would be so much different if people did not have the ability to make decisions on their own. In the Giver, a twelve-year-old boy named Jonas does not have the option on who he marries and is not related to his parents or the future children he has. All of those selections are made for him. Even the decision on when he dies is made for him. The biggest differences between Jonas society and modern day society are family, death, and marriage.
Family is one of the most cherished things life has to offer. In Jonas’s society, citizens must apply for a spouse an for children. The Committee of Elders observe the people in the Community to assign a family unit.According to the novel, the narrator states, “Two children-one male, one female- to each family unit. It was written very clearly in the rules”(Lowry 8). This quote shows that unlike society today, the government in Jonas’s society decides when
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parents receive babies. Detail In Jonas’s community, unlike society today, elderly people are sent to the House of the Old instead of remaining with their family units and becoming grandparents.When The Giver transmits a memory of Christmas to Jonas, he explains, “‘They were called grandparents’. ‘Grandparents?’ ‘ Grandparents. It meant parents of the parents long ago” (Lowry 123). This quote shows that Jonas learns that families once had grandparents. In Jonas’s society, there is a limit to the size and structure of family units while in modern society, there are a variety of family structures. No one can avoid death.
In Jonas’s society, there are only two ways to die. The most common one was to get released. In the novel, Jonas reveals, “There were only two occasions of release which were not punishment. Release of the elderly, which was a time of celebration for a life well and fully lived; and release of a new child, which always brought a sense of what-could-we-have-done”(Lowry 7). Jonas states that release is ordinarily punishment. When the elderly and new children get released, it is not for something they did wrong. The other way of death can also occur in society today, death by accident, which Jonas’s society called loss. Jonas tells us, “The entire community had performed the Ceremony of Loss together, murmuring the name Caleb throughout an entire day, less and less frequently throughout the somber day”(Lowry 44). Whenever someone dies in the community, it is a sad, long day. When the Community experiences Loss, they chant the lost one's name many times and people in modern society have funerals. They mourn death while people celebrate
life. Marriage is something that most people want to experience in their life.In Jonas’s society marriage is arranged by the community of elders. Jonas tells us, “All of the factors, disposition, energy level, intelligence, and interests, had to correspond perfectly”(Lowry 48). Spouses do not get to choose who they marry. Just like in normal society, some people don't marry. In Jonas’s society, it is the same way. Jonas explains to us, “Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow the essential capacity to connect with others”(Lowry 8). Some people in the community lacked the ability to have a spouse. Sometimes certain people either don't notice anyone marry or they don't match with anyone. In conclusion, Jonas’s community and modern society are the same and different. The three big differences are family, death, and marriage. Jonas has all of his decisions made for him. There is no way to make a Utopia, as not everyone wants the same thing.
Throughout the history of the world, there has been many societies. All these societies had similar structures and ideas, but they all are different by their own special traditions and ways of life. Similarly, both our society and the society in The Giver share similar ideas, but they are different in certain areas. For example, they both celebrate birthdays and have family units, but they have their own way of doing so. Based on the celebration of birthdays and the formation of family units, our society is better than the society in The Giver by Lois Lowry.
As Jonas receives these memories, he ponders how their community would be different if they could make more choices. For example, after the Giver transmits Jonas a memory of family, Jonas thinks how crazy it is that they have generations and he says about his community, “‘What if they were allowed to choose their own mate?’”...”’Or what if’”...”’they could choose their own jobs?’” (124). Jonas then thinks if people should make these choices, and things that could go wrong if they did. For instance, while he is thinking about how crazy these choices are, he says, “‘I can’t even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices’”(124). People in his Community don’t choose their own spouse, the Community leaders assign them a spouse and children if they want. Jonas’s Community is brain-washed into not having opinions or choices. Although they have no divorce and wrong choices, Jonas would rather have choices and a real
Citizens are engineered to never be alone, which removes responsibility and the need for family bonds, showing that independent thinking is replaced with the ideology of world leaders. Since technology has removed the ability to reproduce for citizens, this removes responsibility, allowing a person to act impulsively and create meaningless relationships which leads to unethical decisions. Likewise, in the Giver family units are preplanned and are limited to two children by the elders of society. When Jonas asks his father if he loved him, the father replies, saying, "I enjoy you. " The society is very structured and strict which shows that the bonds with family are insignificant as they have to speak with restrictions and not allowed to freely express any emotions.
First,in Jonas’s community they have complete control. They have control over the climate,the curfew,citizens choice of spouse,and the citizens who cannot keep their own kids. For example,the climate,if it were to be anything other than sunny their crops will die and there will be accidents on roads. On page 80 of The Giver it says,’’Climate control. Snow made growing food difficult,limited the agricultural periods. And unpredictable
“Critics and censors all agree that Jonas's situation in The Giver is horrifying. Through a series of shocking events, he discovers that...his people literally have limited vision and can not make decisions without the Giver's help” (Lord, Elyse). Being able to see different colors, Jonas thinks it would be nice if everyone could choose, which color shirt to wear in the morning. Jonas saw the importance of decision making when realizing it is essential to happiness. He notices, his people does not have the option of choice. They cannot see the red apple, the green grass, or the blue sky. There is only this sameness of black and white. Each year Jonas’s people follows the same concepts and routines, without any questions being asked. The option of choice was taken away from them hoping to build a utopian society. Jonas understands that having a choice helps to think for ourselves. Without it, in some ways life can be meaningless. In some ways the community as well as the chief elders, sees the Giver/receiver as a God. Reason being, the citizens, are only comfortable with things that are familiar to them. When not knowing how to deal with a situation, they come to the giver for advisement. He is familiar with all things known and unknown. Knowing this, they believe only he can truly give the right
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.
The Giver presents a community that appears to be perfect on the surface. Jonas's community is free of warfare, pain, sorrow and other bitterness we suffer in our society. The world seems to be secure and undergoes little conflict. Such a community seems flawless and is the idealistic society that we longed to live in. However , through Jonas's training, the imperfections of the Utopian community are revealed. The community allows little individual freedom and choice. In allowing only one person, the Receiver, to bear the memories of the world, the community frees itself from suffering and conflict. As a result, it gives up the ability to experience true feelings, passion, individual privacy, freedom and knowledge. To maintain the community's order, strict rules are applied to the inhabitants. "Releases" ( a less offensive term for kills) are performed to the citizens who jeopardize the stability and peace of the community. The inhabitants' careers and spouses are chosen by the Elders (or government).
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.
First of all I thought chapters 12-19 were really action packed when it came to memories. These chapters were not OMINOUS because it was really keeping you on your toes and, personally I thought this was the best section of chapters out of the entire book. There was so much more to these chapters because of all the terrible memories that Jonas received. The topics that were really interesting to me was specifically releasing twins,Rosemary and what releasing is. When I first thought of releasing, I thought of it as a specific place where the bad people become punished and the old go to a retirement home alive. Releasing is really just injecting people with a death needle. The quote I chose was "He killed it! My father killed it!" (150) I felt RUEFUL for Jonas because he saw his dad kill somebody without feeling a thing. I chose this quote because it really shows they have no choice and there emotionless. I would call these people robots because they don't know what they're doing. This quote also aroused a thinking question. How does no one feel sad for someone who just got injected and killed? I know in the book Lowry states
With seven point one two five billion people living on planet earth that perpetuates for an uncountable amount of different possible cultures. Culture is not always a designated group of people with a title, but the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by anything from language, social habits, cuisine, religion, music and arts. Culture is a very unique and thing and can be very valuable or restricting. Just a few unique examples of cultures are Amish culture, culture within the book known as the Giver, and even Cochrane, Alberta.
(MIP-1) Jonas starts learning that he is different from the rest, and he starts to ask a lot of questions. (SIP-A) Jonas starts seeing differently before he is even picked to be the Receiver, and so he starts having all of these questions that nobody an answer. (STEWE-1) At the beginning, Jonas talks to his family as if there wasn’t a such thing as animals, or other things because he doesn’t know anything about what life was like before the community, “‘Why do you think the visitors didn’t obey rules?’ Mother asked. Lily considered, and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. They acted like...like…’ ‘Animals?’ Jonas suggested. He laughed. ‘Thats right,’ Lily said, laughing too. ‘Like animals.’ Neither child knew what the word meant, exactly, but it
Alexander Fay Ms. Nazareth 7th ELA 18 March 2024 02:00 Afternoon Giver Essay Book vs Movie. Have you ever seen or read The Giver? If so, have you ever thought about which one is better? In both the movie and the book, it's all about the story of a teenage boy called Jonas who lives in this perfect community. Only after he is assigned his role in the community does he find that he is missing some crucial things.
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.
The story is about a boy named Jonas. Jonas lives in a community where everything is perfect, everything is the same and no one is allowed to brake the rules imposed by the Elders. The Elders are in charge of creating all the rules and basically ruled everyone’s lives.
In the end of the novel, Jonas finally gets what is going on. Jonas learns that releasing means death. So when a person gets released, they will get drugged with really bad drugs that can kill or maybe someone will kill you when you are a babie like what jonas dad did to gabriel’s brother. Because Jonas thinks this is wrong, he decides to run away from the city. Jonas gets a confused and scared look at his face when he learns that his father is killing inocent babies.