The Giver Research Paper

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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 …show more content…

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

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