Discuss the main ideas from The Giver by Lois Lowry
The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry shows an imaginary world where all people live in harmony, but it’s too perfect to be true. There are many ideas discussed in it which attract the reader’s attention. The main ones are sameness, freedom and feelings.
As a start, the idea of sameness is widely discussed in the novel as a part of the structure of the community. Firstly, people from the community dress the same way. For example, every person wears a tunic which has the same color and style as the others(97). Moreover, children aged four, five and six all wear jackets, again identical(40). Secondly, everyone there goes through the same process of growing up. As an illustration, at the age of
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In the first place, it’s shown that the absence of emotions has positive and negative sides. For example, the people in the community don’t feel love, which deprives them of being connected to their families in a special way(127). However, they don’t feel emotional pain, too, which makes their life easier(110). Another key point is that they can feel frightened. For instance, Jonas remembers a situation in which he feels fear. This happened when he saw a plane that overflew the community by a mistake(1). Another example is the confession of Jonas that he felt scared during the ceremony while the Chief Elder was explaining to him about the pain he would have to get through(85). Finally, they are able to feel impatient. To demonstrate, Jonas’s father tells him that he felt like this when he was Eleven and waited for his ceremony(13). Furthermore, Lily fidgets impatiently when her mother ties her ribbons in her hair(40). The population in the novel is limited by negative feelings which makes their lives less complicated, but they aren’t able to feel positive feelings, so they can’t feel connected to the …show more content…
First thing to remember is that they don’t have the freedom of speech. For example, when somebody is released, people don’t have the right to say his name(140). Additionally, in the community one is obligated to say “I accept your apology” when a person tells them “I apologize”(3). Secondly, they don’t have the freedom to choose. The most compelling evidence is that when someone wants a sprouse, he has to apply for one, and a committee decides who is the right person for him(102). Furthermore, when a child turns twelve, he is assigned a profession which again, he doesn’t have the right to select(50). Finally, the people from the community can’t decide how to live. As an illustration, they are limited by having only two children(8). Moreover, at every stage of their life, they live in a different dwelling - to emphasize, when their children leave them, they are assigned to live in the Home of Childless adults(102). Lack of freedom limitates people’s individualities and transforms them into easy-controlled
The main point Perry stresses in Population 485, is the important role community plays in helping a person feel at home. The definition argument plays an important role in conveying Perry’s message of the importance of community, using both the operational and example definition methods. The example definition method is exemplified numerous times throughout the story, as Michael Perry uses his own personal examples to display how crucial those in his community are in providing him with a sense of belonging. Additionally, Perry employs the operational definition method by including tragedy in the majority of his stories. The inclusion of tragedy in his stories create allow readers to conclude that tragedy brings people closer together. While this may be true in this case, tragedy does not always bring people closer together. Belonging, in the eyes of Michael Perry, is the feeling of finding family inside his community, rather than simply knowing the people in his community.
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.
In The Giver, a narrative by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s father illustrates his feelings during his Ceremony of Twelve and Jonas tells about his own feelings concerning the forthcoming event. In the text it states, “‘But to be honest, Jonas,’ his father said, ‘for me there was not the element of suspense that there is with your ceremony. Because I was already fairly certain of what my Assignment was to be,’”(Lowry, paragraph 3). This segment of text elucidates the reason of Jonas’s father’s lack of surprise of his Assignment. As stated above, Jonas’s father was already certain of his Assignment, which he continues to explain to be a Nurturer. Jonas’s father explains that as a result of the love he showed all the Newchildren and the time he spent at
Lois Lowry describes a futuristic world with controlled climate, emotions, way of living and eliminates suffering in her book The Giver. The main character, Jonas, shows the reader what his world is like by explaining a very different world from what society knows today. Everything is controlled, and no one makes choices for themselves or knows of bad and hurtful memories. There is no color, and everything is dull. As he becomes the Receiver who has to know all the memories and pass them down to the next Receiver, he realizes his world needs change. 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.
No world can be perfect, for the only way to have an ideal world is not to have a world at all. The reader soon discovers this in Lois Lowry’s publication The Giver. In this book, a boy named Jonas is taken through a journey in which he shapes his destiny through decisions he makes and trials he face in a supposed ideal world. One, by reading the book, uncovers the fact that this supposedly perfect world, because of its’ hold on an individuals emotion, the elders recanting people’s unalienable rights to privacy, the government employing an unrestrained grip of control, and the community’s over obsessive view on order, is actually an example of perfection taking a bad turn.
This community is not a usual everyday community. Here people don’t have to worry about poverty, crime, starvation and basically any typical world problems. Although, this community still has many problems. People still think this is a wonderful place to live but this community is a dystopia. In Mrs. Lowry’s book “The Giver” she explains how families function here as well as the both negative and positive point of views for family.
Imagine a place where there is no color, no choice, a place where individuality and freedom has been traded for sameness and security. Lowry has created such a place in the novel The Giver. This place, or rather community, is presumed to be in the future and is supposed to be a utopia where everyone conforms to the rules. The citizens have no connection with their past or what they have given up. There are only two people who can remember. One is the Giver and the other is the Receiver of Memory. These two people are the main characters in this story. The Giver is an old man that the council of elders turns to when they have a problem. He listens to their proposals and then tells them what they should do by basing his decisions on the
Like any child in the community, Jonas is uncomfortable with the attention he receives when he is singled out as the new Receiver, preferring to blend in with his friends. Once Jonas begins his training with the Giver, however, the tendencies he showed in his earlier life—his sensitivity, his heightened perceptual powers, his kindness to and interest in people, his curiosity about new experiences, his honesty, and his high intelligence—make him extremely absorbed in the memories the Giver has to transmit. In turn, the memories, with their rich sensory and emotional experiences, enhance all of Jonas’s unusual qualities. Within a year of training, he becomes extremely sensitive to beauty, pleasure, and suffering, deeply loving toward his family and the Giver, and fiercely passionate about his new beliefs and feelings. Things about the community that used to be mildly perplexing or troubling are now intensely frustrating or depressing, and Jonas’s inherent concern for others and desire for justice makes him yearn to make changes in the community, both to awaken other people to the richness of life and to stop the casual cruelty that is practiced in the community.
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
The emotions throughout the society are shared with the individuals throughout their confusing times, and by their shared experiences. The times spent together of the characters brought the individuals closer together through the dark negative times, and through the light positive situations of society. The confusing part of peoples lives are brought together and are shown throughout the status of society. The stories of the “Encounter,” “Eveline,” and “The Dead” come together with similar experiences of situations of light and dark. The society bring the individuals closer together by shared times.
to become secretive with each other which starts to break their relationship. This is seen specifically after the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth starts to control Macbeth more and influences his decisions way more than she did before. Throughout this scene it is easy to tell that Lady Macbeth currently had more control in the relationship and had more power over Macbeth himself.
Imagine a world with no color, weather, or sunshine. The Giver is a book by Lois Lowry and is based on a utopia where no one makes choices, feels pain, or has emotions. The book takes place in a community where all of this is true. The story is about an 11-year old soon to be 12 year-old named Jonas who is unsure of which job he will get when he is 12. Jonas changes throughout The Giver and as a result, tries to change the community.
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.
Picture a place where everyone is safe and nobody is burdened with decisions. The Giver is a fictional novel written by Lois Lowry and is about a young boy named Jonas who grows up in a community that has Sameness. Sameness in the community allows very little differences by taking away changes in weather, colors, and people’s characteristics such as eye and hair color. The community also makes all decisions up to a small number of the population, including all the jobs that people receive. Sameness in a community is an advantage because nobody is discriminated against and everyone is safe.
So he has feelings now. Jonas was also becoming worrying because things have been starting to get a bit sketchy to him. Like when he was greeted to a locked door. All the doors in the community were never locked so that was one moment when Jonas was uneazed.