In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the receivers are the only people who have feelings and memories. The elders are the people who choose what the best is for their people in the community and sometimes they go to the receiver for help on making the right decisions. The people from the community do not see color, or have freedom on making a decision for them. There is no love, feelings, and grandparents. Jonas is assigned to be the next receiver of the community; He was trained by the giver, who transfers memories of the pain and pleasures of life, who also shows him the truth and reality that is hidden to the community. Jonas’s community does not represent the ideal of society because there are no choices or distinctions between men and women. This people from the community are assigned to a role in the community, where they do it until they are old and sent to the House of the old and wait for their release. There is one positive thing about Jonas’s community. The community is the people from the community are given the basics need for their survival. “He watched while Mother tidied the remains of the morning meal and places the tray by the front door for the collection crew” (36-37). This statement had given us the idea that the whole community is being feed. The elder of the community, gives each family unit the same things so they all could have equal conditions, and evict social classes in the community. In Jonas's community, there is no distinctions between man and women since they are born they are given numbers, and until they are assign to their parents they are given a name. Jonas was taught to ignore the differences between people. Even was not one of the rules by the elders and considered by the people in the com... ... middle of paper ... ... all aspects of life were controlled, and all things were equal. In the community, there is not freedom of choices at all except for choosing where to do their community help; all decisions are made by the elders. It has been discussed how Jonas’s community do not represent a perfect or ideal society. One of the main reasons given that if a citizen in the community does not do what they elders tell them to do; they are going to be release, meaning kill them. Some of the other things mentioned are the types of things that they do not have freedom of choice. Jonas’s society was to believe to be the ideal of society having given the basics things for their survive, but at the end it reveals that the people in the community are not being told the truth about the things the elders do, or knew for examples the colors, feelings and all the things that were before sameness.
Jonas and his family lived in the future in a community called "Sameness", where there is no pain, color, choices nor memories.
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
The Giver is actually one of my all-time favorite books, so I’ve looked into why she left the book so inconclusive in the past. The Giver is basically about a boy named Jonas who lives in a perfect society. He lives in a household with his two parents and his little sister Lilly. When he becomes a 12, he goes through a huge ceremony and all the elders assign them their jobs. In this community, there is no lying, stealing, racism, pain, sunlight or color. Jonas was chosen to be The Receiver, and he didn’t know what to do because this job was such a big deal. Jonas then goes through training with the current Receiver, who is now The Giver. Training consists of The Giver passing down the memories from when the community was not what it is today. Memories that are passed down are things that are normal to us. Memories of sun, snow, pain, and sorrow.
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.
And choose wrong?” (P.98). From reading this, I feel that the community was able to control problems such as divorce, rape, teen pregnancy, and AIDS. They all are given a life that is predictable, orderly and painless. Mostly, they have no memory or experience. In reality, we learn from our mistakes to be better each day. Experience is the best teacher in the world; unless one goes through sorrow, he or she will never know how it feels. “Warmth, Jonas replied and happiness. And let me think. Family, that it was a celebration of some sort, a holiday. And something else I can’t get the word for it. Jonas hesitated; I certainly liked the memory, though. I couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, The Giver told him the feeling that was so strong in the room is love” (P.125). Family in the novel is described as a group of people that have a unit or bond that they share each day together.
“The Giver” a novel by Lois Lowry (1993), is an, engaging science fiction tale that provides the reader with examples of thought provoking ethical and moral quandaries. It is a novel geared to the young teenage reader but also kept me riveted. Assigning this novel as a class assignment would provide many opportunities for teachers and students to discuss values and morals.
...nts to pick his own spouse. Jonas is tired of sameness and little choices. “What if… he could choose? Instead of sameness”(pg98). He wanted to be free of sameness. Louis Lowry made it clear through Jonas that freedom of choice is a lot more important then sameness.
To begin with, though strict rules and rituals executed in Jonas's community are essential to an orderly society, they can also efface villagers human rights including individuality, dominating in villagers lives instead of supervising them. Under strict laws such as release and stirring reports, the villagers in Jonas's community are deprived of their individual uniqueness and become identical. For example, as shown at the beginning of the book, For a contributing citizen to be released from the
Jonas was an obedient kid and mature person, he was also clever and always obeyed the rules in his community. The only thing he was worried about was if he would have a good job. Jonas viewed his society the way everyone else did , but it changed when he first experienced his transference of the memories .
Jonas’ community chooses Sameness rather than valuing individual expression. Although the possibility of individual choice sometimes involves risk, it also exposes Jonas to a wide range of joyful experiences from which his community has been shut away. Sameness may not be the best thing in the community because Jonas expresses how much he feels like Sameness is not right and wants there to be more individuality. Giver leads him to understand both the advantages and the disadvantages of personal choice, and in the end, he considers the risks worth the benefits. “Memories are forever.”
Jonas gets access to many things in his community.For instance, Jonas’s rules said “You may lie.”(65)Jonas was allowed to lie to other people if he did not want to answer truthfully.One detail from the text is ”You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.” (65)Jonas could ask any question to any person he wanted and would get an answer no matter what.The author stated that “There must have been hundreds-perhaps thousands- of books, their titles embossed in shiny letters.” (71)Jonas has access to all the books in the annex room, unlike the other people in his community.For example ”The training required of you involves pain.”(59)The training has pain, but it’s so that the rest of the community doesn’t have to experience it.
Once Jonas gets his new job as the new receiver he receives his rules for during training, some of the rules on his rule sheet raises questions about his society, and once he has more experience, more and more questions pop up about his society. Jonas also starts to realize that he does not fit in liker his friend Asher. It was the sort of thing one didn't ask a friend about because you might have fallen into the uncomfortable category of 'being different'. Asher took a pill every morning, Jonas, did not (38).” This is the stage were Jonas is starting to realize that he does not fit in, because his friend Asher takes his pills like everybody else his age, but ten there is Jonas who does not take his pills, and this is the point in the book were Jonas starts to go downhill on the whole fitting in thing. Jonas is now questioning the society he use to trust, because he does not like the thought of lying and he is afraid that other people received the same rules. "Now Jonas had a thought that he never had before. This new thought was frightening. What if others-adults- had, upon becoming twelves, received in their instructions vote same terrifying sentence (71)”. Jonas is again questioning his society. He is questioning whether everybody has the same rule in their book of rules, if they can lie. Jonas also wants to make decisions and his society does not allow the people in the community to make decisions, so that
“Climate Control. Snow made growing food difficult, limited the agricultural periods. And unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible at times. It wasn’t a practical thing, it became obsolete when we went to Sameness” (83-84). The words of the Giver point out that sameness would help the community to produce more food. Choosing sameness had many cons, people are killing babies to keep others comfortable and Jonas starts to become so distressed he makes plans to leave. Sameness was a mistake from the beginning, for the way people
Community Jonas lives could be described as a perfect society. The move starts in black and white, making everyone look the same, and confirming that differences were not allowed. There were no losers or winners and words like fear, pain, envy, and