With Happiness Comes Pain in Lois Lowry's The Giver

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Imagine living in world where there are no feelings, color, or pain, and everyone is the same besides you. Jonas realized he was living in a world without color, pain, or feelings. Without color, pain, and feeling Jonas wasn’t able to express true happiness, and he therefore left the community. “Lois Lowry’s childhood escapades inspired her books,”(Dellinger). Also Lois loved photography and it resulted in the cover of The Giver, which is a photo of a blind painter. This connects to the book because no one can see in color besides the giver and the receiver, which is Jonas. Lois Lowry uses the literary elements foreshadowing, symbolism, and imagery to express the theme that one cannot have happiness without pain, in the book The Giver. To begin the author uses the literary element, foreshadowing, to show that pain comes with happiness. The foreshadowing in The Giver allows you to predict what might happen later in the book. One example of foreshadowing is when Jonas didn’t take the pill. When Jonas did not take the pill, it foreshadowed rebellion in the future. Jonas rebels by going elsewhere and taking a baby that is supposed to be killed. Another example of foreshadowing is when Jonas bathes the old lady, and it shows his love for grandparents. "He liked the feeling of safety here in this warm and quiet room; he liked the expression of trust on the woman’s face as she lay in the water unprotected, exposed, and free," (Lowry, 30). The last example is when Jonas hears about an eleven going elsewhere. "He wondered what lay in the far distance where he had never gone,”(Lowry, 106). Jonas planned to escape elsewhere, and he did. As Jonas rides down the sled he is able to see the lights, the different colors. Jonas has to escape th... ... middle of paper ... ...sewhere, and the community has to face the memories. Works Cited Ebscohost. N.p.: Patterson, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. . Gale. N.p.: Dellinger, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. . Gale. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Jan. 2014. . Lowry, Lois. The Giver. N.p.: Houghtin Mifflin Harcourt, 1993. Print.

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