The Strange Utopia of The Giver
Imagine living in a world where you can't choose your job, where at the age of twelve you are assigned an occupation by some group of elders. Imagine a world in which you can't choose that special person to be your wife or husband, a world where nobody is special. Visualize a place where you can't have your own children, where you have to take care of somebody else's children. In The Giver by Louis Lowry, this place exists every day. It's a perfect world, a utopia.
A job is, for many people, one of the most important parts of their life. If it's so important, you have to enjoy it, and to enjoy it, you have to choose it yourself. In this "utopia," created in The Giver you don't get to do that. Other people choose the activity you are going to do for the rest of your life. For example, Fiona was assigned Caretaker of The Old, a job she really wanted, but don't you think that maybe later in her life, she could change her mind and not want to do her job anymore? She can't do that because she lives in a world where she doesn't have a choice, where she can't run her own life. "You have the power to think what you want. No matter what the circumstance is." No one can tell you what to think, you have a mind of your own, and repressing your thoughts won't do any good at all. I want to give you a quote from the book. " I heard about a guy who was absolutely sure he was going to be an engineer and instead he was assigned sanitation laborer. He jumped into the river and swam to the closest community, no one saw him again." This demonstrates that the elders can be wrong. People defending Sameness can say that all the jobs are made for the people getting them and that they will like them and be an active part of the community. I am going to respond to that with a life story. Before I was twelve, all I wanted to do is be an architect. I always spent my time sketching buildings and structures, and if I would have been assigned a job it would have been that of an architect. Later when I turned 13, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer; I don't know what made me change my mind, but the point is, this can happen to anyone and it demonstrates that people can be wrong, even the Elders. People change over time. As people change, their choices change. If this is true, shouldn't we be free to demonstrate when we change our minds with actions?
Oscar Wilde once said, "A world without love is like a sunless garden where flowers are dead." Picture a world where you can't feel anything for anyone, where you can't love your friends or your parents, where you can't have a girlfriend because you are assigned a wife. The first human principle is that of choice. In this case the choice of the person who will be next to you for the rest of your life. The premise of the community is that people can be perfectly matched, but as I mentioned before, people can change their minds and likings from one day to another. They can start to dislike each other. In life, sometimes two people think they are made for each other and get married, but after a few years, sometimes after decades, they get divorced. Why? Because they've changed and they don't longer want to be together. A very good example of incompatibility is my parents. My father is twenty years older than my mother, they grew up in different places, at different times and they don't like the same things. They have been happily married for 22 years and they haven't had a single serious problem in those years. This union wouldn't have had a chance in Jonas' community because they simply wouldn't have been assigned to each other. Love like my parents have, is the essence of the world. Imagine life without it.
I know you have witnessed people who have kids tell stories about the pregnancy, the naming and the excitement. All of them, moments of immense happiness. In a world of Sameness, there would be no happiness and no excitement. Why not? Because children would be assigned to families. In the book, you can apply for a baby. How inhumane is that? Babies are taken away from their mothers at birth. Every birthmother has three babies and she gets to keep...... none of them. Would you like to have somebody else's children? Would you like to live where kids are treated like objects? Would you like to live in a place where if twins are born one of them has to die, not to mention the killing of "sick" children? I once read in a Reader's Digest a story about a baby who was born sick and had no chance of survival except a donation from a family member. None of his parents was compatible with him. They had to have another child; luckily, she was born compatible with her brother. He survived after almost two years of anguish. This child would have been released, this child wouldn't have survived in Lowry's idea of a "utopia". I am another example of that. I was born premature and was sick. I got pneumonia when I was only two weeks old and I would have died if it weren't for my pediatrician. In Sameness, there would have been no attempt to save me and I would have been released. Life would have gone on with out me, but maybe, if I would have been killed things wouldn't have been the same.
Job assigning, spouse assigning, children assigning, It all comes down to choice; to liberty and human principles. Is utopia a place where crimes against humanity are committed? Is utopia a place where people can't choose what to do with their lives? Is a utopia a place where there is no love? Every attempt humans have made to reach a perfect world, has been pointless. Perfection doesn't exist. Utopias don't exist. Is the destiny of the human race to end up like this? In a world where all of our instinctive principles, like love and liberty of thought, have been lost. Lets stop and think about where we are heading. Massive destruction is not only caused by wars, it is also caused in other ways. It is caused when human principles are repressed. We can massively destroy ourselves by destroying love, choice and liberty.
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