Imagine a society where everyone is the same. In this imaginary society, everyone wears the same clothes, follows the same rules, and has a predetermined life. A community just like that lives inside of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and this lack of individuality shows throughout the whole book. This theme is demonstrated through the control of individual appearance, behavior, and ideas. To start, in chapter three, the narrator mentions the loudspeakers in the community and said that announcements include things such as, “ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO FEMALES UNDER NINE THAT HAIR RIBBONS ARE TO BE NEATLY TIED AT ALL TIMES,” found on page twenty-three. This small reminder to all girls under nine years old about their apparel is only the …show more content…
For instance, the narrator says when talking about Jonas, “He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie,” (page one hundred eighty-two on the digital version). This is example of conformity is shown by how obedient the citizens in The Giver are to this rule. This blind obedience covers up the possibility to be an individual by eliminating the freedom to say whatever one would like and letting it represent themselves, whether it be negative or positive. Another thing noticed is in chapter one when the narrator mentions the telling of feelings, which is when every family member has to explain how they It is at this time when everyone is behaving the same way that there is no room for differences in behavior (individuality). It is possible for a person to show who they are without telling their feelings, but when they do this, they become like everyone else and lose their uniquity. In conclusion, the ability to express one’s self is removed when rules involving behavior are put in …show more content…
Along with eliminating color, the community removed the memories for the community members (other than the Giver and the receiver of memory) because the people who created the community did not want the community members to feel pain or anything negative, which can be found in chapter thirteen. People could have had different opinions that could have caused disagreement about certain events in the past, so they gave memories to the receiver, which also destroyed opinions about everything else. These ousted memories included opinions that showed who people were through their beliefs and ideas, and all that was left was conformity. In short, the community was people who could not show who they truly were because they did not have the capability to see colors or obtain
“How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made.” (Lowry, 48) In Lowry’s novel, The Giver, eliminating choices and feelings caused their society to be worse than our society today because you don’t have any choices and you don’t get to experience the feeling of joy and happiness.
“But that evening everything changed. All of it---all the things they had thought through so meticulously---fell apart”(Lowry 204). In The Giver written by Lois Lowry, a bad community is created, and the main character tries to fix it in the end. The main character ,Jonas, changes when he is no longer a rule follower and figures out what release is.
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.
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.
Lowry writes The Giver in the dystopian genre to convey a worst-case scenario as to how modern society functions. A dystopia is an “illusion of a perfect society” under some form of control which makes criticism about a “societal norm” (Wright). Characteristics of a dystopian include restricted freedoms, society is under constant surveillance, and the citizens live in a dehumanized state and conform to uniform expectations (Wright). In The Giver, the community functions as a dystopian because everyone in the community conforms to the same rules and expectations. One would think that a community living with set rules and expectations would be better off, but in reality, it only limits what life has to offer. Instead, the community in the novel is a dystopian disguised as a utopian, and this is proven to the audience by the protagonist, Jonas. Jonas is just a norma...
“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.
Imagine a world where Sameness has a part in everything. Where everyone sees the same colors, knows all the same things, and more. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character, Jonas, has to live in a world like this. As Jonas lives in his community where he grows by taking risks, he gains knowledge through memories and obtains intense emotions.
The author Lois Lowry gets rids of anxiety, agony, disabilities, conflict, and hatred; the things our society would want to get rid of in our own. "How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made." ( Lowry 48) The people in the community has to be in order to maintain the peace and order of their society, in “The Giver” the community members have to submit to strict rules governing their behavior, relationships, and language. Freedoms and strong emotions add chaos to society. In “The Giver”, "He was free to enjoy the breathless glee that overwhelmed him: the speed, the clear cold air, the total silence, the feeling of balance and excitement and peace." (Lois 82) “The Giver” has the memory of freedom, and also the pain and conflicts that the human 's choice and emotion often have caused. "Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others." (Lois 95) The Community members, though they are happy, they don’t know the basic freedoms that our own society values. In Lois’s novels, societies that might seem to be flawless because all the citizens are healthy or clearly happy are revealed to be flawed because they limit the freedoms of the person. Lois Lowry book warn the reader, Don’t let this happen to your society. The lesson of “The Giver” is more optimistic than “Station Eleven.” Yet, there is fear in both novels. Both books, they give a message to the readers and leave the readers
In The Giver the leaders in the community are afraid to give people too many choices. They never get go beyond their small community they have never experienced real life or the real world. They have never experienced snow, rain, or sunshine ever. They have never experienced color all they see is black and white. The don’t know what conflict is like because it never happens. I know that my life isn’t perfect and yes, sometimes I have conflict with people, but it makes you a stronger and better person. They are closed off from the world and they will never know what real life is really like.
...t of change for the Community because of and how, through Jonas’s decisions, it could positively impact the Community’s way of life by letting the people exercise free choice in how they lived their lives. In the novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry implies that Civil Disobedience is sometimes necessary in order to improve the society’s way of life. This topics is seen all around the world today, people use civil disobedience every day when they stand up for what they believe in and we will continue to until the world is to their standards. The Giver once said “There’s nothing we can do. It’s always been this way. Before me, before you, before the ones who came before you. Back and back and back.” but Jonas proved him wrong. He showed him that there could be change even after all that time and I hope that maybe our world will have someone to prove all the cynics wrong too.
Lois Lowry’s The Giver considers something the world takes for granted: personal empowerment. These simple day-to-day decisions create what the world is. Without self-empowerment and right to believe in a personal decision, what is the human race? The world can only imagine, as Lois Lowry does in The Giver. She asks: What if everything in life was decided by others? What if spouses, children, the weather, education, and careers were chosen based upon the subjects’ personality? What if it didn’t matter what the subject thought? Jonas, the Receiver, lives here. He eats, sleeps, and learns in his so-called perfect world until he meets the Giver, an aged man, who transmits memories of hope, pain, color, and love. Jonas then escapes his Community with a newborn child (meant to be killed), hoping to find a life of fulfillment. On the way, he experiences pain, sees color, and feels love. Irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing are three literary devices used to imply the deeper meaning of The Giver.
Difference was not celebrated in the world of The Giver in fact it was the opposite. Jonas once said “I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feel strange and stupid”, the idea that difference is not normal shows how Jonas’ coming of age period of his life would be difficult. Other children in Jonas’ community could tell where there assignment (career) would be, he did not. He did not know where he fit in the world he was “living” in. He had a quality that was not possessed by any, all except the Giver, and it was individuality. He knew he was different and he knew he had no direction in his life. Because he was different, an individual, he was chosen to be the new receiver of memory. When Jonas was given his rules for being the new receiver of memory, they exempted him from foundational rules the communities lived by, making him different, an individual. Near the conclusion of Lowry’s book, Jonas has a revelation “If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” Finally, Lowry shows the reader that Jonas has individuality and he chooses to accept it because it will mean he can be different and not do the same monotonous tasks everyone else has to do. Freedom in the Giver is clearly shown as a supressed
Perfection. At least that’s what they think it is. In The Giver, by Lois Lowry, the community is supposedly “perfect”, where no one knows the truth, except the protagonists, Jonas and The Giver. Jonas’ community is far from perfect and is a dystopian society. They severely punish people for breaking minor rules and in an unfair manner, they take important memories from the citizens, and most importantly they kill babies that don’t meet their standards.
Even though both the society in The Giver by Lois Lowry and modern society are both unique in their own ways, our society is a better society to live in. Our society gives us more freedom to choose for our own benefits and
“The giver” is written from the point of view of Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy living in a futuristic society that has eliminated all pain, fear, war, and hatred. There is no prejudice, because everyone looks and acts essentially the same and everyone is unmistakably polite. The society has also eliminated any form of choice: at the age of twelve every member of the community is assigned a job based on their abilities and interests. Marriage is also controlled, as citizens had to apply for compatible spouses. When their children are grown, family units disperse and adults live together with Childless Adults until they are too old to function in the society.