In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, a boy named Jonas faces lots of situations that are don’t result the way he wished. Even though many of them have emotions, Jonas’s are the most important. Through the novel, Jonas has mixed emotions which result in many bad situations.
Everything that Jonas has to go through is hard for a young boy to experience. Jonas had to experience elephants dying and a heartbreaking war. We know that Jonas was going through many emotions with the war and with elephants dying, lead him to feel sadness and uncomfortable. For example, it stated, “From the distance, Jonas could hear the thud of cannons. Overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant”
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Sometimes there are emotions that he has to cope with that he can’t get advice from because he is not allowed to share certain situations or problems about his job. For example, in the novel, it states, “He was eager for whatever experience would come next. But he had, suddenly, so many questions” (Lowry 105). At the time, Jonas wanted to ask his family the questions he had about his new job, but one of the rules stated that he is not allowed to talk or ask questions about his job, to his family. This was a disappointment to Jonas, but he knew that he would either have to go to The Giver for advice or someone that he was able to talk to, about his job. So, Jonas went and asked his questions but still found it difficult being able to share all his emotions through the questions he had. After asking his questions to The Giver, he got his answers but was still having trouble thinking about how he was going to have questions in the future and would have to keep them a secret. This situation just added more emotions to Jonas and will now affect him later on. These emotions from the questions are some emotions that he cannot
Jonas, the protagonist, is assigned the job of holding memories for the community. This is so that not everyone has to experience sad or painful memories. The Giver's job is to transmit these memories to Jonas and, in doing so, reveals the wonders of love, and family, and pain, and sorrow to this young boy. Jonas begins to resent the rules of sameness and wants to share these joys with his community. After receiving his first memory, Jonas says, "I wish we had those things, still." (p. 84)
The book The Giver is about a Boy named Jonas who lives in a community. He lives with his little sister Lily and his mom and dad. He is 11 years old. In the beginning he tries describing the way he feels. He uses frightened but then realizes that frightened isn’t the right word to use. He says that frightened was the way he felt when an aircraft flew over the community after he knew that no aircrafts can fly over them. As he was at dinner with his family, they were sharing their feelings from that day. Lily describes her feelings as “very angry”. She was angry because a visitor boy that was at her daycare was cutting everyone in line for the slide. Then her father explains to her that maybe the little boy didn’t know that the slide had rules.
When he lies for the first time, Jonas does it to defend love. Jonas realizes that no one in the Community can be truly happy when they are ignorant to love. The dialogue between characters is very important to the development of the plot, but Lowry additionally uses Jonas’
Jonas decides to leave and change the lives of his people so that they can experience the truth. “The Giver rubbed Jonas’s hunched shoulders… We’ll make a plan” (155). Their plan involves leaving sameness and heading to Elsewhere, where Jonas knows the memories can be released to the people. He has a connection with Gabe, a special child who has experienced the memories, unlike the rest of the community. Jonas has a strong love for Gabe, and he longs to give him a better life. “We’re almost there, Gabriel” (178). Even with a sprained ankle, Jonas keeps pushing forward because he wants everyone to experience what The Giver has given him. He wants them to have a life where the truth is exposed. His determination allows him to make a change for a greater future in his community. This proves that Jonas has the strength to change his community for the
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. When he turns twelve, his job for the rest of his life is decided as the Receiver. His job is to receive all the memories the previous Receiver has held on to. While this is beneficial for Jonas as he is able to leave the society and his job of the Receiver behind and get freedom, the community is left without someone to take the memories from The Giver.
...the people in the community to understand the memories that Jonas will leave behind. On the other hand, Jonas takes courage to leave the only way to live that he knows and to go out into the unknown with only a little bit of food and having to take care of himself and Gabe. Experiences, understanding, and love through pain are what places Jonas into the categories of selfish and selfless. Lowry uses “The Giver” to give the reader a connection to make between modern society and the community. As the ending of the inspiring novel could be Jonas dying or any other type of depressing tragedy, the author’s intent could just as likely be for the reader to draw his/her own conclusion. So, as Lowry could be asking “What connection do you make with the community and modern time?” Or “What do you think happens?”, she could just as well be asking “What do you want to happen?”
For example, when Jonas asked the Giver what happened to the things he had seen the Giver replied “‘..They made conveyance of goods unwieldy. Trucks; buses. Slowed them down. So- Sameness’”(Lowry 106). The Community went to sameness because things got hard, Jonas starts to figure out some of the reasons they went to sameness. Another example, when Jonas learns about pain and other things he asks the Giver “‘ Why do you and I have to hold these memories’”. The Giver responds with “‘It gives us wisdom,Without wisdom I could not fulfill my function of advising the Committee of Elders when they call upon me’”(Lowry 140). Jonas learns that even though his training is tough, he will need that training late in future to help others. Overall, no one ever learns anything without asking questions and that’s exactly what Jonas
I liked the feeling of love... I wish we still had that... Of course...I can see that it was a dangerous way to live'" (126). Jonas greatly enjoys the emotions that accompany life Elsewhere, although he recognizes their inherent risks. Using the knowledge he has accumulated from the Giver's memories, Jonas wisely concludes that the hurt and pain are worthwhile because of the good that also emerges when life is lived
The Giver: Analysis of Jonas On the surface, Jonas is like any other eleven-year-old boy living in his community. He seems more intelligent and perceptive than many of his peers, and he thinks more seriously than they do about life, worrying about his own future as well as his friend Asher’s. He enjoys learning and experiencing new things: he chooses to volunteer at a variety of different centers rather than focusing on one, because he enjoys the freedom of choice that volunteer hours provide. He also enjoys learning about and connecting with other people, and he craves more warmth and human contact than his society permits or encourages. The things that really set him apart from his peers—his unusual eyes, his ability to see things change in a way that he cannot explain—trouble him, but he does not let them bother him too much, since the community’s emphasis on politeness makes it easy for Jonas to conceal or ignore these little differences.
Jonas is the protagonist in The Giver. He changes from being a typical twelve-year-old boy to being a boy with the knowledge and wisdom of generations past. He has emotions that he has no idea how to handle. At first he wants to share his changes with his family by transmitting memories to them, but he soon realizes this will not work. After he feels pain and love, Jonas decides that the whole community needs to understand these memories. Therefore Jonas leaves the community and his memories behind for them to deal with. He hopes to change the society so that they may feel love and happiness, and also see color. Jonas knows that memories are hard to deal with but without memories there is no pain and with no pain, there is no true happiness.
Evelyn Sanchez (esanchez47@student.cccd.edu) Professor Leighton English 143, Final Essay 21 May 21, 2014 What the heck happened to Jonas? Topic #2. 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.
Jonas hates how his society decides to keep memories a secret from everyone. Jonas says: “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared” (Lowry 154). Jonas feels that memories, whether it be good or bad, should be shared with everyone. Furthermore, memories allow the community to gain wisdom from remembering experiences of the past. As for The Giver, The Giver disagrees with how the community runs things. He believes that memories should be experienced by everyone as well, because life is meaningless without memories. The Giver says: “There are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable–so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen [...] It’s just that… without memories, it’s all meaningless. They gave that burden to me” (Lowry 103). The Giver is burdened with the responsibility to not share memories even though that is what he feels the community deserves. In addition, he believes the community lives a very monotonous life where nothing ever changes. Everything is meaningless without memories because the community does not know what it is like to be human without feelings. Overall, Jonas and The Giver’s outlooks on their “utopian” society change as they realize that without
Movie The Giver, directed by Phillip Noyce, is based on Lois Lowry’s book and tells the story how the perfect world would look like. Where everyone is happy, safe, and there is no pain. Jonas is the main character and I will be analyzing how his values and beliefs changes though the movie. This movie is interesting because everyone lives within boundaries where past memory does exist just for the chosen ones. Jonas is one of those people who learns past wisdom and suffers while trying to understand what is the right thing to do.
The Giver starts off as the ordinary story of an eleven-year-old boy named Jonas. When we meet the protagonist, he is apprehensive about the Ceremony of Twelve, at which he will be assigned his job. Although he has no clue as to what job he might be assigned, he is astonished when he is selected to be the Receiver of Memory. He learns that it is a job of the highest honor, one that requires him to bear physical pain of a magnitude beyond anyone’s experience.
Jonas always tells his dreams. He always was there for chastisement. He always shared his feelings at the evening meal. He also always took his pill every morning. “Now he swallowed the pill his mother handed him.”(Page 38). By the end of the book Jonas is rebellious. He stops taking pills for emotions that he is supposed to take everyday. Jonas stays at the Giver’s house when he sees his father kill a baby. Jonas also tries to escape from the community when Giver creates a plan to escape from the community which Jonas barely follows because of Gabe’s release. “But your role now is to escape.” (Page 162). This means that Jonas has to escape and the Giver must stay to help the community after he is gone.