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Exploring the character of the giver
Critical review of the giver
Exploring the character of the giver
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Have you ever imagined what it would be like without emotion? A colorless community, dominated by beings who keep the past out of your reach? A world without… Love? The Giver introduces us to a supposed utopia that is heavily deprived of knowledge from the past. We meet Jonas, a twelve with unusual eyes, as he faces his new task as the Receiver of Memory and realizes that the community he grew up in is far from perfect. The Giver shows us the connections and relationships that Jonas builds and shares with the community, as his relationships before his assignment change during and after his training. Prior to the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is depicted as an innocent, rule-following citizen in his community. During that time, he is shown To the general community, the role of the Receiver of Memory is mysterious and well respected. However, Jonas is left confused and he starts to feel different. The only person whom Jonas can talk to is the Giver, the only person who will understand. This understanding starts to build the connection between the Giver and Jonas. Jonas's initial surprise is shown when the Giver asks how he feels after transferring the first memory to him. His reply was, "Surprised". Going further into the story, Jonas finds himself realizing that he is now different, and it "made him feel desperately lonely". He eventually asks the Giver, "Why do you and I have to hold these memories?" When Jonas was first introduced to concepts that nobody but the Reciever of Memory understands, for example, color and love, loneliness and pain, his innocence begins to fade as he does. This is when he starts to see flaws in the community that he grew up in and realizes that is actually not as perfect as he was taught to think. As stated before, the only person who has the capability to understand the situation Jonas is currently in, which strengthens the relationship between Jonas and the Giver, the only person that Jonas is able to vent
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)
What are memories to you? In the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry. There is a boy his name is Jonas. He is the Receiver of Memories. Jonas experiences the memories over the course of the book. Memories help us understand there are consequences to your actions. Although some readers may believe that memories are not important. The memories Jonas had helped him with the journey at the end of the book.
“Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given.” said David Levithan. In her dystopian novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry is able to convey the same idea as this quote. In this book, people created the Community in which the members are in a supposedly safe and happy environment. The Elders choose Jonas, the main character, to be the next Receiver of Memory and his training helps him to experience the past and see the deep flaws in the Community.
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.
So all the memories everyone had from the past has now created a world that is today, enjoyable. “Call me the Giver.” (Lowry 110). Quoted by the only old man who holds all the memories from years and years of the past to give to the new Receiver, which is Jonas. It is not just the happiness of past memories holding on throughout lives. But pain is the biggest part of memory that anyone will have to endure. It is not just the mental pain we suffer through, it also could have a pain in the physical body and mind that the elderly man had to be tortured with throughout his life. Lois Lowry is a powerful writer inflicting and teaching in the minds of all and how most important and delicate memory is in the novel, The Giver, and how it must not be forgotten or fade away as it will determine your future and fill the gaps of mistakes individuals have
In an early discussion with the Giver, Jonas concludes that "`We really have to protect people from wrong choices... [It's] much safer'" (99). However, it is with the progression of his training as Receiver of Memories that Jonas learns the impact of the sacrifices his community makes. After receiving a memory of a family celebrating together, Jonas speculates with the Giver about the emotional potential of the situation. He contemplates "`The family in the memory seemed... complete...
Like any child in the community, Jonas is uncomfortable with the attention he receives when he is singled out as the new Receiver, preferring to blend in with his friends. Once Jonas begins his training with the Giver, however, the tendencies he showed in his earlier life—his sensitivity, his heightened perceptual powers, his kindness to and interest in people, his curiosity about new experiences, his honesty, and his high intelligence—make him extremely absorbed in the memories the Giver has to transmit. In turn, the memories, with their rich sensory and emotional experiences, enhance all of Jonas’s unusual qualities. Within a year of training, he becomes extremely sensitive to beauty, pleasure, and suffering, deeply loving toward his family and the Giver, and fiercely passionate about his new beliefs and feelings. Things about the community that used to be mildly perplexing or troubling are now intensely frustrating or depressing, and Jonas’s inherent concern for others and desire for justice makes him yearn to make changes in the community, both to awaken other people to the richness of life and to stop the casual cruelty that is practiced in the community.
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.
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.
You know everything about the past and the present from your life, but the citizens of Jonas’ community don’t. Everything is hidden from them, except for Jonas and The Giver, who have all
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
The Giver is a dystopian book that should be a required reading in high school. It demonstrates that people are at times willing to make great sacrifices in order to have a sense of direction and normalcy which can lead to negative consequences depending on one’s viewpoint. In this case Jonas and the giver are the only living people in this society who are enlightened as to how their lives are dull, and realize pleasure and pain are worth fighting for.
But the Giver argues and asks “Do you know what is means to love someone? Possibility of love? With it comes hope, faith and a beautiful feeling. “ But the commander says that people are weak, selfish and when people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong. Giver believes that in this community “people are living the life of shadows, of faint, distant whispers of what once made us real.” People are living in the shadow, because their right to choose is taken away. The movie does not show what happens after Jonas crosses the boundary of memory, but we can hope that after everyone got memories back they found the real
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.