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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. 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 also very determined, committing to a task fully when he believes in it and willing to risk his own life for the sake of the people he loves. Although as a result of his training Jonas possesses more wisdom than almost anyone else in his community, he is still very young and knows little about life in the community itself.
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)
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
His whole life is lie. Jonas lives in a “perfect” society, where everything is the same. In Jonas’s society there’s no war, no divorce, love, not even death; however, Jonas doesn’t figure out these things until he gets the assignment of The Receiver. Throughout the novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas changes when he goes from a rule follower to a rule breaker. Also, he has no knowledge of the past , to gaining lots of knowledge.
In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the author portrays a utopian society where important items such as emotions, customs, and diversity are lost and forgotten. Universal feelings such as love and hatred are eliminated from Jonas’s community. Jonas is the main protagonist in The Giver. Throughout his journey from a regular twelve year old to the most important citizen in his community, Jonas learns about many important themes, such as the important of love, sameness versus diversity, and the role of memories.
Even as a child Jonas was unusually perceptive, this is characterized through his pale eyes which appear deeper than the other children’s dark eyes. While he gets along well with his peers he still feels different. Jonas has a heightened sense of people and who they are, the reasoning for things, and curiosity of new things. He particularly enjoys the freedom to make his own choices as to where he will serve his volunteer hours. Jonas never volunteered at one place more than another, which made it hard for him to predict what job he will be assigned. He liked being able to experience all sorts of positions in the community. Jonas is set apart in many ways, one is particular is his ability to see beyond. The closer the ceremony of twelve gets, the more often he see sees flashes of items changing for a second, flashes of the beyond (Lowry 94).
When he becomes 12, he goes through a huge ceremony and all the elders assign them their jobs. In this community, there is no lying, stealing, racism, pain, sunlight, or color. Jonas was chosen to be The Receiver, and he didn’t know what to do because this job was such a big deal. Jonas then goes through training with the current Receiver, who is now The Giver. Training consists of The Giver passing down the memories from when the community was not what it is today.
Jonas had realized that living in his Utopian society had been good until he understood what really goes on. He had to live with out feelings and emotions. Jonas's decision may have affected the community but he did what was right. Living in a community were pain and love isn't felt just isn't normal. He needed to get out of there and he did. After all he is the hero. He gave up his normal and perfect life, to let everyone enjoy life’s
One difference between Jonas’ society and modern day society is the lack of love. When Jonas asked his father and mother if they loved him his father's response was, “Jonas.You, of all people. Precision of language, please! (Lowry 159)” The word love is used so little in Jonas’ community that it’s nearly obsolete. Unlike Jonas’ society, modern day society is free to love, therefore, if I would go home and ask my family if they love me, they would respond with, “Of course,” or “You know I love you very much.” In Jonas’ society there is no love. However, not only do they have no love but they also experience Sameness.
One literary element that is cleverly written into the novel is irony. Jonas’ life is supposedly perfect, in an environment with everyone’s life controlled and documented by the Elders. The weather, the marriages, the child selection, the population, and the education are decided by the Elders. Even the career is provided for them; each December at the Ceremony of 12, the new recruits receive the career that they will continue with for the rest of their working adult life’s’. The job Jonas receives is the most difficult one, the Receiver, who has the duty of containing all of the intense experiences of life. Ironically, Jonas doesn’t enjoy this; he instead feels that the job is too painful for him. Yet the Elders’ decisions, although chosen w...
There is one positive thing about Jonas’s community. The community is the people from the community are given the basics need for their survival. “He watched while Mother tidied the remains of the morning meal and places the tray by the front door for the collection crew” (36-37). This statement had given us the idea that the whole community is being feed. The elder of the community, gives each family unit the same things so they all could have equal conditions, and evict social classes in the community.
Jonas’ community chooses Sameness rather than valuing individual expression. Although the possibility of individual choice sometimes involves risk, it also exposes Jonas to a wide range of joyful experiences from which his community has been shut away. Sameness may not be the best thing in the community because Jonas expresses how much he feels like Sameness is not right and wants there to be more individuality. Giver leads him to understand both the advantages and the disadvantages of personal choice, and in the end, he considers the risks worth the benefits. “Memories are forever.”
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
In the book, The Giver, Jonas is portrayed as a kind, curious and rebellious individual with a keen sense of awareness. The beginning chapters revealed Jonas as a very naive and compliant person, similar to everyone else in his community. Instances, when he was a child and got reprimanded for small misunderstandings, made him like this. However, throughout the book, Jonas has grown into an independent and determined person, someone who wants to make a change. Jonas finds new strengths in his character which forms him into someone spectacular and distinctive.
Jonas lives in a community where pain, rudeness, and war are non-existent. All children undergoes a ceremony in December every year until they reach twelve years of age, at which point they receive their Assignments, the jobs they will perform as adults. A committee of Elders carefully watches each child in order to determine which adult occupation best suits his or her talents and interests. The committee also takes the greatest care in matching spouses in order to ensure stable marriages. No couple is allowed to raise children until the committee determines they are capable of being good parents. Every day, families undergo rituals of sharing, in which they analyze their feelings and dreams with one another. As his Ceremony of Twelve approaches, Jonas is apprehensive because he has no idea what Assignment he will receive. His parents try to allay his fears by explaining that the committee takes Assignments very seriously, so they rarely make the wrong choices. Meanwhile, Jonas' family begins temporarily caring for a newchild, or infant, named Gabriel. Gabriel is lagging behind the other newchildren in development, so Jonas's father, a Nurturer, decides to care for Gabriel in his home at night in the hopes that it will help Gabriel catch up with the other newchildren.