The Giver opens with the main character, Jonas, describing his feelings of apprehension about The Ceremony of Twelve; during this ceremony, Jonas and the other “twelves” will receive their assigned occupation in which they will work for the rest of their life. Later that night, his parents comfort him, letting him know that the Committee of Elders have observed him thoroughly and will assign him accordingly.
Spouses are assigned to each other and can only have one son and one daughter, and they do not produce the children themselves. Jonas’s father is a nurturer in the community and is currently tending to a new child, Gabe, who is developing slowly, so he takes him home for extra care. The book then explains more strange details of the community,
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But, Jonas is bewildered when the Chief Elder skips Jonas when it becomes his turn. Later, they describe that Jonas has been selected as the community’s new Receiver of Memory. They describe that this job requires the ability to “see beyond.” This basically means seeing colors, in which Jonas experienced with the apple.
Jonas receives instructions for his assignment. He feels they are peculiar because they let him be rude, ask questions, and lie (which are extremely uncommon). The Giver warns Jonas that he must receive the world’s generations of memories. He gives him these by touching his back. Jonas's first memory is of a sled going down a snowy hill. This is strange to Jonas because him community practices “sameness” and “climate control”, so there is no hills, temperature, or color. Later in the book, Jonas insists on painful memories; The Giver gives him memories of broken bones, starvation, and war.
Jonas grows curious about what “release” is, so The Giver shows Jonas a tape of Jonas's father releasing an underdeveloped infant by injecting and euthanizing him. Jonas becomes disgusted that Sameness has abolished independence, love and the value of life. The Giver agrees with this realization, and they develop a plan for Jonas to run away; this will release the memories to the
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.
That piece of fruit had- well… the apple had changed.” (Page 24) Jonas had started to see color, in the apple. No one else in the community could do this-see color. Other than The Giver.
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.
Jonas said “I gave him memories along the way to let him survive, but he’s cold.” The giver had started to give Jonas and Gabe memories to keep them warm and alive. Jonas felt the memory of him sitting next to a campfire and it was as hot as a hot bathing room in the house of the old. Jonas had remembered about his friends Fiona and Asher and asked the giver. “Where is Fiona and Asher.”
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
As Jonas receives these memories, he ponders how their community would be different if they could make more choices. For example, after the Giver transmits Jonas a memory of family, Jonas thinks how crazy it is that they have generations and he says about his community, “‘What if they were allowed to choose their own mate?’”...”’Or what if’”...”’they could choose their own jobs?’” (124). Jonas then thinks if people should make these choices, and things that could go wrong if they did. For instance, while he is thinking about how crazy these choices are, he says, “‘I can’t even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices’”(124). People in his Community don’t choose their own spouse, the Community leaders assign them a spouse and children if they want. Jonas’s Community is brain-washed into not having opinions or choices. Although they have no divorce and wrong choices, Jonas would rather have choices and a real
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 was written by Lois Lowry and published by Houghton Mifflin Company Boston. The genre of this story is fantasy. Jonas is an eleven year old boy who lives somewhere in the future. The society that he lives in is very structured, they do not have any emotions and everything is decided by people called “The Elders”, from their children to their careers to even their names. Everyone in this society is basically all the same.
Jonas’ assignment announcement was skipped but was later revealed that he has been selected to be the honored position of Receiver of Memory who advises the Elders by recalling experiences from memories of the past that only the Receiver keeps. Jonas was selected because he is intelligent, courageous, wise and has the abilities to “see beyond” and cope with physical pain. His rules are that he cannot take any pain medication, apply for release or talk about his training, but he can lie and ask anyone about anything; even if it’s ride. The training is with the current Receiver of Memory – an old man with a beard and pale eyes, which makes Jonas feel nervous and
However, Jonas realizes that without memories, a person can’t learn from mistakes, celebrate accomplishments, know love or happiness or any other deep emotion, or grow as an individual. He also learnt that when there is no pain without memory, there is no true happiness. This leads to the importance of individual. When people are unable to experience pain, their individuality is devalued. People learn from memories and gain wisdom from remembering past experiences.
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
However, as Jason’s training teaches him, this is not the case. His teacher, the Receiver of Memory, who tells Jonas to call him the Giver, transmits memories of the distant past to him. It is through these memories that Jonas discovers the meaning of snow, war, pain and love. The Giver tells him that these things existed before the people chose to go to “Sameness”. Ever since, they gave up those things in exchange for a world free of discrimination, crime and pain. However, realising the importance of wisdom gained through experience, they chose the Receiver to bear the burden of all the memories for them. Overwhelmed by all this information and being forbidden to share it with anyone, Jonas grows increasingly embittered against hi...
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.