The Giver Literary Analysis

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Imagine remembering all the amazing and different memories of love, happiness, pain, etc. you’ve ever had, but then you forgot them all. Well in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas, and his Utopian community have no memories from the “outside world”. When Jonas is getting ready for the ceremony of "twelves" he is getting “apprehensive”. When the ceremony of "twelves" is all set to go, Jonas waiting for his turn for his job gets skipped by the Chief Elder, but, later on, she pulls him aside explaining that Jonas has been "selected" to serve as The Receiver. Through all his learning with The Giver, Jonas has realized that the community needs memories for a meaningful life. In the novel, memories are needed to live a meaningful life. Jonas …show more content…

In addition, Jonas knows and wants to make sure that everyone in the community should get memories back to actually live a happy or caring life. “Water trickled into the imploring mouth and down the grimy chin. The boy sighed. His head fell back, his lower jaw dropping as if he had been surprised by something. A dull blankness slid slowly across his eyes. He was silent” (page 151). Clearly this example shows that if the community doesn’t have memories then how are they going to care for others and grieve when it’s time to grieve, but, of course, they don’t have memories to experience this. Likewise, in the novel of The Giver there is another example that shows memories are needed for a significant life on page 187-188. “He pushed the plunger very slowly, injecting the liquid into the scalp vein until the syringe was empty. All done. That wasn’t so bad was it?... He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing.” Memories are important, but they can hurt too. How would you feel if you didn’t have memories at all? Jonas felt someone stabbed him in the heart. Life is hard to deal with some memories, but memories are

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