Lily is the younger sister of the protagonist in the book called, “The Giver.” Lily is a young, and curious girl, who is often mistaken by her looks. She comes off strong, but is really a smart and kind child. Lily is aging up from a seven to an eight in the beginning of the story. When Lily is introduced, she is talking about how different a visiting group of sevens acted at playtime, but is confronted by her mother for judging other sevens, because they have different rules. Lily is a very caring, nurturing character. She looks out for others, and comforts them when they are upset or hurt. She cared for her mother when her mother was upset. (9) A heart represents Lily’s nurturing character. She shows her love of others, which comes from
Lily is a dynamic character who in the beginning is negative and unconfident. However, throughout the novel Lily starts to change into the forgiving person she is at the end. In the beginning of the novel, as the reader is first introduced to Lily’s character, she comes across as an extremely negative young girl. While thinking about one of Rosaleen’s crazy ideas, she thinks to herself, “people who think dying is the worst thing,” she tells the reader, “don’t know a thing about life” (2).
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
In The Giver, different words are used to describe regular things in our current world. For example, in the book, the term “stirrings” is used. Stirrings describe what people call “dreams.” Also, instead of saying “newborn baby”, the book uses the word “newchild”. Lois Lowry also describes “birthdays” as “ceremonies”. When kids turn nine years old, they would be in the Ceremony of Nines, along with forty nine other kids that are turning nine.
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.
Lily’s actions are completely driven by her desire to fit into the upper class part of society and her need to have money to successfully do this. The actions she partakes in to achieve these goals are sometimes harshly judged by other characters, but The House of Mirth seems to almost draw sympathy for Lily from the fact that she is stuck in this role she cannot remove herself from. Even through showing other life paths like Gerty Farish’s, Lily’s options for an independent life where she can live the way she desires are limited. What she was taught as a child, the choices she makes because of her childhood, how being poor is viewed by society, and the unjust view of Lily’s actions are what ultimately both destroys Lily and results in her being shown sympathy.
Lily is finally able to let go of the burdens she holds as her trust for August grows. She is able to come clean to August about all the lies and explains the real reason her and Rosaleen are in Tiburon. As the true story of Deborah unfolds, August is able to finally understand the troubles Lily face and how depleted the young girl is. With the help of August and all of the other influential black women Lily encounters along this journey, she is finally able to release her burdens and believe in the strength she possesses within. The last scene of the novel includes this powerful imagery of Lily’s new life, “I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers… They are the moons shining over me” (302). It is clear Lily can now grow and develop as the young woman she has always yearned to become with these important new women in her life there to guide her and be her supporters. They have shown Lily that she needs to be her own number one provider of love and strength, but as seen in this imagery, they will always be there when she needs them. By using this technique at the end of the book, Kidd is able to wrap Lily’s
Janie's Grandmother is the first bud on her tree. She raised Janie since she was a little girl. Her grandmother is in some respects a gardener pruning and shaping the future for her granddaughter. She tries to instill a strong belief in marriage. To her marriage is the only way that Janie will survive in life. What Nanny does not realize is that Janie has the potential to make her own path in the walk of life. This blinds nanny, because she is a victim of the horrible effects of slavery. She really tries to convey to Janie that she has her own voice but she forces her into a position where that voice is silenced and there for condemning all hopes of her Granddaughter become the woman that she is capable of being.
Lily’s emotions also fluster after perceiving the statue of the Black Mary. “I didn’t know what to think, but what I felt was magnetic and so big it ached like the moon had entered my chest and filled it up….Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That’s what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and shame at the same time,” (Kidd 70-71). Lily is skeptical of how to react in the presence of the Black Mary which proves she still has yet to unravel her sincere feelings towards the Black Mary.
While being colored during those times must have been hard Lily learned to accept them and not tolerate racism. If it weren't for her relationship with the sister then she wouldn't have known the effects of racism. The sisters taught her to love everyone no matter their skin color. She becomes more aware, that she falls for a colored boy something she herself would have never thought of doing.
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.
However, the plot twists with the introduction of the character ‘Lily’. Lily functions as a provider of unknown knowledge to not only the audience but eventually to the character, Mark Rutland.
Rosaleen is the disciplinary figure in Lily?s life. She is tough and sometimes mean but really she loves Lily. Lily knew that ?despite her sharp ways, her heart was more tender than a flower skin and she loved her beyond reason?. Rosaleen also shows her love for Lily when she avoids telling Lily that her mother left her. She knew this would break Lily?s heart.
Over the course of several months, August guides, teaches, and helps Lily to accept and forgive herself. August once knew Deborah, and she knows that Lily is her daughter, but she does not confront Lily about the issue. Instead, she waits until Lily puts the puzzle pieces together and discovers for herself the relationship between her mother and August. August knows she is not ready to learn the truth about her mother when she and Lily first meet, so she waits for Lily to come to her. When Lily finally realizes the truth, she comes to August and they have a long discussion about Deborah. During this discussion, Lily learns the truth about her mother; that her mother only married T. Ray because she was pregnant with Lily, then after several years she had enough of living and dealing with T. Ray, so she left. Lily is disgusted by the fact that her mother would've done something like this, she did not want to let go of the romantic image of her mother she had painted in her mind (“‘The Secret Life of Bees’ Themes and Symbols of The Secret Life of Bees). Lily struggles to stomach the fact the her mother truly did leave her and she spends some time feeling hurt and angry, but one day, August shows her a picture of Lily and her mother. As Lily looks at the picture she is comforted and thinks, “May must’ve made it to heaven and explained to my mother about the sign I wanted. The one that would let me know I was loved” (Kidd 276). Seeing
word “art” which may imply something about the materialistic world that she tries to be a part of. Interestingly, and perhaps most symbolic, is the fact that the lily is the “flower of death”, an outcome that her whirlwind, uptight, unrealistic life inevitably led her to.
Instead, she feels incapable of being like the other girls at her school, and therefore, each time Lily walks through the halls of her school, she always feels like the odd one out, the ugly duckling amongst the beautiful swans. Her anxiety becomes such a problem that she ends up reducing herself to nothing more than a “bleeding wreck” as an attempt to shield herself from the clusters of gossiping girls around her (9). Persisting in the notion that she is of little importance, Lily is shocked when her teacher tells her that Beauty School, an institution for the untalented, would be a waste of her “fine intelligence” (16). Due to the fact that she believes there are no other attainable life possibilities, such a revelation is so surprising that it takes her a whole month to get over it. Along with all the absurd ideas she puts in her head, it is inevitable for her to feel unlovable. Of course, her father poses the biggest influence of all, since he does not show any signs of appreciation or love towards her, but the rejection of the unfriendly girls at school proves momentous as well. As a result of such little to none parental guidance, Lily’s social life crumbles apart as she becomes a person of wasted