Society In The Giver

Break off for a moment and conjure up an image of your ideal world. Think about all the things you would eradicate from our world and all the things that would be at odds with how our world looks and feels today. Think about the environment and the government; think about the manner of life you would finally be able to live out in this ideal world of yours. Now, look to the person beside you and ask them the same question. Are your ideal versions of society the same? Presumably not. In the past and most likely in the future, writers and philosophers of all ages have contemplated the enigmatic question of the legitimacy of whether or not our inevitably imperfect society can ever achieve the inescapable desire we all have of creating what we

To give an illustration, in the beginning of the adaption of Lowry’s novel The Giver, the narrator reveals that, “We lived in a world where differences weren't allowed. There was no "popular." No fame. No losers and no winners. Our Elders had eliminated all of that, so there'd be no conflict between us. Fear, pain, envy, hate, they weren't words so much as sounds.” (Phillip Noyce). One can see from this that in The Giver’s society, the reason for creating a utopia was to strive toward creating equality or “sameness”. This means that, in their society, they consider a utopia to be a world devoid of any differences. However, in Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, when explaining to Montag why books are looked down upon, Faber states, “So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.” (Bradbury 79). We are meant to understand that the reason why they decided to create the society that they did is because of the citizens’ fix on the bliss that comes from choosing to stay ignorant rather than choosing to endure the melancholy that results from knowledge. This is interesting as it shows how, unlike in The Giver, there was no overall dictator who controlled how things played out; the people decided for their society to be like this by

For example, in the adaptation of Lowry’s The Giver, the narrator states that, “All memories of the past were erased.” (Phillip Noyce). We are meant to understand that the deprivation of the memories of the past is what allowed the Elders to create a world devoid of differences and bent on the notion of true equality as it resulted in no one having any memories of the past to compare the present to. In a similar way, Fahrenheit 451’s society utilizes ignorance as a main tool to cultivate power as well. For instance, in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, when Beatty was explaining to Montag the secret to keeping civilians happy, he argues that, “If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.” (Bradbury 58). In other words, in order to keep the happy, the government has to sustain ignorance upon their citizens and keep them unaware of everything and anything that would threaten that happiness. This differs from the society conjured up in Orwell’s 1984 as they use fear to actualize control in preference of benightedness. To illustrate,in the beginning of 1984, while walking down the stairs, Winston notices that, “On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those