Symbolism In The Giver By Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry uses the literary device, symbolism to give the readers a better understanding of the community. Symbols play a big role in The Giver because each symbol makes Jonas grow as a character throughout the book.The community is held back from feelings and of memories of the past. In the world we live in, we have choices from picking our own clothing to picking our leader. In Jonas community, family members, lovers, jobs and clothing is chosen for all the citizens. Lois Lowry uses the sled, pale eyes, Gabriel, the color red, apple and memories to represent feelings and emotions that the community has given up for comfort and sameness. What comes to mind when we think about the color of red? How can we describe red? Red

The sled represents a gateway to elsewhere and he realizes that there is another world where everything is not the same. Jonas dreams of the hill and feels the need "to reach the something that waited in the distance"(Lowry 88) . He asks the giver why sleds and snow does not exist. Giver responds by saying that the community gave up pleasures to make life easier. Community has climate control because snow causes cold weather that would make others sick and it was hard to transport goods. Jonas learns that the community removed pleasures that resulted in both joy and pain. Jonas receives another memory of going down the hill on the sled and falling of and fracturing his arm. The memory that caused him so much joy, can cause so much pain. He learns that painful experiences are needs to appreciate and enjoy the pleasurable experiences. The sameness community can not distinguish pain, joy or sadness because they have not felt either of those emotions. Without one, the other cannot exist. We see the same sled at the end of the book, as he and Gabriel go down the hill. The author leaves us wondering if they made it to elsewhere, hallucinating or died. In Lowry Newbery Acceptance speech she states “I decided they made it to the past. I decided their past was our world and their future was their world. It was parallel worlds” (Lowry 7). The sled lead them to the elsewhere Jonah was earning for. He leaves his sameness community and hopefully found a community where he is able to make choices and to feel love, pain and