Discuss the main ideas from The Giver by Lois Lowry
The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry shows an imaginary world where all people live in harmony, but it’s too perfect to be true. There are many ideas discussed in it which attract the reader’s attention. The main ones are sameness, freedom and feelings.
As a start, the idea of sameness is widely discussed in the novel as a part of the structure of the community. Firstly, people from the community dress the same way. For example, every person wears a tunic which has the same color and style as the others(97). Moreover, children aged four, five and six all wear jackets, again identical(40). Secondly, everyone there goes through the same process of growing up. As an illustration, at the age of
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In the first place, it’s shown that the absence of emotions has positive and negative sides. For example, the people in the community don’t feel love, which deprives them of being connected to their families in a special way(127). However, they don’t feel emotional pain, too, which makes their life easier(110). Another key point is that they can feel frightened. For instance, Jonas remembers a situation in which he feels fear. This happened when he saw a plane that overflew the community by a mistake(1). Another example is the confession of Jonas that he felt scared during the ceremony while the Chief Elder was explaining to him about the pain he would have to get through(85). Finally, they are able to feel impatient. To demonstrate, Jonas’s father tells him that he felt like this when he was Eleven and waited for his ceremony(13). Furthermore, Lily fidgets impatiently when her mother ties her ribbons in her hair(40). The population in the novel is limited by negative feelings which makes their lives less complicated, but they aren’t able to feel positive feelings, so they can’t feel connected to the …show more content…
First thing to remember is that they don’t have the freedom of speech. For example, when somebody is released, people don’t have the right to say his name(140). Additionally, in the community one is obligated to say “I accept your apology” when a person tells them “I apologize”(3). Secondly, they don’t have the freedom to choose. The most compelling evidence is that when someone wants a sprouse, he has to apply for one, and a committee decides who is the right person for him(102). Furthermore, when a child turns twelve, he is assigned a profession which again, he doesn’t have the right to select(50). Finally, the people from the community can’t decide how to live. As an illustration, they are limited by having only two children(8). Moreover, at every stage of their life, they live in a different dwelling - to emphasize, when their children leave them, they are assigned to live in the Home of Childless adults(102). Lack of freedom limitates people’s individualities and transforms them into easy-controlled
In The Giver, a narrative by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s father illustrates his feelings during his Ceremony of Twelve and Jonas tells about his own feelings concerning the forthcoming event. In the text it states, “‘But to be honest, Jonas,’ his father said, ‘for me there was not the element of suspense that there is with your ceremony. Because I was already fairly certain of what my Assignment was to be,’”(Lowry, paragraph 3). This segment of text elucidates the reason of Jonas’s father’s lack of surprise of his Assignment. As stated above, Jonas’s father was already certain of his Assignment, which he continues to explain to be a Nurturer. Jonas’s father explains that as a result of the love he showed all the Newchildren and the time he spent at
Lois Lowry describes a futuristic world with controlled climate, emotions, way of living and eliminates suffering in her book The Giver. The main character, Jonas, shows the reader what his world is like by explaining a very different world from what society knows today. Everything is controlled, and no one makes choices for themselves or knows of bad and hurtful memories. There is no color, and everything is dull. As he becomes the Receiver who has to know all the memories and pass them down to the next Receiver, he realizes his world needs change. 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.
The main character is Jonas. He is very special and different because he can see beyond. Jonas notices that his family is not emotionally attached to him. The families are not related and the kids are assigned to the parents. When the kids are assigned to family units, they are called by their number not names. In this passage they stands for the children. (50) “They were arranged by original numbers, the numbers they had been given at birth.” So in this community instead of calling a child just by their name, they can also get labeled by a number. Kids here cannot even have individuality because kids are just a number.
Like any child in the community, Jonas is uncomfortable with the attention he receives when he is singled out as the new Receiver, preferring to blend in with his friends. Once Jonas begins his training with the Giver, however, the tendencies he showed in his earlier life—his sensitivity, his heightened perceptual powers, his kindness to and interest in people, his curiosity about new experiences, his honesty, and his high intelligence—make him extremely absorbed in the memories the Giver has to transmit. In turn, the memories, with their rich sensory and emotional experiences, enhance all of Jonas’s unusual qualities. Within a year of training, he becomes extremely sensitive to beauty, pleasure, and suffering, deeply loving toward his family and the Giver, and fiercely passionate about his new beliefs and feelings. Things about the community that used to be mildly perplexing or troubling are now intensely frustrating or depressing, and Jonas’s inherent concern for others and desire for justice makes him yearn to make changes in the community, both to awaken other people to the richness of life and to stop the casual cruelty that is practiced in the community.
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
The emotions throughout the society are shared with the individuals throughout their confusing times, and by their shared experiences. The times spent together of the characters brought the individuals closer together through the dark negative times, and through the light positive situations of society. The confusing part of peoples lives are brought together and are shown throughout the status of society. The stories of the “Encounter,” “Eveline,” and “The Dead” come together with similar experiences of situations of light and dark. The society bring the individuals closer together by shared times.
The main point Perry stresses in Population 485, is the important role community plays in helping a person feel at home. The definition argument plays an important role in conveying Perry’s message of the importance of community, using both the operational and example definition methods. The example definition method is exemplified numerous times throughout the story, as Michael Perry uses his own personal examples to display how crucial those in his community are in providing him with a sense of belonging. Additionally, Perry employs the operational definition method by including tragedy in the majority of his stories. The inclusion of tragedy in his stories create allow readers to conclude that tragedy brings people closer together. While this may be true in this case, tragedy does not always bring people closer together. Belonging, in the eyes of Michael Perry, is the feeling of finding family inside his community, rather than simply knowing the people in his community.
Jonas explains, “We really have to protect people from wrong choices” (Lowry 93). Sameness in the community makes the resident’s choices, therefore, protecting them from the danger of choosing wrong. Choice means the selection of different items and if a citizen makes the wrong choice, it can lead to instability in the community, such as if no one wanted to be a birthmother there would be no children. Since Sameness is in place in the community, choices are made for the benefit of everyone and wrong choices are very rare. Likewise, the Giver adds, “... unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible” (Lowry 80).
Throughout the history of the world, there has been many societies. All these societies had similar structures and ideas, but they all are different by their own special traditions and ways of life. Similarly, both our society and the society in The Giver share similar ideas, but they are different in certain areas. For example, they both celebrate birthdays and have family units, but they have their own way of doing so. Based on the celebration of birthdays and the formation of family units, our society is better than the society in The Giver by Lois Lowry.
So he has feelings now. Jonas was also becoming worrying because things have been starting to get a bit sketchy to him. Like when he was greeted to a locked door. All the doors in the community were never locked so that was one moment when Jonas was uneazed.
Citizens in this fictional dystopia have had their every emotion, memory, and ounce of faith taken from them. Leaders of this society have reasoned with this detachment with their ‘wise words and even when a character is able to grasp what has been taken from him, it is hard to comprehend the point of life; “If you can’t feel...what’s the point? ” (Noyce, ‘The Giver’). Similar to North Korea’s troubles, without faith, there is no hope, there is no reason for existence. This is why in the dystopian movie, the only person who even thinks of leaving the society is the one who receives memories and emotions - Jonas.
Jonas’ community chooses Sameness rather than valuing individual expression. Although the possibility of individual choice sometimes involves risk, it also exposes Jonas to a wide range of joyful experiences from which his community has been shut away. Sameness may not be the best thing in the community because Jonas expresses how much he feels like Sameness is not right and wants there to be more individuality. Giver leads him to understand both the advantages and the disadvantages of personal choice, and in the end, he considers the risks worth the benefits. “Memories are forever.”
Kurt Vonnegut, a famous american author describes the feeling of love as, “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved”. The members of a dystopian community live with hunger, poverty, and a controlling government. The Community in The Giver, citizens live with equality, but because equality dictates their lives the people have no emotions, no individuality, and a lack of knowledge. Jonas, a twelve year-old boy who is training to be the new Receiver of Memories, discovers that this failing utopia he thought he lives in becomes a dystopia. As he begins to receives the memories Jonas realizes that the community that seems like home, overflows with lies, secrets, and the dictatorship of the government.
These injections suppress emotions and the ability to see color, this is the reason why the people in the community do not use the word love because they do not know what love actually is. The memories make Jonas start to question the way society is like there. He then learns the world he lives in is not perfect, it is an empty and emotionless place where no freedom or thought is allowed. Eventually the Giver shows Jonas memories of war and pain. It is the first time Jonas felt real pain and saw the dark side of human kind, he did not react to it very well.
Imagine a world with no color, weather, or sunshine. The Giver is a book by Lois Lowry and is based on a utopia where no one makes choices, feels pain, or has emotions. The book takes place in a community where all of this is true. The story is about an 11-year old soon to be 12 year-old named Jonas who is unsure of which job he will get when he is 12. Jonas changes throughout The Giver and as a result, tries to change the community.