Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Individualism in The Giver
Essays about the book the giver
A literature essay on a dystopian society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Individualism in The Giver
Even though being different is important to our modern day community, according to the book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, being the same is way easier. In their community, they eliminate fear, pain, hunger, illness, conflict, and hatred. In addition, they enforce rules to make sure everyone eats the same meal, have the same clothes, have the same hairstyle, and live in identical houses. However, their technological and medical advances allow the community to avoid dangers. In the book, being different is targeted, if you are different they will release you, meaning they will kill you. Sameness takes control over everything and everyone in order to keep everyone comfortable, and being comfortable is the most important thing to these people. Sameness …show more content…
This shows that their community wants everyone to look the same and they discourage individuality. Also in chapter 6, it expresses that the children get the same gifts according to their age. “Seven. Fours, Fives, and Sixes all wore jackets that fastened down the back so that they would have to help each other dress” (52-53 Lowry). In The Giver, the reliance on others is important to their community. Children today are taught to dress themselves to learn independence and self-reliance.Therefore in chapter 7, Asher confuses the words, "snack" and "smack," he is then disciplined with a wand then he began to cringe and correct himself (69-70). This explains that their community ensures that everyone learns at the same rate, eliminating the differences. However, in chapter 8, The elder chief says that Jonas has all the qualities necessary for being the Receiver, such as intelligence, courage, and ability to see change (74-81). In this community, Jonas has been singled out as being different, only he will be able to see these changes. Everyone else has to follow the rules and they don 't have the privileges like he does (83-85). With Jonas 's privileges and individualism comes loneliness, which everyone else doesn’t feel. Since everyone else is so similar, they never have secrets, unique experiences, or …show more content…
He tells the Giver that he wants to choose things for himself. The Giver then responds that choice e was taken away to prevent people from making the wrong choices. Jonas soon realizes that there could be choices more important than choosing what color to wear that could have terrible consequences (122-123 Lowry). This shows that the community 's decision to eliminate choice entirely cancels people of their individuality and uniqueness. Sameness in the Giver has its pros and cons, but according to this community, there is no competition, no struggles, and no personal choices. Jonas decides this is not the way he wants live and it’s not greener on the other side. As Jonas learns more and more, he comes to realize that his community is a
“Critics and censors all agree that Jonas's situation in The Giver is horrifying. Through a series of shocking events, he discovers that...his people literally have limited vision and can not make decisions without the Giver's help” (Lord, Elyse). Being able to see different colors, Jonas thinks it would be nice if everyone could choose, which color shirt to wear in the morning. Jonas saw the importance of decision making when realizing it is essential to happiness. He notices, his people does not have the option of choice. They cannot see the red apple, the green grass, or the blue sky. There is only this sameness of black and white. Each year Jonas’s people follows the same concepts and routines, without any questions being asked. The option of choice was taken away from them hoping to build a utopian society. Jonas understands that having a choice helps to think for ourselves. Without it, in some ways life can be meaningless. In some ways the community as well as the chief elders, sees the Giver/receiver as a God. Reason being, the citizens, are only comfortable with things that are familiar to them. When not knowing how to deal with a situation, they come to the giver for advisement. He is familiar with all things known and unknown. Knowing this, they believe only he can truly give the right
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
Sameness is the quality or state of being alike or of not changing. Everyone is same in Jonas’s community. Sameness has both advantages and disadvantages, but more advantages in The Giver by Lois Lowry.
The essential thing to overcoming adversity is the ability to cause change in yourself and others. In the book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, Jonas is singled out after he isn’t chosen during the Ceremony of Twelve. He has to learn to overcome the pain of being The Receiver of Memory. He also has to face the truth and discover who his real allies are. This helps him to become a changemaker because he grows. He grows by using the pain to become stronger mentally and physically. Ultimately, Lowry teaches us that to make a change, you must display curiosity and determination.
This community is not a usual everyday community. Here people don’t have to worry about poverty, crime, starvation and basically any typical world problems. Although, this community still has many problems. People still think this is a wonderful place to live but this community is a dystopia. In Mrs. Lowry’s book “The Giver” she explains how families function here as well as the both negative and positive point of views for family.
The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is an everlasting story that shows the importance of individuality. This novel is about a young boy named Jonas who was elected as the Receiver of Memories, a person who is given the memories from the world that existed before their current society, Sameness. In this society there is no individualism. People can not choose who to marry, or what they want to do for a living. Over time Jonas becomes more and more wise, and realizes that the supposedly perfect community actually has some very dark and negative aspects. The author, Lois Lowry is a 76-year-old writer who focuses her writing on helping struggling teenagers become individuals. Lowry had a very tragic childhood. After both of her parents were separated and killed in the middle of a war, she was devastated and the only way she was able to block and forget all of the horrifying things that were happening, were books (Lowry). “My books have varied in content… Yet it seems… that all of them deal with the same general theme: the importance of human connections,” Lowry explained in her autobiography. In the novel The Giver, Lois Lowry uses the literary elements symbolism, foreshadowing, and imagery to express the theme: importance of an individual.
The Giver presents a community that appears to be perfect on the surface. Jonas's community is free of warfare, pain, sorrow and other bitterness we suffer in our society. The world seems to be secure and undergoes little conflict. Such a community seems flawless and is the idealistic society that we longed to live in. However, through Jonas's training, the imperfections of the Utopian community are revealed.
Lowry writes The Giver in the dystopian genre to convey a worst-case scenario as to how modern society functions. A dystopia is an “illusion of a perfect society” under some form of control which makes criticism about a “societal norm” (Wright). Characteristics of a dystopian include restricted freedoms, society is under constant surveillance, and the citizens live in a dehumanized state and conform to uniform expectations (Wright). In The Giver, the community functions as a dystopian because everyone in the community conforms to the same rules and expectations. One would think that a community living with set rules and expectations would be better off, but in reality, it only limits what life has to offer. Instead, the community in the novel is a dystopian disguised as a utopian, and this is proven to the audience by the protagonist, Jonas. Jonas is just a norma...
society, everyone wears the same clothes, follows the same rules, and has a predetermined life. A community just like that lives inside of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and this lack of individuality shows throughout the whole book. This theme is demonstrated through the control of individual appearance, behavior, and ideas.
Why is choice important? Choice is important because if we didn’t get to make our own choices would we really be happy? Making choices is simple, as simple as picking out what clothes you are going to wear today, to what am I going to eat for lunch. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry Jonas and everyone around in his community don’t make their own choices. They are told what to wear, what to eat, and how to act. That doesn’t really seem to
Lois Lowry’s The Giver considers something the world takes for granted: personal empowerment. These simple day-to-day decisions create what the world is. Without self-empowerment and right to believe in a personal decision, what is the human race? The world can only imagine, as Lois Lowry does in The Giver. She asks: What if everything in life was decided by others? What if spouses, children, the weather, education, and careers were chosen based upon the subjects’ personality? What if it didn’t matter what the subject thought? Jonas, the Receiver, lives here. He eats, sleeps, and learns in his so-called perfect world until he meets the Giver, an aged man, who transmits memories of hope, pain, color, and love. Jonas then escapes his Community with a newborn child (meant to be killed), hoping to find a life of fulfillment. On the way, he experiences pain, sees color, and feels love. Irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing are three literary devices used to imply the deeper meaning of The Giver.
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.
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.”
The Giver starts off as the ordinary story of an eleven-year-old boy named Jonas. When we meet the protagonist, he is apprehensive about the Ceremony of Twelve, at which he will be assigned his job. Although he has no clue as to what job he might be assigned, he is astonished when he is selected to be the Receiver of Memory. He learns that it is a job of the highest honor, one that requires him to bear physical pain of a magnitude beyond anyone’s experience.
The purpose of this book was to show us a possible version of a "Utopia".