“Civil Disobedience: refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government” - Merriam-Webster's Dictionary Definition In the novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas lives in a society with no homelessness, no racism, and no war but at what cost? No one in this Community has feelings because of the pills the leaders of this society make them take. But no one minds because they don’t know they have options. Jonas is the only one that questions what it means to his Community and to himself. He intuitively questions that nobody feels any strong emotions; anger, sadness, loneliness, happiness, love. They are only allowed to experience shallow versions of some of these emotions. Any choice the Community might have is becomes void with one swallow of the mandatory pill. In some cases, this could be considered a positive change because no one feels an emotion strong enough to incite war. It also means that there is no jealousy but the negative side is that it means that no one loves each other either. There are no love matches. Each couple is chosen. There is no such thing as family as no one cares enough. The Community has no homelessness because there’s no problem with overpopulation. The Communities solution is sending members to “elsewhere” by releasing them, which means they’re put to death. Even the smallest transgressors get “released” which cuts down on the potential prisoner population. They even release babies who don't sleep through the night. In addition, if a birth mother has twins the one who weighs the least is put to death. There’s no racism because the pills also take care of that and and make it so no one can colors. Jonas ... ... middle of paper ... ...t of change for the Community because of and how, through Jonas’s decisions, it could positively impact the Community’s way of life by letting the people exercise free choice in how they lived their lives. In the novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry implies that Civil Disobedience is sometimes necessary in order to improve the society’s way of life. This topics is seen all around the world today, people use civil disobedience every day when they stand up for what they believe in and we will continue to until the world is to their standards. The Giver once said “There’s nothing we can do. It’s always been this way. Before me, before you, before the ones who came before you. Back and back and back.” but Jonas proved him wrong. He showed him that there could be change even after all that time and I hope that maybe our world will have someone to prove all the cynics wrong too.
“I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction” (48). In the old days, when people in Jonas’s community valued individual needs, there were lots of terrible happenings: violence; and then the society ended up with general welfare and safety. It is difficult for us to think of a world without color, freedom, music and love, but in The Giver, the society denounces these things in order to make room for peace and safety. In The Giver, by having a society based on general welfare they gave safety to their people. No violence, no criminal activities, nor homicides.
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 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.
In the Theory of Justice by John Rawls, he defines civil disobedience,” I shall begin by defining civil disobedience as a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government”.
If you cannot remember the pain in life, you will not feel the pleasure in living. If you do not feel the loss of losing someone close to you, you never felt the love. If you do not know what is wrong, you will not know what is right. Yet, the people who live in Jonas’s community, presented by the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry, have lived peacefully without all the pain, suffering, loss, and wrongdoings. Everything was just…perfect. But soon Jonas realizes the truth: You really cannot live a good life without pain; the pain makes the other things in life worth living for. Once the truth is uncovered by Jonas, he figures out even more secrets that ruin the image he has of the perfect community he lives in. Basically, he does not see it as this perfect place he grew up in, anymore. This ‘utopian’ community is definitely not utopian because no one here can precisely express themselves, the people have adapted to ‘sameness’, and they perform inhuman tasks, which all add up to a less-than-perfect society.
Lowis Lowry’s enticing and powerful novel, “The Giver”, gives the reader insight to the monotony of the dystopian society sheltering Jonas. In a world painted black and white, Jonas must grow up without feeling loss, starvation or love, because all
In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the utopian society where Jonas lives is superior to Elsewhere. Jonas’ utopian society is perfect because it is efficient. There is peace, honesty, and everyone is fed in Jonas’ community. Elsewhere is a world based on feelings and choice. Feelings can hurt people, and people can make wrong choices; but feelings can make people ecstatic, and people can make positive choices. Jonas’ utopian society is a better place to live.
The Giver presents us with a world where war, poverty, crime, suffering, and bigotry have been completely eliminated. In this utopian Community, people strive to maintain “Sameness” where everyone and everything is equal and same. But the reader quickly perceives something is wrong with this supposedly perfect society. Memories of basic human emotions such love, hate, and empathy have been completely suppressed in the populace; and defining cultural features including art, music, literature, and even color, have also been completely erased. Both the best and the worst aspects of humanity are instead stored within the mind of the titular character, the Giver. As the Giver explains to the protagonist Jonas in the novel:
Before leaving to school, Jonas takes a pill every morning to stop him from feeling, one of the community's rules, but, " [For] the first time, Jonas did not take his pill." (pg. 162) By not taking his pill, Jonas shows that he doesn't want the rules to dictate his life and that he wants to make his own choices in life, like choices about the pill because the rule keeps you from feeling things that humans need to feel to live, feelings like love. Jonas could have taken the pill like everyone else in the community because they had to, or else they could be released, but Jonas felt that the rules were keeping everyone from having natural pleasures like feelings that he wanted to feel and from living life to its fullest. Another time Jonas feels the rules are depriving people of good things happens when he stays at The Giver's place for the night because he does not want to see his family after he witnessed his father releasing one of the baby twins to stop overpopulation in the Community which means he killed one of the baby twins. The Giver comes up with a plan to change the community's rules, which he had never done and would not have done if Jonas had not given him hope, and Jonas listens. Finally Jonas says, " Yes... I'll do it." (pg. 194) Even though he has been taught his whole life to believe the Community's rules are right, since The Giver teaches
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.”
Civil disobedience is the act of opposing a law one considers unjust and peacefully disobeying it while accepting the consequences. The courageous souls that have chosen to partake in civil disobedience have shaped our society today. If it wasn’t for them our country would be in a entirely far worse state than it is now. We owe our gratitude to those who sacrificed their safety and freedom to stand up for what was right even when authority said otherwise. From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Civil Rights Movements to The Natives protesting the pipelines at Standing Rock. We as citizens of a nation made for the people can never stop fighting unjust authority.
The importance of individuality and choice. In the story “The Giver”, the narrator says that all people are the same and not one person is better than the other.“Look how tiny he is! And he had funny eyes like yours, Jonas. Jonas glared at her. He didn’t like it that she had mentioned his eyes.” pg 20, Lowry. The Danger of Extreme Governance. In the novel “The Giver”, the author says that all laws must be obeyed. “Everyone had known, he remembered with humiliation, that the announcement ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO MALE ELEVENS THAT OBJECTS ARE NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THE RECREATION AREA AND THAT SNACKS ARE TO BE EATEN, NOT HOARDED had been specifically directed at him, the day last month that he had taken an apple home. No one had mentioned it, not even his parents, because the public announcement had been sufficient to produce the appropriate remorse. He had, of course, disposed of the apple and made his apology to the Recreation Director the next morning, before school.” pg 23, Lowry. The Importance of Knowledge and Truth. In “The Giver” the author says making the citizens have no choices means that everyone will be safe. “Jonas had to stop and think it through. ‘If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic or a red one? He looked down at himself, at the colorless fabric of his clothing. ‘But it’s all the same, always.” pg 97,
The story in The Giver by Lois Lowry takes place in a community that is not normal. People cannot see color, it is an offense for somebody to touch others, and the community assigns people jobs and children. This unnamed community shown through Jonas’ eye, the main character in this novel, is a perfect society. There is no war, crime, and hunger. Most readers might take it for granted that the community in The Giver differs from the real society. However, there are several affinities between the society in present day and that in this fiction: estrangement of elderly people, suffering of surrogate mothers, and wanting of euthanasia.
The second reason I would not want to live in The Giver community is the society makes decisions for people. “That’s the treatment for stirrings.” (PG.36 P.7)In our world people get “stirrings’ all the time, in the giver society they would make you take a pill so the stirrings would go away. On page 92
Civil disobedience is when one deliberately opposes a law believed to be unjust or unfair. Arguments have gone back and forth whether or not this is harmful or helpful to a society. Peaceful resistance to laws positively affects a free society, until it becomes destructive to the society it tries to help.