TOPIC SENTENCE
Jonas's relationship with the Giver catalyzes his decision to leave the stability and security of his community in order to release his memories back to the community. His sacrifice reveals his belief in freedom of choice as a young child and as a Leader later on, as well as results in a liberated community.
BODY PREVIEW
In The Giver, Jonas makes the ultimate sacrifice - the decision to leave Sameness for his people. Later, in Messenger, we see grown-up Jonas as the sensible and compassionate Leader of a nearby village and an advocate of freedom and expression. We see that the community has changed as a result of Jonas's actions in Messenger when he receives a barge full of books sent from his old community. In these pivotal moments, Jonas risks his life for a greater cause, _____, and corrects an injustice. His actions reveal his strong sense of morality and his beliefs about freedom and choices, as well as stimulate change in both communities.
EVIDENCE ONE
At the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas gets assigned his job as the next Receiver of Memory. His training with the Giver starts almost immediately and is considered a great honor. During a daily session, Jonas brings up how his father, a nurturer, was releasing a newchild that day and how he would like to have watched it. The Giver then insists that they watch a tape recording of the release:
“Jonas watched the video screen above the row of switches. Its blank face began to flicker with zig-zag lines; and then some numbers appeared, followed by the date and time. He was astonished and delighted that this was available to him, and surprised that he had not known.
Suddenly he could see a small windowless room, empty except for a bed, a table with some equipment on...
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...ected an injustice when he released his memories back to the community. With the help of The Giver, I can imagine that the people reacted better to the memories than how they did when Rosemary was released. In Jonas's day, he would have been released for breaking the rules of his community but now we see that the community was able to see that Jonas made an improvement in their government and they saw no need to punish him anymore. Also, in the old community they were not allowed to read books except for their book of rules and other education books. The old community had obviously since then allowed books and the expression of feelings and thoughts.
RESEARCH
“Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.” Pericles
Jonas willingly left his life in the community behind to venture into the unknown to awaken his community to freedom.
Jonas, the protagonist, is assigned the job of holding memories for the community. This is so that not everyone has to experience sad or painful memories. The Giver's job is to transmit these memories to Jonas and, in doing so, reveals the wonders of love, and family, and pain, and sorrow to this young boy. Jonas begins to resent the rules of sameness and wants to share these joys with his community. After receiving his first memory, Jonas says, "I wish we had those things, still." (p. 84)
Jonas's father did not understand the value of life really was. The Community makes sure that their residents do not know the true meaning of release. Just because they ignore the fact that several murders happen frequently, does not mean that the reality behind it disappears with it. Ignoring this, does not make the residents of the Community live a blissful life. In the beginning of the novel, when the Jonas talks about what release means, he says, “… to be released… a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure,”(Lowry 20).
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. When he turns twelve, his job for the rest of his life is decided as the Receiver. His job is to receive all the memories the previous Receiver has held on to. While this is beneficial for Jonas as he is able to leave the society and his job of the Receiver behind and get freedom, the community is left without someone to take the memories from The Giver.
Evelyn Sanchez (esanchez47@student.cccd.edu) Professor Leighton English 143, Final Essay 21 May 21, 2014 What the heck happened to Jonas? Topic #2. The Giver is actually one of my all-time favorite books, so I’ve looked into why she left the book so inconclusive in the past. The Giver is basically about a boy named Jonas who lives in a perfect society. He lives in a household with his two parents and his little sister Lilly.
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.
Difference was not celebrated in the world of The Giver in fact it was the opposite. Jonas once said “I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feel strange and stupid”, the idea that difference is not normal shows how Jonas’ coming of age period of his life would be difficult. Other children in Jonas’ community could tell where there assignment (career) would be, he did not. He did not know where he fit in the world he was “living” in. He had a quality that was not possessed by any, all except the Giver, and it was individuality. He knew he was different and he knew he had no direction in his life. Because he was different, an individual, he was chosen to be the new receiver of memory. When Jonas was given his rules for being the new receiver of memory, they exempted him from foundational rules the communities lived by, making him different, an individual. Near the conclusion of Lowry’s book, Jonas has a revelation “If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” Finally, Lowry shows the reader that Jonas has individuality and he chooses to accept it because it will mean he can be different and not do the same monotonous tasks everyone else has to do. Freedom in the Giver is clearly shown as a supressed
You know everything about the past and the present from your life, but the citizens of Jonas’ community don’t. Everything is hidden from them, except for Jonas and The Giver, who have all
There is one positive thing about Jonas’s community. The community is the people from the community are given the basics need for their survival. “He watched while Mother tidied the remains of the morning meal and places the tray by the front door for the collection crew” (36-37). This statement had given us the idea that the whole community is being feed. The elder of the community, gives each family unit the same things so they all could have equal conditions, and evict social classes in the community.
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.”
Jonas hates how his society decides to keep memories a secret from everyone. Jonas says: “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared” (Lowry 154). Jonas feels that memories, whether it be good or bad, should be shared with everyone. Furthermore, memories allow the community to gain wisdom from remembering experiences of the past. As for The Giver, The Giver disagrees with how the community runs things. He believes that memories should be experienced by everyone as well, because life is meaningless without memories. The Giver says: “There are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable–so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen [...] It’s just that… without memories, it’s all meaningless. They gave that burden to me” (Lowry 103). The Giver is burdened with the responsibility to not share memories even though that is what he feels the community deserves. In addition, he believes the community lives a very monotonous life where nothing ever changes. Everything is meaningless without memories because the community does not know what it is like to be human without feelings. Overall, Jonas and The Giver’s outlooks on their “utopian” society change as they realize that without
Once he learned that there were colors that no one else but him and The Giver can see, he also starts to ask questions such as “Why can’t everyone see them?” Also, after seeing a memory reflecting the feeling of “Love”, Jonas then announces “I still wish we had it… I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see it was a dangerous way to live… Still, I did like the light they made. And the warmth.” This thought shows that even though there can be more conflicts by giving emotions to everyone, and even if it can be dangerous, Jonas believes that it is better to survive through that type of world than one where the government makes everyone be the same.
But the Giver argues and asks “Do you know what is means to love someone? Possibility of love? With it comes hope, faith and a beautiful feeling. “ But the commander says that people are weak, selfish and when people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong. Giver believes that in this community “people are living the life of shadows, of faint, distant whispers of what once made us real.” People are living in the shadow, because their right to choose is taken away. The movie does not show what happens after Jonas crosses the boundary of memory, but we can hope that after everyone got memories back they found the real
However, as Jason’s training teaches him, this is not the case. His teacher, the Receiver of Memory, who tells Jonas to call him the Giver, transmits memories of the distant past to him. It is through these memories that Jonas discovers the meaning of snow, war, pain and love. The Giver tells him that these things existed before the people chose to go to “Sameness”. Ever since, they gave up those things in exchange for a world free of discrimination, crime and pain. However, realising the importance of wisdom gained through experience, they chose the Receiver to bear the burden of all the memories for them. Overwhelmed by all this information and being forbidden to share it with anyone, Jonas grows increasingly embittered against hi...
Jonas always tells his dreams. He always was there for chastisement. He always shared his feelings at the evening meal. He also always took his pill every morning. “Now he swallowed the pill his mother handed him.”(Page 38). By the end of the book Jonas is rebellious. He stops taking pills for emotions that he is supposed to take everyday. Jonas stays at the Giver’s house when he sees his father kill a baby. Jonas also tries to escape from the community when Giver creates a plan to escape from the community which Jonas barely follows because of Gabe’s release. “But your role now is to escape.” (Page 162). This means that Jonas has to escape and the Giver must stay to help the community after he is gone.