Have you ever wondered what it would be like living in a world in which everyone is governed? A world where there are rules for everything and penalties for breaking those rules? Where there is no pain, love nor hate, no color and everyone is equal? Would you want to live in such a society or would you prefer to be given the chance to choose living in a world where all the bad is present with all the good? In her novel, the Giver, Lois Lowry explores a world where there is mainly an illusion of all that is good, overshadowing that which is bad, giving readers an insight into what life is like in a Utopian society, in contrast to life in a Dystopian society. The society in which ‘The Giver’ is set appears to be a Utopia, the perfect world, as …show more content…
Time for the citizens to face the reality of the past. Together, they concoct a plan which involves Jonas’s escape to Elsewhere, so that the memories from the past can be restored to the community. Jonas asks that the Giver leaves with him, but the Giver tells him that He has to remain in the community to help the people to cope with the memories when they are restored. He also shares that he would like to be with his daughter, Rosemary, the girl who had been selected to be the Receiver, ten years ago, but had asked to be released when the memories of loneliness and pain had inundated her. Jonas decides he has to leave with Gabriel, a baby who had been staying in his family dwelling. Gabriel is scheduled to be released the following day as he is underdeveloped for his age. He has the same pale eyes as Jonas and the two have grown attached to each other. The Giver will make it appear as if Jonas had drowned in the river so ample time will not be spent searching for him and he will be forgotten quickly. Jonas, who had stolen his father’s bicycle, sets out at dusk, with Gabriel, on his quest to find Elsewhere. The Giver gives Jonas strength and courage to sustain, as well as food supplies and
At this point, Jonas has realized what release really means. He finds out that the little baby Gabe that has lived with his family is being released at the very next morning. And the large plan that has been made with The Giver, to get rid of sameness within his community can’t be carried out because he knows that he must save Gabe’s life. He starts to really understand what it means to truly live and truly love. He knows he loves Gabe and, therefore he must sacrifice himself in order that Gabe might live. So, he quietly leaves in the middle of the night, and takes Gabe with him and they leave the community. Jonas is running for their lives because he knows they’re being hunted down. He hopes that they will just give up and assume that maybe
Life is a very valuable asset, but when lived on someone else’s terms its nothing but a compromise. The seemingly perfect image of Utopia which combines happiness and honesty with purity, very often leads in forming a dystopian environment. The shrewd discrepancy of Utopia is presented in both the novel ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry and the film ‘The Truman Show’ directed by Peter Weir. Both stories depict a perfect community, perfect people, perfect life, perfect world, and a perfect lie. These perfect worlds may appear to shield its inhabitants from evil and on the other hand appear to give individuals no rights of their own. By comparing and contrasting the novel ‘The Giver’ and the film ‘The Truman Show’, it can be derived that both the main characters become anti-utopian to expose the seedy underbelly of their Utopian environment which constructs a delusional image of reality, seizes the pleasures in their lives and portrays a loss of freedom.
Perfection is something that people have been trying to achieve since the beginning of humankind. The Giver and Pleasantville are two of the many fictional societies that try to reach this so-called perfection. Both societies limit or eliminate differences and freedoms of their fellow citizens. This usually leads to the downfall of a society, making it a dystopia. The Giver has ideals such as no bad weather and hard decisions are made for the citizens while Pleasantville has no extreme weather. Issues like fire are practically non-existent. In both stories, the protagonists reject their society by breaking laws. The communities in The Giver and Pleasantville have their similarities and differences, making each society one-of a kind.
In the end, Jonas, with the help of The Giver, escapes from the community with an infant new-child at risk of being killed (released) and seeks out a life full of feeling and love. While he does get away, we don't know exactly w...
In The Giver Lois Lowry creates a utopian society to show her opinion on it. She uses Jonas and irony to show why a dystopian can be better than a utopian. Lois Lowry states her opinion on Utopian society through the use of verbal, dramatic, and situational irony.
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
Even though both the society in The Giver by Lois Lowry and modern society are both unique in their own ways, our society is a better society to live in. Our society gives us more freedom to choose for our own benefits and
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.
“If the world was perfect it wouldn’t be” - Yogi Berra. A perfect world is different in everyone’s eyes because we all have different interests and you would have to make sacrifices. Lois Lowry makes this clear in her fantasy novel, The Giver. Unknowingly living in a utopian society, the main character Jonas is Assigned the important job of the receiver of memory in his Community. No one knows what this means, but he later finds out that he burdens the Community from painful and joyous memories of the past (our world). The Giver transmits memories from generations back to Jonas. The Community, apart from Elsewhere, is a world without conflict, inequality, divorce, unemployment, injustice, and choice. Everyone
Jonas finally decides to change the world (at least the one he knows of), but he faces many obstacles trying to do so. Jonas speaks to the Giver about giving memories to the community . He wants to share them with everyone and change the way the community works. He wants to give them choices and show them that there are differences. The Giver says the only way the community will receive them is if Jonas goes to the beyond and loses his connection to them.
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...
Jonas decides to leave and change the lives of his people so that they can experience the truth. “The Giver rubbed Jonas’s hunched shoulders… We’ll make a plan” (155). Their plan involves leaving sameness and heading to Elsewhere, where Jonas knows the memories can be released to the people. He has a connection with Gabe, a special child who has experienced the memories, unlike the rest of the community. Jonas has a strong love for Gabe, and he longs to give him a better life. “We’re almost there, Gabriel” (178). Even with a sprained ankle, Jonas keeps pushing forward because he wants everyone to experience what The Giver has given him. He wants them to have a life where the truth is exposed. His determination allows him to make a change for a greater future in his community. This proves that Jonas has the strength to change his community for the
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.
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.
...wined into her writing the answer becomes clear. Society has boundaries and limits that are acknowledged should not be crossed. Yet humans have a craving to do so. Each time the fine line between acceptable and inappropriate is crossed, a new boundary is created; therefore a new crave develops and the cycle never ends. The Giver takes place after the last limit was broken, when the Elders took away some of the most beautiful pleasures of life, and the last line was drawn with all memories of freedom stored away. And this storage happens to be a human mind, the Giver, passing it down to the next Reciever into conceivably the end of time. Jonas disagrees; the memories he has seen, the pain he has endured, the beauty he has experienced must be shared. He wants the whole world to know the full extent and intention of life that God created. The boundary must be crossed.