In our modern world, many would classify this current generation as disappointing and sometimes even, pathetic. We often categorize ourself as greed, trying to take more than we need. Many believe that our society is corrupted and can not be fixed although some sit back and just watch, much like, in both the book and the film. In 'The Giver', the elders gave an appearance of a perfect society with no violence, no problems and no pain but hid valuable information to many. They simply dismissed all of their wrong-doings for the better of their perfect world which in many cases is exactly like real life. In our modern day, we are not exactly openly given information about the world unless it is discovered by someone else. We are given information from media and a lot of the time, it is not exactly positive news. Like in the book, we are covered in a blanket of false security, hidden from the stories that our parents have tried to hide from us. In 'Equilibrium', everything was mechanic and what many would find absurd but in actuality, it is exactly what our society is trying to become. Exactly like in the film and the book, we are hidden from something, maybe even everything. Like in the film and the book, we are trying to succeed in becoming a perfect utopian society and will risk anything and everything to do so. Many have risked their lives, their families, their feelings and their own freedom just to have this imagination that they are going to get their ideal society. The book and the film are definitely satires on modern day and this essay will explain why.
The nuclear family. The idea of a completely perfect family consisting of a man, a woman, a girl and a boy. This idea was most popular in the 1950's to the 196...
... middle of paper ...
...mirage of a perfect world and showed the truth. They showed how it would feel to not be able to not know the true meaning of family, not know how to actually feel emotion, to not be able to be able to make mistakes or to not have the freedom to say anything just because you could not. They showed us what the world would be life if we were all the same and what the actual meaning of equality is. They showed us that modern day society is not exactly perfect but it is good enough and it should be cherished as you never know what will happen the next day. You will never know when the world is going to end as we are already turning against each other just to get our image of the perfect life for one second.
Works Cited
Author, U. 2014. Family Ties: Nuclear Family. [online] Available at: http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/familynuclear.htm [Accessed: 22 Mar 2014].
The Giver was an example of a dystopian society. In this community citizen doesn`t had any freedom. It had a lots of information about why it was dystopian, but today I will talk about few thing. First reason was the natural world was banished and distrusted. Second was information, independent thought, and freedom were restricted. The last was they had fear of the out side world.
Living in a perfect world is like living in an anthill. An ant does not think on it’s own, make it’s own decisions, and doesn't really have any own identity, just like the utopians. It is not worth living in a perfect world. The utopian society we are introduced to in the book, The Giver, has many different characteristics that make the perfect life unbearable. Examples of these things are The Receiver, the community, and the chief elders.
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.
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.
Over the past decades, the patterns of family structure have changed dramatically in the United States. The typical nuclear family, two married parents with children living together in one household, is no longer the structure of the majority of the families today. The percentage of single-parent families, step-families and adopted families has increased significantly over the years. The nuclear family is a thing of the past. Family situations have tremendous influence upon a child’s academic achievement, behavior and social growth.
The short story Harrison Bergeron helps support the idea that all Utopias are going to fail. In Harrison Bergeron characters like him find flaws in their “perfect” community and do something about it. In the Giver, Jonas is the character that rebels against the community because he is able to see past the lies set up by the elders and see the bad parts of it. Another reason it failed was because of the pain from the handicaps. Jonas’s community doesn’t experience any pain,except for Jonas and the Giver, Jonas makes a stand by escaping and leaving the memories of pain for the rest of the community.
...its shows how for hundreds of years man has been faced with the same dilemma of dealing with the truth in reality. Man’s manufactured society has changed, but there have always been people craving the truth and wanting to show others the truth of reality. It is amazing to think that people ignore the truth because they don’t want to know how short life is, but it’s so cool to think that when a person steps back they can see that the same fear has spanned hundreds of years. People accept what they want and reject what they don’t like, and people’s ignorance has caused them to fail to realize that they are no different then people 1000 years ago. It is so amazing that one story can still be TRUE thousands of years later, but it makes sense because people will always find the truth to be the unsettling reality that forces people to be aware of their place in society.
"How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made." And it was. The community in The Giver was so the same that almost nothing happened. Imagine a life like that. There was no discrimination because there was nothing to discriminate about, a place where everyone would have shelter and an equal amount of food, and a place where everyone has the right to a proper education. Well, that is why I think The Giver’s community is a utopian society. Utopian is the perfect word for a place like that. It is heavenly, fair, and perfect in so many ways. I am here to tell you why in my opinion it is a utopian society rather than a dystopian society with the three reasons from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights listed above. Now let me begin to tell you why.
How is the dystopian Giver society different from our modern-day society? There are multiple reasons why the giver society is different from our modern-day society. Many involve lack of choice, sameness, and animals. In the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry I feel that the story can be told in different ways such as similarities and differences. However, I feel that there are more differences than similarities .But, are those the only words that can represent the difference between the giver society and our modern-day society?
We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others” (97). In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, no one has seen a rainbow after a storm, no one knew what colors were; what choosing was; what it meant to be an individual. Everyone lived in complete Sameness, and never learned what it meant to be an individual. By eliminating as much self expression as possible in Sameness and society, Jonas's community has rejected the individuality of a society where people are free to move society forward. In The Giver individuality is represented by colors, memories, and pale eyes.
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.
In this paper, I will be exploring concepts in The Giver and their relation to philosophy. Philosophy is things you think about, things you believe, and your ideas on life’s “major topics.” Some examples would be abortion, euthanasia, importance of life, meaning of life, and many other things. Some themes throughout The Giver are the importance of memory, the relationship between pain and pleasure, and the importance of individuals. Some motifs throughout would be vision, and release.
The book The Giver by Lois Lowry is set in a utopian society, no hunger, disease and no war. However, as you progress through the book you will notice not everything is as it seems. In this utopian society no one is different, there is no personality within the community, no real freedom or individualism. “Love” does not mean anything in this society, it is not used and does not actually exist to the people there. Individualism and control are major themes in the book.
The book The Giver is a Dystopia because the people in their community have no choices, release and because the people don't know or understand what life is. The world in the beginning of the book seems like a utopia because how smoothly it runs but it actually is a dystopia because no world or place ever is perfect. This place or the givers world still has many flaws.
All societies in the world are unique. They are different and similar in many ways. Jonas’s society and our society is a perfect example of this. In The Giver the men and women are not allowed to have children and in our society men and women have babies every day. Even though there are differences there are similarities too like how the children go to school just like us. We have many similarities and differences in our society compared to Jonas’s dystopian