Dystonia In The Giver

I think the giver by Lois Lowry is interesting story about a world without the right to choose your jobs. They live in a dystopia like world. The world they live in is almost isolated, they don’t know about colors, music, or even some animals. My final reason on why the giver is a dystopia is because they don’t have any feelings, and if they do they have to get them taken away, I couldn’t imagine a world without feelings.

Jonas’ community appears to be a utopia, but, in reality, it is a dystopia. The people seem perfectly content to live in an isolated wreck—in a government run by a select few—in which a group of Elders enforces the rules. In Jonas’ community, there is no poverty, starvation, unemployment, lack of housing, or discrimination; everything is perfectly planned to eliminate any problems. However, as the book progresses and Jonas gains insight into what the people have willingly given up—their freedoms and individualities—for the so-called common good of the community, it becomes more and more obvious that the community is a horrible place in which to live. You as a reader can relate to the disbelief and horror that Jonas feels when he realizes

     This book is about a boy names Jonas. Jonas lives in a futuristic society where there is no pain, fear, war, and hatred. There is also no prejudice, since everyone looks and acts basically the same, there is very little competition. They have also eliminated choice.

Jonas discovers what is really beyond his community, beyond all the rules and policies they have to follow; he decides to leave and give all of his memories to the rest of the community so they would know about what they have not seen or experienced before. Jonas discovers that the community has decided too many things for everyone. He realizes Sameness is not right, that it cannot last any longer. He thinks of all the what-ifs. What if the Elders choose a wrong spouse? What if the Elders choose the wrong job for someone?

Jonas began to feel like her wanted to go home. Jonas can't go back to his community, "But he knew he couldn't go back to the world of no feelings for that he had lived in so long" (Lowry 131). Jonas wants to leave the community and never come back to it again because no matter how much he tries to give them memories he can't change them. Jonas decides that it is ok for him to leave his community. “ If he stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hanged for feelings, for color, for love” (Lowry 174). Jonas made the right decision of leaving his community because he would have been starving for answer on why they never changed the community but he feels happier that he rejected his society and left. (SIP-B) Jonas doesn't want to be a part of his community anymore. Jonas doesn't want to go back to his dwelling to see his family, "I won't! I won't go home! You can't make me!' Jonas sobbed and shouted and pounded the bed with his fist" (Lowry 153). Jonas doesn't want to go back to his dwelling to see his family again because his father lied to him about the ceremony of release for babies. Jonas wanted his childhood back, he didn't want to be the receiver anymore, "Jonas did not want to go back. He didn't want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games" (Lowry 121). That Jonas doesn't want to be the receiver of memory anymore he wants to get his childhood back so he doesn’t have to know about the memories of past communities. Jonas is rejecting his society because he finds out the true meaning of his community and why they took out what they

During his training, Jonas starts to feel pain, which is something that the rest of his community has never felt before. He understands that this is what the community is trying to protect them from. Jonas starts to feel separate and more informed than the rest. On page 110 it reads “They have never known pain he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely, and he rubbed his throbbing leg”. Realizing he would never be able to share his experiences and relate to the other twelves and his family makes him feel very isolated from the rest of the community. He also feels like everyone else would benefit from having the memories so they could experience feelings and being able to choose and after sharing this with The Giver, they

Not only does Jonas live in a community with dehumanization, he lives in a civilization that has strict regulations. An example of this is on page 84, “climate control snow made growing food difficult, limited the agricultural periods. And unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible at times. It wasn't a practical thing, so it became obsolete when we went to sameness.” Climate control is a type of sameness, the concept of sameness is an important goal, Jonas enjoys this memory and asks the Giver why he doesn't use his power to bring back the hills and the snow. In fact the memory he is sharing is from generations back, so climate control has been around for a long time. Furthermore Lois Lowry states on page 22, “Three years,” Mother told her firmly. “Three births and that's all. After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old.” The elders have controlled the society by removing family connections and loyalty. In addition the author claims in paragraph 2, “There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss

Jonas starts out with a very low understanding of what it means to be mature. He has no knowledge of pain, love, or any other emotion. He proves this by acting like a normal child. He plays with his friends after volunteer hours. He attends school on a regular basis. Jonas is a stickler for the rules. He has been told that it is wrong to not follow rules and that there

Is Jonas’s community a perfect place to live in, or is a “nightmare” or a not so perfect place to live in? In The Giver, Jonas’s community is a dystopia due to utopian characteristics, dystopian characteristics, and dystopian exceptions. Firstly, I will be

Throughout the book jonas becomes more and more angry and against the rules of the community. “I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” jonas was furious because the other people of the community were not given any power. The people couldn't even see color and were blinded by

One word they tend to use a lot in jonas’s community is stirrings. The stirrings come into someone's life when they start having emotions for another person. The stirrings can come in forms of dreams or thoughts. An example of the stirrings is when Jonas had a dream where he was cleaning fiona in the center for the old. Then when he told his parents about the incident he said that he liked the feeling. The only treatment for the stirrings is taking a special pill that will get rid of the stirrings for a certain amount of time. They have to take these pills until they become one of the old. Stirrings is like going through puberty. In the community that jonas is in they do not want you to experience those feelings.

What if everyone in your city was the same? What if you couldn’t see any color at all? What if you had no choice in your future? This is how Jonas lives everyday of his life. Until one day Jonas is selected to be a receiver of memories.

To begin, He is rebellious. All the citizen must take medication of anti-dreaming. Jonas doesn't take it because he learns all the feeling from the memories and he wants to keep all the feeling with him. Furthermore, He is courageous. Once he knows everything about his community that his father kills the twin and going to release Gabriel. Jonas says that" No fear, nor any regret at leaving the community behind. But he felt a very deep sadness that he had left his closest friend behind"(Lowry 163). It indicates that he is going to escape to elsewhere. he knows that he will never come back to the community again and see his friends again. He decides to steal his father's bicycle, steal food from the community, leave his community in the middle of the night, and take Gabriel with him. Last, He is strong. On his way to elsewhere he suffers with problems for instance, running out of food and running out of energy because of travelling in a long distance. Also, the condition of climates. Snowing almost caused him to death finally he tries hard and makes it to elsewhere. Accordingly, in the end of the book. Jonas is courageous, rebellious, and

You could argue that this book is a dystopia because they aren’t free and can’t make their own choice but the problem is a lot of the time we choose wrong and it affects our whole life. For example, what happens if someone choose to not go to college and end up working at a fast food restaurant for half of their life. Then they can’t support their family if they were even lucky enough to have one without a descent job and they could end up going to college when their 40 or 50 trying to get a descent job. Be honest though no one wants to do that. In Jonas’s community people watch over other people and assign what they think is the right job for them for the rest of their lives and not have to worry about putting food on the table

With no memory or knowledge of pain or true pleasure they live in melancholy monotony. This theory is supported by a quote from chapter four, when Jonas is in the House of the Old’s bathing room; “He liked the feeling of safety here in this warm and quiet room; he liked the expression on the woman’s face… unprotected, exposed” (Lowry, 39). This quote shows how the citizens of Jonas’ community are blissfully ignorant, versus Jonas, who has memory of all the suffering that came before him. This is also sharpened by something the Chief Elder says at the Ceremony of Twelve, “You will be faced now with a pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend, because it is beyond our experience” (Lowry, 79). This sustains the thesis because it restates how unaware the community is.