Examples Of Conformity In The Giver

Conflict is a struggle between two opposing forces. In literature, there are three types of conflict: internal, external, and interpersonal. Throughout the novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, all three types of conflict are shown. The Giver tells the story of Jonas, a twelve-year-old boy who is selected to become Receiver or Memories. Once Jonas has knowledge of the past, he realizes that the government controls every aspect of his and his family’s lives. With the help of an elder, he attempts to escape the restrictive life he had been forced to live. Readers are left rooting for Jonas despite his struggles, as he is a strong character to which many young people relate. Three examples of conflict in

Sameness and difference, is one of the themes Lois Lowry portrays in “The Giver”. The theme of sameness and difference plays a key part in Jonas’s life, and contributes to the people in his community, and their past as well.

According to Webster Dictionary, conformity is defined as, “in compliance of rules, laws, or standards.” Mark Twain’s, “Cone-pone Opinions,” demonstrates how society reacts to new conformities; individuals eventually conform to popular ideas and inevitably abandon these ideas for something greater. Twain states, “It is our nature to conform; it is force which not many can successfully resist.” (Twain 2). The reason people conform is not for self-approval, but rather, for the approval of others.

Conformity is better than individualism as in the communities are safer. The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry tells us about their conformitized community. Jonas, on page 63, says to the reader that the community is extremely protective of every one in the community and that

1.) People are not allowed to go outside after the specified curfew, this can help prevent someone getting injured, kidnapped, and just ensure a higher level of security for the residents in the society.

Like The Crucible, conformity is also highly present in everyday society. At a very basic level, this is seen in how people conform to “unwritten rules” of society, such as bathing regularly, and saying “hello” when greeting people. Although there are no requirements or strict punishments for not performing these actions, humans’ concern for what their peers think of them drives them to do them so they do not stick out of the norm. This is seen similarly in how people dress, like wearing suits for office jobs and how kids dress for school based on dress codes. People wear what they consider normal, or what is mandated, in order to conform to the people around them, allowing them to not stick out and to be accepted by people around them. This idea was also demonstrated in an experiment conducted by the producers of the television show “Brain Games,” where they planted some people in a doctor's office waiting room, and told them to stand up when a bell rang, and sit down when the bell rang again. They found that actual patients stood up and down with the planted extras, despite not knowing why they were doing it, essentially conforming to the group in order to avoid being the outcast. Clearly, conformity is very present in society today.

Even though The Giver employs theoretical perspectives of behaviorism and existentialism, the application of these theories have strengths and weaknesses. Based on my personal reflection, it appears as though the film did a good job overall in demonstrating the theories through the use of the setting, plot, and characters. One strength of this movie in terms of behaviorism is the way it employs concepts of operant conditioning. From the first lines spoken in the film to the end of the film where the humanity of the community is restored, there are clear applications of rewards and punishment. Besides how well the film employs operant conditioning, the emphasis on how social learning can influence

As shown multiple times in the book The Giver, the main conflict was man v. self. The main character that had this war throughout the whole book was Jonas, the upcoming Receiver. The conflict that Jonas had to go through was the pressure and apprehensiveness of making tough and hard decisions. Additionally, he had to figure out how he felt about particular situations in the book because sometimes it would induce many types of emotion like fear, surprise, disgust, and anger. Figuring out your emotions and making tough decisions is a very hard thing to do, so imagine being in Jonas’s shoes. I chose a storm to represent the main conflict because it is the symbol that represents the confusion and flurry of emotions one would feel during an internal

In the novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry introduces the topic of conformity. The story takes place in a community based around sameness and uniformity. The main character, Jonas, is being trained for Receiver of Memory, and The Giver is transmitting memories to him. During this process, Jonas realizes how corrupt this community is, and, he comes up with a plan to improve his society. At the end of the story, Jonas travels to Elsewhere in an attempt to restore the town’s memories. In The Giver, Lois Lowry uses characters, dialogue, and actions to develop the theme that conformity is dangerous.

Lea Vilna-Santos Mrs. English, 7th September 1st, 2015 The Giver, by: Lois Lowry Entry Log 7, Chapters 13-14, Questions 2 and 4: In chapters 12-13, Jonas’s father talks about a Birthmother that will be giving birth to twin boys the next month and it’s his turn to decide which one of the twins to release and Jonas continues to receive memories that might turn out to be more of a burden than he thought. The government made it that way because it would be an inconvenience to have someone who looks exactly like you. It’s weird for me to talk or read about someone saying that a person is an inconvenience. That’s a little harsh, especially for a baby.

In the novels “The Giver” by Lois Lowry and “Anthem” by Ayn Rand it gives examples of radical Conformity and the results. In The Giver it states “two children - 1 male, one female to each family unit, it is written very clearly in the rules.”. This gives us a basic idea on just how controlling the society is and how the people think of as it normal. In order to lead a joyful and stressless life one must find a balance between individualism and conformity.

The theme conveyed through the Giver is that individuality should be valued. The story takes place in a utopian society where everything is the same. There are no choices, no color, and no love in the Community of Sameness. The novel starts out a month before the Ceremony of Twelve, where the 12 year olds each get assigned a job. Jonas gets the assignment of the Receiver of Memory, and he soon finds out that lying is permitted, and receives several memories of the past without sameness, with pain too. He has the ability to see beyond, and finds out that he and the Giver are the only people in the Community that have the ability to see, as well as hear beyond. Similar to the phenomenon of an apple changing quality and his friend Fiona’s hair doing the same

Imagine living in a world with no individuality. Everyone would be limited to a degree of “sameness”. As a result, humans would lack the ability to love, to feel emotions, and to imagine. The world would essentially be filled with one shared mind; there would be no opinions, no choices, and no awareness that your mind was even being constrained what so ever. In her book “The Giver”, Louis Lowry exposes the dangers of the lack of individuality in a Utopian Society.

“I don’t believe we were put here with all of our differences to conform to a uniform state of mind” ~Sonya Teclat. Conformity is when people change to act the same as other people in their society. The government, media, and social groups are a big part of the society. These things encourage people to conform. One of the books that have people conforming is Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson. In Among the Hidden Jen, one of the characters is very outgoing and brave. Luke another character is very shy, once he meets Jen he conforms to be brave like her. In addition, society encourages conformity through government, media, and social groups.

To understand why we have a sense of conformity, we must first understand value. “Values are used to learn people’s culture, ideas, and what they want out of life (Henslin 49). Every culture has similar and different values. “Norms are the expectations a group develops concerning the ‘right’ way to reflects its values” (Henslin49). An example of a norm would be personal space and speaking quietly in certain places such as a library. When norms are violated people often begin to question the person’s sanity and well-being based on how extreme the norm violation was.