The human race has assembled into civilization since the beginning of time. Throughout their existence, humans have naturally adapted to the environment in which they were residing. They began to form a structure within the society they created. This system included: leaders, a council, and family units. The novel, The Giver, featured dehumanization brought about by the government on to its members. Numerous, basic rights were taken away from citizens in an attempt to form a more perfect world. The Community that the characters of The Giver belong to is constructed to eliminate differences, irregularities, choices, emotions, and colors. This is called Sameness. Everyone looks similar; the weather is always sunny and a constant temperature; members have no choice of what to eat or wear; their emotions are reduced to simple feelings, and they are required to share them with their family units each night. They also only see in black-and-white. Additionally, the Elders, the leaders of the Community, take away the memories of the citizens, forcing one person, called the Receiver of Memory, to contain all memories of the past. These leaders believe that having no choices is better than having the possibility of making a wrong choice. In The Giver one example of mechanistic dehumanization or treating people as …show more content…
It is horrific to kill innocent people and to lie to an entire community about what is occurring. The Council of Elders initiates this "release" to undeveloped infants, criminals, and the elderly. A celebration of life is conducted for the Old before they walk through a door and are released to Elsewhere, which is said to be a wonderful place, not murder. This is an unacceptable way to lead a community and dehumanizes citizens by executing them as well as depriving them of the knowledge of what is really taking
In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the receivers are the only people who have feelings and memories. The elders are the people who choose what the best is for their people in the community and sometimes they go to the receiver for help on making the right decisions. The people from the community do not see color, or have freedom on making a decision for them. There is no love, feelings, and grandparents. Jonas is assigned to be the next receiver of the community; He was trained by the giver, who transfers memories of the pain and pleasures of life, who also shows him the truth and reality that is hidden to the community. Jonas’s community does not represent the ideal of society because there are no choices or distinctions between men
The first reason about sameness is choice. In The Giver they do not give you a choice of anything. They should be able to have a choice of what they want to do. For example, a job, they don't get to choose what job they get. The community does it for them. They should be able to choose there job because the committee might choose wrong. They might not like their job they get and it will never get changed. They should be able to pick what clothing they wear because they all wear the same thing. They might not be able
“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past” (Lowry 165). In this quote, the Giver expresses his dissatisfaction towards the black and white life of the community and the absence of actual living. One of the main reasons that citizens can’t see color is due to a daily injection that removes emotions and feelings. Colors bring about emotions in people and so the injection removes them. The injection can represent free will being taken away from the community. The absence of choice restrains people within the community from choosing their own jobs. Therefore the head leaders of the community assign them during a ceremony. Jonas is afraid of not being able to fit in an be a part of the community and thinks to himself, ”How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made” (Lowry 48). This interesting quote shows Jonas in the tight grips of a black and white life where his worries revolve around not being able to fit in with the sameness of the
In “The Giver”, written by Lois Lowry, one of the major theme’s is “sameness”, which effects very deeply the life of citizens in the community based on perfection.Sameness in somewhere just as this community, can either cause disadvantages or advantages at the same time, also including the loss of diversity.
The Giver describes a society in search of perfection, which is a recurring theme in literature. Somebody in Jonas’s society decided that eliminating or limiting choices and feeling, among other things, would ultimately create a perfect place in which to live. By eliminating and/or limiting choices and feelings, the creators were able to implement Sameness, which would then provide a conflict-less environment in which to exist.
The Giver shows the ideology of a dystopian theme as it has the citizens being controlled by the authority. Members of the community are being watched by The Community so that they will not perform anything that hurts the population. For example, “”you know that there’s no third-chance”. The rules say that if there is a third transgression, he simply has to be released.” is quote said Jonas’s mother while sharing her experience that day. In this quote The Community is empowered and regulates every community member to be the way they want them to be; perfect. “Attention. A reminder Stirrings must be reported in order for treatment to take place. “”Jonas you HAVE to take your pills!””is another quote in The Giver. In this quote both the Community
“Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It's what they've chosen” (Lowry 103). Imagine a world with no control over who you marry, what your job is, what you wear, or what you get to eat for every meal. This is what it’s like in The Giver by Lois Lowry. The people live in a community that is severely more controlled than ours. We have the freedom to have a pet, have as many kids as you want, and say what you want. The people in The Giver do not have those freedoms. The people in the community don’t even know what love is. In our world love is each individual’s choice, but not in The Giver. In other words, they don’t get to experience the precious parts of life, such has having a wedding and giving birth to your child. No society is perfect, but citizens of every community have an
The setting of The Giver takes place in a fictional community known as the “Sameness”. Life here is supposed to be "perfect" because there is no pain or suffering. They don’t have to take
The final reason that I think the Giver portrays a dystopian society is their method of release. They may think that they’re sorting out good and bad, but what do they know? If they don’t know anything about love, why should they know about pain, suffering, death, and war? Everyone outside of the releasing room thought their dear friend was going Elsewhere… but the people inside that horrid room witnessed, or committed, the murder of innocents. There were no such things as identical twins; the lighter one would be killed. The people had no perception of death, for all they know that little baby, which just happened to be 3 ounces lighter than his brother, could really be going Elsewhere. Even if they’re traveling there through a garbage chute. Not only children were released though, as Jonas’ mother tells them it can happen to the middle aged too, “‘You know that there’s no third chance. The rules say that if there’s a third transgression, he simply has to be released.’” (pg.9). Some people were so ignorant on the subject that they used the word as a joke, like the speaker when the pilot flew over the town, “NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE RELEASED, the voice had said, followed by silence. There was an ironic tone to that final message, as if the Speaker found it amusing…” (pg.2). Who wants to
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.
“We don't dare to let people to make choices of their own.”In The Giver they decided things like their jobs,spouses,and children, whereas in our society we decided these things on own.The society in The Giver has many differences and few similarities with modern day society.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Grand Jury, I am here to prove that the Committee of Elders from the book The Giver did unlawfully and willfully commit abuse on both the elderly and children, human rights abuse, and conspired to commit murder.
The result is, as praised by Jonas’ family unit, that the decisions the Elders make are never incorrect or unsuitable. They seem omniscient, and this strengthens their claim to power, their right to make decisions for the whole community as they are excellent at it. As has been shown above, the novel contains various forms of oppression. In order for “people” to express their individuality and humanity, freedom of choice is essential. Dehumanization is observed in The Giver’s society, and life within the communities becomes deformed, manipulated, and far from being a utopia. Infact, due to all the dehumanization, fear, surveillance and inequality shown in this society, it now strongly resembles dystopian one.
The giver is a fictional novel authorised by Louis Lowry dedicated to informing readers about the devastating impact of extreme conformity on a community. As we progress throughout the book we start to realise and learn all these new things about the giver's community, such as creating and trying to maintain a perfect community, that comes beyond our abilities, while the givers society is having a huge impact on the individuality and individual choices on the members of the community. We learn that the inhabitants of the society had a hard time handling all the different memories, in a sudden event. All hints and evidence to these statements above are hidden and presented throughout the book.
Individuality is one of the key components of reaching the utopian standard. However, in The Giver, the community rejects the idea of individuality and instead focuses on developing Sameness, therefore initiating a form of control by allowing them to not express their own personality to shine, and alternately forcing them to contort into these soft putty-shaped beings with zero individuality at all. Conversations between Jonas and The Giver that occur throughout the novel informs the audience that the community lacks a sense of uniqueness and results in an absence of options to choose from.