Freedom In The Giver

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.

Lois Lowry’s The Giver presents a flawless futuristic community. The ‘elders’ of the community make all the decisions for the people, including personal decisions, and negatively affects the community. The community lacks individuality, and everyone is the same, resulting in no personal memories, emotions, or feelings. Freedom is removed from the people, barring them from making personal choices.

In the novel The Giver the people of the community have given up many personal freedoms. Many of the citizens find it frightening to have these freedoms. As Jonas receives more memories, he starts to want some personal freedoms.

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.

In order to maintain an ideal state in a utopic society, some crucial sacrifices must be made. In the book The Giver everyone and everything must serve their purpose, those who don't function in the Community are Released. In The Giver, Release is similar to what we know as euthanasia. Release can be voluntary and involuntary. However how does Release benefit the community? What are some positive and negative results for the Community of Release? And would it make our world a better place to be?

From the book “The Giver”, I have noticed an important message that the author wanted to tell us – The importance of freedom.

     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.

The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a twelve year old boy, Jonas, living in a utopian society. This story follows Jonas on his way to find out the truth about his Community, and what secrets lie in the past. The society where Jonas lives knows nothing of the real world, and only know of their perfect reality. In the novel The Giver, the most significant theme is control because in the society there is no freedom of knowledge, freedom of love, or freedom to do what they please, which amounts to uttermost control.

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

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.

Lord, Elyse. "Overview of The Giver." Novels for Students. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 27 Mar. 2016. Elyse Lord is one of the many critics who describe “The Giver” as terrifying but offering “hope and a constructive view” of the Utopian world in the book. She explains that other critics praise the book with many awards such as the Newberry Medal. Lord goes on to reason that the story is favored by different readers for its complexity, symbolism, metaphors, ambiguous ending, and can be compared similarly to classic science fiction like “Brave New World” and “Fahrenheit 451.” Contradicting this statement, Lord says that ‘librarians’, ‘educators’, and ‘students’ debate “The Giver” to be censored from public schools around the world because of its graphic scenes and ideas of infanticide and euthanasia. This includes the time Jonas witnessed his father murder a baby and throw it down a trash chute in cold blood. This is ironical compared to the language, emotion, and behaviors being censored in Jonas’s ‘Utopian’ society. Lord argues this through Anna Cerbasi of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, who asked the school board to remove a book that was about a family murdering their child for crying at night and called the book inappropriate for the sixth grade. Lord raises the question of who is to “decide which books are appropriate for which children,” and argues that it cannot be answered with not one but the many books integrated in school curricula that compose

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

How would it feel if this world didn’t let people have choices, didn’t let people share, or if they didn’t let people celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just celebrate anything? Well that’s what it was like for Jonas in The Giver. Jonas lives in the future in a community where The Giver is the only one who knows everything, but soon all that changed for Jonas. He became the the community 's new Receiver of Memory, and soon Jonas learns the terrible secrets of this “utopian” community. Later on as he learns some more about the community’s secrets he makes a plan to leave the community, and to take Gabe with him so he wouldn’t get released.(which means they die, but the community doesn’t understand that) In this book choices, sharing, and celebrations would have made The Giver community more positive.

President Ronald Reagan once said that,”Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and passed down for them to do the same.” President Reagan would have been miserable living in the world as it is portrayed in “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. In the book there has been a utopian community built for people so that they have no freedom and no individual thoughts. Everyone is exactly the same. Everyone takes a daily pill which eliminates any memories, pain or stress. The protagonist named Jonas is chosen to receive all the worlds memories and figures out that everyone he loves has no feelings or independence. He decides to risk everything

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. ”(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr)In the book “The Giver” a character named Jonas Is faced with a difficult decision. Jonas must decide to either stay in his community or to run away.