Government Control In The Giver

“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

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 today’s society there are many authors who write dystopian novels. They write these novels to give knowledge and to tell how our world is very different from dystopian life. Lois Lowry shows readers how people can suffer in dystopian society. In The Giver, Jonas’ community appears to be a utopia, but in reality it is a dystopia because everyone is under the illusion that there is freedom, dehumanization, and their strict regulations.

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.

In The Giver, Jonas’ world is turned upside down when he is chosen to be the next receiver of his community. The ceremony of twelves is the last ceremony of the day. Jonas waited anxiously for his name to be called; he never hears it. The chief elder has made a mistake. Jonas now has to learn that everything he has been taught was not always the same and it ages him years.

Dystopia. A place where everything is imperfect and unpleasant.That's exactly where the main character of the book, The Giver by Lois Lowry, lives. Jonas grows up in a locked community. There is no freedom and the rules are completely insane. Since Jonas is the Receiver Of Memory, he can notice how badly the residents of the community are getting treated. In the book The Giver, the world is a plain dystopia. From extremely strict rules to life of sameness, Jonas lives life through it all.

The Giver strives to be a utopian society but the still can’t be perfect. The Giver is a book with the main character being Jonas, Jonas has no last name; however, no one else had the last name in their society. The Giver is a Dystopian because they get their memories erased, they are all equal, and they get assigned jobs when they are 12.

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.

"All knowledge hurts." — Cassandra Clare (City of Bones, The Mortal Instruments, #1) Knowledge may hurt, if the truth is discovered, but the knowledge and truth can give wisdom among other traits, but in the novel, The Giver wisdom gives honor. Knowledge can also change the way one may feel towards something. The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a novel which portrays the notion that knowledge can change someone's opinion. Knowledge may change your likes, dislikes, and fears.

“NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE RELEASED, the voice had said, followed by silence” (Lowry 3). Imagine being executed for making one big mistake, or breaking three rules. In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character in the book is Jonas who lives in a utopian community. He was chosen to be the next Receiver, who takes possession of past memories from the current Receiver or Giver. Throughout the book, Jonas understands knowledge is useless without memories, those who don’t take risks never grow, and learns being true to oneself takes great courage.

There are three words that are used for a tool for social control in The Giver. These three words are used in their community that promote or conceal the words we have that now in the community. Those three words are assignment, comfort object, and newchild. An assignment is given to you, and you can’t go without an assignment in Jonas’s community. A comfort object is given to all newchildren in their community, but taken away when they become older, and a newchild is what we call as a newborn. These three words are different than what we would call them, but their meanings are similar.

What if in our world we were all lied too, just so you could be protected by the awful memories and events that occurred in the past? Well, in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, the protagonist Jonas lives in a life full of lies. The most important differences between utopian society in The Giver and dystopian society are families, ceremonies, and release.

Jonas grew up in a society where many things are denied for their citizens. There are many laws and organizations. Most of these rules keep the community going. When Jonas starts spending time with The Giver, he figures out the lies behind his community that can change everything for him. During this process he experiences feelings for the first time like pain, anger, sadness, happiness, love. This community also has many controls over their citizens , and most things are forbidden. The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry is based on a dystopian society, and has many characteristics to follow.

Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver, offers a thought provoking, well written story, because it changes the perspective of anyone who dares to read it to. Lowry places her novel, at some point in the future when mankind has gone away with changes and choices in life. She forces readers appreciate, or at least re-think the world they live in today. Her novel presents a fully human created environment where people have successfully blocked out conflict, grief, and individuality. Each person follows the same routine every day. Failure comply with standards, to be different, means death. Jonas, the main character, finds himself trapped in this world.