Imagine living in a world where you have no memories of pain, love, happiness, family, color, etc. Wouldn’t that be horrible? In the novel The Giver, by Lois Lowry, Jonas, the protagonist in the story, is chosen to be the new receiver who possesses the memories that The Giver grants to him. Jonas is required to experience things that our society today is used to and he can’t tell anybody about anything that transpires in his training. Jonas proves that he is a dynamic character as his point of view of the society changes as he finds out secrets about what the community is really hiding and makes the all important decision to try and change it all...but can he succeed?
Jonas, before he was chosen to be the new receiver for the community, was
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However, all that changed once he was chosen to be the receiver. The Ceremony of Twelves is a ceremony that occurs every December and it’s where every child advances to the next number of how old they are. The eleven-year-olds there are given an assignment or job that they will do once they are considered elderly. During the ceremony, Jonas’s number for when he would be granted his assignment was skipped over to the next person. As of that moment of that day, Jonas no longer wanted to exist in the world. Once the ceremony was finished, the chief elder, who is the leader of the community, made a surprising announcement to the audience. To summarize all of what she said, she told Jonas that it was a very rare selection to be made and that he had all the possible qualities that a receiver must include. The qualities were intelligence, integrity, courage, and …show more content…
If and when someone becomes hurt whether it be a fall from a bicycle or they tripped and fell or whatever the situation may be, they always will receive medication immediately. On page 86 it says, “His real self was aware that it was only a minute or two; but his other, memory-receiving self-felt hours pass in the sun. His skin began to sting...and felt a sharp pain in the crease of his inner arm at the elbow.” In this quote, Jonas is experiencing his first painful memory. Yes, sunburns can potentially hurt a lot, but most times people nowadays are used to the pain and they don’t quite notice it that much. But to Jonas, he thought it felt like the worst pain possible even though a sunburn is minor compared to the world of pain. Also, on page 109 it says, “Then the first wave of pain... it was as if a hatchet lay lodged in his leg, slicing through each nerve with a hot blade...the pain grew.” This memory was the first time Jonas truly felt genuine pain. He broke a bone in his leg through the memory. From experience, I know what it feels like to have a broken leg, and it’s no sunburn type of pain, it’s excruciating pain. And the fact that Jonas couldn’t receive any medication to ease the pain must have been horrible. Jonas is pretty much scarred from being the receiver after this memory. After he arrives home from his job, he suddenly realizes something. It says on page 110, “He
The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a dystopian narrative about a boy who lives in a “utopia” where there is order and, everything is controlled. He alone must contain memories of the past. Unfortunately, many of these memories are traumatic and disturbing. Jonas can do nothing beyond withstanding the pain. Because that is how it had always been in the community. As often paraphrased by the Giver, who is the one giving Jonas the memories, "And back and back and back.”(62) This quote shows how there is nothing that The Giver or Jonas can do apart from accept tradition.
To begin, the elders set apart Jonas and give him the prestigious job of “Receiver of Memory.”
(MIP-1) Because of the bad things Jonas experiences, the little things don’t affect him.(SIP-A) For instance, the pain of a sunburn seemed far less painful than falling off the sled.(STEWE-1) “The sunburn pain had been so small, in comparison, and had not stayed with him” (109). When Jonas experiences a very painful memory, he realizes that the previous pain he had felt, a sunburn, was almost nothing compared to falling off the sled. It shows how even though Jonas had to bear the memory of a sunburn, he is now stronger for having experienced it.(STEWE-2)
In the novel “The Giver,” written by Lois Lowry, Jonas is a boy who follows the rules, spends time with friends and family, goes to school, and at the Twelves Ceremony is given the job as the Receiver of Memory. At the end of the novel, Jonas learns information that makes him leave the community to save the people he loves. As Jonas becomes older, he acknowledges that he is different from his family and the people surrounded by him. Once Jonas got his assignment as the Receiver of Memory, his maturity became inconsistent throughout the novel.
The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry illustrates a dystopian society hi lighting the limitations of individuality and suppression of cultural memory in order to prevent any potential destruction that warrants deviation from the totalitarian state of mind with the society depends on. The dependence on the elaborately regulate system however causes the burden of beneficial and detrimental knowledge to the rest on one person's shoulders. Through sociological analysis I will analyze the effects of this reliance on the Giver’s ability to retain such crucial information on a singular causes the detrimental affect triggered not by the inability of the Giver but rather by the society’s unwillingness to change. It can be observed that dystopian societies are ambivalent in nature, situated in utopian text; however, in Lowry's novel the world is engineered where the utopia goes wrong due to its extinction of the aesthetic and personal choices. In “The Utopian the Function of memory in Lois Lowry’s the giver, the author analyzes the ambiguity between the dystopian aspect and the utopian aspect of the society created in the novel (Hanson).
This chief elder controls everything. In their community, they have to follow a bunch of guideline and rules. The ceremony of 12 happened in December and that's where they assign an assignment and also age 12 is the age when they finally become an adult. Jonas is realizing that his community is different. He discovers the deepest
Being the Receiver of Memory is negative as well because Jonas has to endure pain. He endures memories that have little pain like when he felt his first memory of pain where he was experiencing sunburn. He also endures memories that have a lot of pain like when he saw the memory of breaking his arm. He must suffer the pain of all the other members of the community because he is to hold all of their memories. Jonas is not allowed to take any medications to stop the pain
In the book The Giver, it tells the story of a perfect world. Everyone there is happy and feels no pain. As the story progresses, the society appears more and more dystopian as the main goal of the society is revealed, which is sameness.() The community is constantly observed and controlled by every aspect in their lives. The committee assigns jobs, housing, husbands, wives, and children. If found breaking any of these laws, people are “released”, an indirect term for murdering. When Jonas is 12 years old, he 's chosen to be the community 's Receiver of Memory. Once he enters into training with an old man called 'The Giver ', he begins to receive memories of the real world that the rest of the community is hidden from. As the giver begins to show Jonas the important memories, he learns not only of love and family, but also of pain, war, and all the unhappy
Without the memories, there were no emotions or feelings, or any of those things that made life feel more complete or whole. In The Giver, a ‘utopian’ novel written by Louis Lowry, laws and rules exist to prevent people from choosing and gaining a sense of control. However, in our society laws and rules exist to protect and keep people safe from the horrors of the world that we are unable to control, the horrors of the world that they managed to
Jonas took the pills, and the feelings were gone! Another instance in the book that portrays a lack of emotion is Jonas's statement on page 130," Life here is so orderly, so predictable—so painless. It's what they've chosen. " Everything in the community runs smoothly. The people of the community are used to not feeling emotions.
The book The Giver had many significant meanings and symbols that make a person evaluate how precious life really is. One would like to erase a particularly unpleasant memory, but if one could accomplish that then life would have no meaning. If a person only had pleasant memories and did not know what an unpleasant situation feels like, it would be living with no significance. Like in the book, The Giver, people live in an isolated community with no choices, no pain or true happiness. The protagonist, Jonas, becomes the receiver and realizes that there is more Elsewhere, and does not understand how the community can live with no true feelings. Memories are extremely significant in an individual’s life because it gives a person feeling and emotions of happiness, excitement, fear, and many other mindsets that will allow a person to know who they really are deep inside. The community in The Giver does not have true emotions and feelings; furthermore, their life is precisely robotic where people are not aware of many important things in life. In The Giver, Lois Lowry designs a vague setting in a community of people that have no pain or feelings to make a statement that life today would be boring and with no meaning without memories; in addition, Lowry contains many symbols in the book to show why memories are important in a person 's life.
Jonas changes from a completely acquiescent kid to a wise, and mature young man throughout the book. At the start of the book he's simply a standard eleven in his community. Jonas solely will do what he's told and does not question things, however he's terribly introverted and thoughtful. Throughout the Ceremony Of Twelve the Chief Elder describes Jonas. He's has integrity, is intelligent, has courage, wisdom and obedience. Once he receives his rules he is aware that he's totally different from his classmates. His rules are short and embrace weird ones just like the ability
Jonas goes through a lot while receiving the memories from The Giver. He first gets happy memories such as the sled, but then The Giver has to give him painful memories. He first receives the memory of physical pain from sunburn (Lowry 86). The pain is minimal compared to the memory of a broken leg (Lowry 109) and an injured arm during a war. During the war memory, he sees death (Lowry 119, 121). He experiences grief when he receives the memory the shot elephant (Lowry 100). Most haunting of all are the memories of the release of old and the part his father plays in the release of new born (Lowry 150). These trials at first horrify Jonas but he learns to deal with the
Memories can be very valuable. Whatever happens, the memories will never be forgotten. “Memories are forever.” - The Giver. In this science fiction novel, Giver, Lois Lowry demonstrates that even though Jonas world was perfect, he knew something was missing. Everyone in the story was polite to Jonas. Once the Giver gave him lots of memories of love, happiness, and kindness, he knew how to bring back memories to the people. In the beginning of Giver, Jonas had a sickening feeling that something terrible is gonna happen. This perspective changed Jonas during the novel. The message of the novel, The Giver, is memories can bring you back to the old days. Memories can be unique in different types of ways.
“’Memories are forever”’ (Lowry). People make new memories every day without even realizing it. Some good some bad, that’s just the way of life, but in The Giver nobody knows what happened before them. People barley remember what their childhood was like, they don’t understand the importance of memory and that memories are forever. Aspects of life, rules, and prosperities between our world and Jonas’ world are very different yet have some similarities. Things that are crucial to the characters in The Giver are not as meaningful to the people in our world.