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Identity In The Giver

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

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

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