Knowledge In The Giver, By Louis Lowry

What if there was a world without memory, choice, or emotion? Could a world truly exist in those conditions? In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Award winning novel The Giver, the main character, Jonas, lives in a world exactly as described. In his community, nobody at all can remember anything, choose, or feel any emotion. All of these things are banned is because his community wanted everything to run smoothly. They wanted a community without hate, war, or conflict. While reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, one can see these themes portrayed many times throughout the novel.

Lowry shows that without any freedom, there are many emotions that cannot be felt. After learning that there were more feelings, emotions, and choices to that could be made from the memories he received, Jonas starts making his own choices, “The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories told him to throw the pill away.

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

Jonas is the protagonist of the novel and a third-person narrator tells the entire story from Jonas perception of things. He is intelligent, curious, caring, and his thought process is very mature for being 11-13 years old. A good quote portraying both his matureness and his intellect is “If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things”(97). This is also one of the first signs that he is displeased with the community. Another quote showing his courage and curiosity is "It hurt a lot," Jonas said, "but I'm glad you gave it to me. It was interesting. And now I understand better. What it meant, that there would be

Jonas feels the warmth of the sun, the joy of sledding, and love of a family. He also begins to see color and soon the color transfers over from the memories to his everyday vision. Jonas, already a curious boy, wonders why the elders would want to take away such wonderful experiences. He thinks everybody should experience these extraordinary emotions and senses. Jonas’ passion soon overwhelms his actions. He tries to allow the people close to him to see and feel what he does. He asks his parents if they love him but they say love is a meaningless word, that instead they enjoy him. Jonas also tries to discuss things with his friends, only they do not understand the things he says. Jonas does find someone to share his memories with though, Gabriel. He helps Gabriel sleep by transmitting peaceful memories to him.

“’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.

In this situation, Jonas witnesses an event that forces him to understand that life may involve suffering and fear. Seeing this memory compelled Jonas to be wiser with his actions because he too may experience much pain throughout his life, thus, causing his gain of maturity. In addition, according to Jonas when he experiences his father “release” a young newborn child, “the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and legs in a jerking motion. Then he went limp. His head fell to the side, his eyes half open” (Lowry 187).

Jonas felt the feeling of memories. “raised his trunk, and roared to the empty landscape”(111)Only the receiver can have feeling and memories, and when Jonas gets the memories, the memories can be one of the greatest feeling of the past and the animals that once lived. “Snowflakes. They fall from the sky, and they're very beautiful”(164) When the community put climate control, not many knew of snow and what it was like.”He fell with his leg twisted under me, and could hear the crack of bone”(103) Many memories that the giver gave him were horrifying, but all jobs are

At the start of the story Jonas is feeling nervous about the ceremony of twelve's, where the children are given their assignment. This is where for the first time in the children's life, they will be doing something different then every other person in the community. Jonas is given the very special occupation, which isn’t really an occupation at all, of Receiver of Memory. He is the only one that can have memories of what life was like before sameness. The memories are given to him by The Giver, who was the current Receiver of Memory. The Giver must transmit all memories of history (the good,

In The Giver the authorities aim at achieving “Sameness” which means all people must be equal and the same. Lois Lowry describes a world of “sameness” where the lack of differences allows all members of the community to have predetermined roles and to follow an enforced set of rules. The Elders depict sameness in a way that makes it sound absolutely necessary, and without it, the whole world may fall apart. In the community of The Giver people accept everything as it is because they do not know any difference: “Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time … we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference” (Lowry, Giver 95). This sameness is terrifying and further imposes conformity on all people. So the community of The Giver is a uniformed society. People wear the same clothes; eat the same food; their houses are the same; and most of them look the same as well. By the age of ten, they all have the same short hair style: “females lost their braids at Ten, and males, too, relinquished their long childish hair took on the more manly style which exposed their ears” (Lowry, Giver 46). In The Giver the purpose of sameness is to protect people from wrong choices and to achieve safety for them.

The feelings Jonas has developed throughout the story has changed Jonas as a person, as a result Jonas develops feelings. One example of Jonas being feelingless is on page 131 in the small book, “... he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings that he had lived in so long.” This quote show Jonas regrenting living in a world with no feelings and to remember a world with no feeling he has had to livid in a world with no feelings. This quote show Jonas living without feelings. A quote too show Jonas with feelings is on page 151 in the small book, “Jonas felt a ripping sensation inside himself, the feeling of terrible pain clawing its way forward too emerge in a cry.” I chose this quote because this quote show Jonas feeling pain.

What would happen if you lived in a world with no emotion, no emotion, and no choice? This is exactly the case in The Giver. When a boy, Jonas, who lives in a futuristic community starts to receive memories from the Giver he realizes there are so many beautiful yet terrible things inside and outside of the community. He dosen’t know another way to save the community from sameness except to release his memories to the community, good and bad. Three things that could have been done to the community to avoid this is adding the arts, emotions, and weather.

Since like every other person in the society, Jonas was sheltered and kept away from true emotions his whole life, at the moment he opened up to them he was exposed to something that truly shocked him internally. Another issue is the loss of privacy and enforcement of surveillance. This is nearly true in today’s world, because being monitored is becoming easier with all of the vulnerable electronics we own. One device that is frequently used are cameras. There are cameras that cover every single spot of the community. Also, there are hidden voice recorders and cameras in “dwellings”. Another commonly used method of monoritizations are communication through

Another quote show Jonas feeling that say,” Jonas didn’t want the honor, he didn’t want the pain. He wanted his childhood back”(121). I believe that this quote shows the reader that Jonas never wanted to be the Receiver of Memory. Jonas never wanted to experience the moments and

The cinematography gives us a sense of what Jonas was seeing. The colors of the black and white sets the mood of sameness and seriousness for us. When the memories are being shared, the way the camera shakes and the vibrantness of the colors sets a different mood for the viewers. The memories are new and different from anything else anyone experiences. Jonas was able to experience new emotions of pain, lust, love, sadness, etc. The way he reacts and the emotions he shows on his face almost make you feel like you were Jonas experiencing these emotions for the first time. “Precision of language” is said many times to Jonas by his mother. The word choices the writers chose to use while writing the script help show how strict their community was and the lack of individuality and variety of what they did and