Literary Characterization InThe Giver, By Lois Lowry

This novel is about a community where each person is the same. Everybody in this community go by certain rules and if they do not follow those rules they are punished. Everyone is to act the same in this book. Every person is assigned a job when they become a twelve and they are to work at the job until they go to the house of the old. This book is explained by Lois Lowry the author is explaining a whole different world than ours in this world he describes a person called the giver who is the receiver who hands off the job to Jonas one of the main characters who asks the receiver about all his memories and about what his job will be like. Jones had become the receiver. the giver gives him training and tells him what memories were like, the giver tells him why were like giver tells him why were like.

Imagine a world with no feelings, no color, no choice; a world where individuality and freedom are exchanged for security and sameness. This type of world is a reality for Jonas, the protagonist in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. After being assigned the next Receiver of Memories in the community, where he has the capacity to see beyond. As he begins his works, he gains wisdom and through that wisdom, learned that protecting the community from the memories, their lives lacked understanding and feelings. Jonas goes on an archetypal hero’s journey and chooses to risk everything to restore memories and wisdom to everyone in the community. Throughout this novel, Jonas is represented as a hero considering he demonstrates integrity despite living in a

Imagine having everything you wished for. You would live in a perfect world. But every world has imperfections and you come across to realizing...a perfect world doesn’t exist. Within time, you come from an illusion to reality. You choose your journey and it starts here. The community is a separate environment from the world and has many rules to live by. The rules can vary to be severe consequences. It includes sameness, no memories, and family unit regulations. The kids end their childhood at the age of 12 by receiving their life assignment. The main character, Jonas is chosen to be the receiver of memory. He is reliable to hold everyone's feelings, hopes, and devotions. In The Giver the author Lois Lowry uses the theme of change to reveal that growing up in “the community” is a non-stressful and organized environment but Jonas finds the real world a whole different place when he receives memories about strong feelings and hardships, intellects the word “love”, and how important it is to be an individual.

The setting of The Giver takes place in a fictional community known as the “Sameness”. Life here is supposed to be "perfect" because there is no pain or suffering. They don’t have to take

The giver by Lois Lowry was an interesting book to say the least. In the beginning you are lead to believe these are normal kids and characters, possibly in the future, but in pretty much the same state of mind as our definition of “human” today. As the book goes on, you are slowly let in on details, like the characters can not see color, and that the parents are not biological parents, and everything is organized and decided for the characters in the book. The author did a great job of slowly bringing us into the world of sameness quite the same way the giver slowly brought Jonas into the world of memories. I believe the subject of the book is the Importance of the Individual. As corny as it sounds, we spend much of our life trying to be just like everyone else. I think Lois Lowry wrote this entire novel just to show how horrible it would be if everyone was the same as everyone else.

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.

Individuality is one of the key components of reaching the utopian standard. However, in The Giver, the community rejects the idea of individuality and instead focuses on developing Sameness, therefore initiating a form of control by allowing them to not express their own personality to shine, and alternately forcing them to contort into these soft putty-shaped beings with zero individuality at all. Conversations between Jonas and The Giver that occur throughout the novel informs the audience that the community lacks a sense of uniqueness and results in an absence of options to choose from.

Newberry Medalist, Lois Lowry, reflects her fascination with the stages of life into her many novels that depict young adults coping with the challenges that come with growing up. And like many recognized authors Lowry has been asked again and again, “Where did you get this idea?” For each novel written by Lowry the inspiration arises from diverse occasions from her life. In The Giver Lowry explores the new territory of a fantasy realm of society that is free from pain, disorder, and overpopulation; but in a world without love, color, and memories the perfect society turns to dystopia. (Novels for Students) As an explanation for the origins of The Giver Lois Lowry, in her Newberry Medal acceptance speech, compares her inspiration for the novel to the river Jonas looks into, seeing the world differently for the first time. Her ideas started as a mere spring, trickling in from a glacier; and each of the tributaries came from memories, coming together to make the flowing current of the river. (Lowry)

Connecting the Dots by:McKinley Munk “It would work. They could make it work, Jonas told himself again and again throughout the day”(Lowry 204). In The Giver by Lois Lowry, a boy named Jonas is picked as the next Receiver of Memory. During his training, he is given memories from the past. With those memories he sees frightening and rejoicing times.

Jonas had always been different, but he never knew how so. He was selected to be the new Receiver of Memory, the person who takes all the pain and memories of the past that the society has eliminated from everyone else. In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, people can learn without memories knowledge is useless, those who do not feel sorrow cannot know joy, and those who never take risks never grow. Without memories, knowledge is useless. For example, when Jonas and The Giver were talking about the memory of colors, The Giver said, “Because it’s from a time when color was” (Lowry 120).

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared,” Lois Lowry wrote in the book The Giver (154). The characters in this book live in a futuristic community that has eliminated everything causing suffering. For example, there are strict rules governing rudeness, so the community does not allow society members to ask any question that will make anyone feel different. The characters do not feel emotions, or love, so they never feel hurt or betrayed. Even little everyday maladies such as smashing a finger in a door do not cause the characters any torment, being they have a remedy called Relief of Pain accessible to them all the time. Also, they do not bear the haunting memories of the

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.

Imagine a place where there is no color, no choice; a place where uniqueness and freedom have been traded for sameness and security. Lois Lowry has created such a place in the novel The Giver. This place, or rather a community, is expected to be in the future and is supposed to be a utopia where everyone follows the rules. The Giver is an amazing piece of literature; the characterization, thematic elements, and literary devices that are used just prove this point further. The characters in The Giver make this novel an amazing story.

The book called, “The Giver” is a novel created by Lois Lowry. The book describes at the beginning, the life of a twelve-year-old boy named, Jonas, who throughout the book becomes the main protagonist that allows the book to unravel completely. Jonas is very intelligent and perceptive when it comes to his others mates taking on life seriously, these qualities grant him the position of Receiver which in the book, is the most important job within the community. The book introduces many unusual concepts, concepts that involve feelings, balance, rules, decision-making and most importantly, life.

The Giver starts off as the ordinary story of an eleven-year-old boy named Jonas. When we meet the protagonist, he is apprehensive about the Ceremony of Twelve, at which he will be assigned his job. Although he has no clue as to what job he might be assigned, he is astonished when he is selected to be the Receiver of Memory. He learns that it is a job of the highest honor, one that requires him to bear physical pain of a magnitude beyond anyone’s experience.