Pleasantville Comparison : The Giver And Pleasantville

The Giver teaches Jonas about color. “ Dumbfounded, he stared at it. This time it was not a fleeting impression. This time the sled had--and continued to have, as he blinked, and stared at it again--that same mysterious quality that the apple had so

     While the film is in color, sometimes it appears to be in black and white. There are no bright colors in the film. Most of the colors are either browns, beiges, whites, blacks, and grays, so that even when the characters are outside or in daylight, there are contrasts between lights and darks. For example, at the beginning Mr. Gettes is seated in a somewhat dark office, yet he is wearing an all-white suit. Later, when he goes to examine the dried up river bed, his black suit contrasts with the bright sunlight and light colored sand.

“Color.” It’s all around us, we see it every day of our lives, everything has color, but the people in Jonas’ community didn’t know this. They had no clue what color was or that it even existed. Their society was hue less, hopeless, and everything was the same until the new receiver of memory changed that for everyone. In our world choice is a big part of our everyday lives we make many choices a day, do I want this or that, green or blue, this shirt or that shirt? But in The Giver choices were made for them, what they wear, how they act, what they say, what they eat, and what they do for a living. Imagine all that stuff being chosen for you. Everyone would be dressed the same, act the same,

Lois Lowry’s The Giver is set in a futuristic, dichotomous society, one that is both utopian and dystopian. In response to the overwhelming destruction and chaos in the world, the Elders have attempted to create and maintain a peaceful and orderly utopia, but this security comes at a price. The citizens of the community have sacrificed their individuality and freedom. Although most adult members have some knowledge of the hypocrisies involved, they choose to perpetuate the deception, allowing the community, as a whole, to continue on blissful ignorance. When young Jonas is confronted with all the truths of the present and all the memories of the past, he must choose for himself

As we all know, color is the voice for the artist 's sentiment. It makes up the appearance of a picture. Color is the decisive factor in depths of the two-dimensional plane of the artwork, making the viewer feel physically and mentally attracted, or the context of things - the phenomenon the author wants to present. Colors have been around for a long time, but there is not a common definition for colors. And perhaps humans are one of the luckiest creatures that can identify colors. Often, the recipient 's eye knows a myriad of colors and colors that always change based on the relationship between light and perspective. In art, color creates a sense of

“ ‘But I want them!’ Jonas said angrily. ‘It isn’t fair that nothing has color!’ ‘Not fair?’The Giver looked at Jonas curiously. ‘Explain what you mean.’ ‘Well … ‘ Jonas had to stop and think it through. ‘If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices!’ ” The Giver by Lois Lowry was inspired because of her elderly dad losing his memory of anything painful that happened in the past, Lowry got the idea to write a book where all the painful memories were taken from everyone in the community along with color and emotions. Not only were the memories, emotions and color were taken away, but so was their right to make their own decisions. Jonas, however, the receiver of memory is starting to see colors and is given memories, then he makes

Comparing both ‘The Giver’ and ‘Pleasantville’, they each deeply explore the theme of freedom and choice. In ‘The Giver’, the citizens of the community live in a world where they make very little decisions of their own, and lead a life where everything is set. "Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness.” For example, no one gets a choice at want they want to do in life, as the elders decide their futures at the age of twelve. The only two people in the community that can independently think are Jonas and The Giver, due to having memories of the past, when everyone could think freely and feel real emotions. Similarly, in ‘Pleasantville’, the characters also have little control as they are deprived of independent thought and follow the same routine every day. The simple clarity of black and white matches the idealised nature of the world, where everything is perfect and simple. Everyone in Pleasantville has given up colour, knowledge, new experiences and pleasure in order to keep things “pleasant” and uniform. In the beginning of both ‘The Giver’ and ‘Pleasantville’, their worlds are in black and white. As Jonas, and the citizens of Pleasantville start to discover new things about the "real world" and individuality, both worlds slowly start turning to colour. “If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!”

Similar to “The Chrysalids” “The Giver” also uses dehumanisation to show how sad the dystopian world of “The Giver” is, but it is done in a more invasive way. Within the world of “The Giver” the inhabitants are biologically changed to strip away basic things that makes us human. Seeing in colour is something that is taken away from the inhabitants so the population would be easier to control. However, the most dehumanising thing the Elders (who are people in charge of all the other inhabitants) do is take away and individuals emotions and memories particularly of the past. A person in “The Giver” has no emotions or memories. A person in that world cannot feel love, happiness, sadness or broken hearted. These feelings are all so important to humans as it is what sets us apart from each other and is even what sets us apart from other animals. In the world of “The Giver” they just take that basic human trait away leaving people as shells of people. They are people that lack differentiation from each other. They are all

Life decisions are what shapes you to who you are. If you were told who to marry, how many children to have, where to live, and what job to have really isn’t living is it? In a world of sameness, everything stays the same and does not change. In The Giver, the story is told through a black and white image, that is until Jonas discovers colors. The receiver and the giver have a hard time connecting with the rest of the community due to being able to see what others cannot. “He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on (Lowry, 99).” Jonas starts to get frustrated over the fact that no one else cares about being all the

Another example of how Lois Lowry showed that the absence of color contributed to the theme of the importance of color is by explaining that without color it destroyed the beauty in life, since color brought the colorfulness in life. For instance, in the novel, it states, “It was so ------ oh, I wish language were more precise! The red was so beautiful!” This proves that when The Giver explained colors to Jonas, and asked how he felt, Jonas could not even express how he thought of the color red, because he never saw that kind of bright and pretty shade, and it was really appealing to him. Therefore, the absence of color also lost the prettiness in life.

The Giver by Lois Lowry is a powerful novel about growing up, memories, and the contrast of pain vs. pleasure. In this essay, we’ll look at that contrast and examine how without any pain, there can be no pleasure.

The film Pleasantville written, directed and produced by Gary Ross shows a time period in American History where life was more comfortable, stable and ‘perfect’ if you would generalise it. However, as the film ironically shows, this was a time when people were more ignorant, racist and most certainly sexist. Ross demolishes this illusion of the great 1950s American society by showing how its defects are gradually changed from black and white to colour. Ross uses various settings to help show the viewer the imperfect aspects of Pleasantville’s

This tact makes the public gain better insight of the character’s perspective by making them focus on details that could have been easily missed by the black and white that paints the screen. As an example, in the first scene of the movie, a man tells a woman about her beautiful eyes. In that moment, the woman’s eyes glow green before going back to black and white. Another example is Junior, a character whose skin is bright orange. As the audience is surprised by that shock of color, it is explained how bad he smells.

Imagine a world without love or color. Jonas the protagonist in The Giver he ran away and left comparing his community to our society. In our society we aloud to love whoever we want and we free to love. In jonas society love is a word that is prohibited no longer said for example abandoned no longer mentioned because they don't know what it means.

In the Giver, every child has a right of passage. This means, that they will all have a special event every year they get older. In the Giver, the people cannot see any colors. This means that the objects are white, black, or gray. The only people who can see colors is the Giver and Receiver of Memories. People in the Giver are either selected or assigned a job to complete in the community. They are assigned these jobs after having been carefully studied by the Elder Committee, and then they assign the citizens their jobs. Also, children are spouses are assigned to a family, based on their lifestyle and job. They are studied just like they were assigned a job. Lastly, getting released