Sameness In The Utopian Community

In the community everyone wears the same clothes and has the same house so nothing ever looks different from the others. It is all even and fair and beautiful. Or so Jonas thought. Until Jonas received the memories of flowers in a meadow or of a boat on the sea he didn't really know what beauty is because he hasn't ever known what ugliness is. All of the people that Jonas has ever known have been kind and peaceful, always apologizing when a mistake is made.

Jonas’ community appears to be a utopia, but, in reality, it is a dystopia. The people seem perfectly content to live in an isolated wreck—in a government run by a select few—in which a group of Elders enforces the rules. In Jonas’ community, there is no poverty, starvation, unemployment, lack of housing, or discrimination; everything is perfectly planned to eliminate any problems. However, as the book progresses and Jonas gains insight into what the people have willingly given up—their freedoms and individualities—for the so-called common good of the community, it becomes more and more obvious that the community is a horrible place in which to live. You as a reader can relate to the disbelief and horror that Jonas feels when he realizes

Jonas discovers what is really beyond his community, beyond all the rules and policies they have to follow; he decides to leave and give all of his memories to the rest of the community so they would know about what they have not seen or experienced before. Jonas discovers that the community has decided too many things for everyone. He realizes Sameness is not right, that it cannot last any longer. He thinks of all the what-ifs. What if the Elders choose a wrong spouse? What if the Elders choose the wrong job for someone?

To most kids in our society, the changes in Jonas’s world would be difficult to accept because we in America value our freedom to choose and to voice our desires. Did the creator’s of Jonas’s community truly improve society as we know it today?

Throughout history, many utopian societies have been established in hopes of creating a protected and uniform environment. In order to maintain a perfectly equal and errorless environment, some basic human rights are often violated. Many of the utopian principles put in place are based on the fear that the citizens will gain knowledge and notice the absence of their basic human rights. Unfortunately, once the citizens figure out that the government has infringed on their civil liberties they become disillusioned and want to revolt. This ultimately causes dissention and unhappiness throughout the utopia, which defeats the sole intention the leaders had when creating it. To avoid the rebellion, leaders of utopian experiments infringe on

Everybody has their own opinions on whether or not Jonas’s community is a utopia or a dystopia. The author got the inspiration for this story when her father was losing his memory. She then meant to write about a utopian community. Is Jonas’s community utopia or dystopia? Jonas’s community is a dystopia because they have release, no freedom of choice, and no freedom to leave.

A utopian society is to be though of perfect or idealistic. The charcters in the book have no feelings, no choices, and no memories other thhan their own life. The Giver and Jonas are the only two with memories since their job is to be the holder of them and Jonas stops taking his medication to no longer interfearing with his body that gives him feelings. All others do not have any emotional attachments. The community decides all of your life’s plan. They choose your spose, your career, and you are not able to have your own children. If you want children you have to apply and a child will be given to you if you are accepted. The Giver and Jonas are the only ones with memories from the past that go back hundreds before the community was a utopian societ and other communities and how they live. The only memories the people in the community are allowed to have are their own lives but thneir lives are controlled by the committee of elders. This give the people of the community teh benefit of never feeling pain but they have no freedom which is almost as if they live in a comunity with a dictatorship.

Throughout the book jonas becomes more and more angry and against the rules of the community. “I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” jonas was furious because the other people of the community were not given any power. The people couldn't even see color and were blinded by

In my personal opinion, there is no feasible way to create a true utopia in a world of imperfect humans, but there are many improvements we can make to America today. Criminals will always break the laws that keep us safe and happy, greedy aristocrats will always try to amass more than their fair share of wealth, and corrupt politicians will always lie and cheat to further their own agendas, but the doesn’t mean we can’t make the world we live in better. A few of the areas that we can definitely improve in the most are education, career benefits, welfare, and criminal justice.

Everyone in the community can not have there own personalities because they have to be the same. There is a limit of two kids per family unit. There is nothing private in the community because they have to be the same. Sameness is bad because the receiver has to keep the pain a secret. The receiver is a person that keeps all of the memories. ¨but now you will be able to go farther back¨(Lois lowry 116) The Giver tells Jonas “being the receiver makes family life hard”(Lois Lowry 132). Sameness is bad because they have to take away color. Color is taken away because some people can not see color and then they are not the same. Why did colors disappear’ is what Jonas asked the Giver when he found out that everyone can not see color. (Lois Lowry 120)The government pick spouses and the child which results in no love. “Do you love me” asked Jonas.(Lois Lowry 159)It is clear that sameness is bad because there is no love in the community.

An extremely thin line exists between perfection and utter disaster. A society may appear to be idealistic from the outside looking in, but in reality, knowledgeable people living in these worlds know deep down that the society is corrupt. A utopian society is considered “an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect” (“Utopia”). Since a utopian society is not realistically feasible, it generally spirals into a dystopia. This is a society identified by “human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding” (“Dystopias”). Utopias devolve to dystopias for a variety of reasons, which all typically relate back to the misuse of total control and the restriction of independence. A utopia is simply unattainable since nothing is perfect and not everyone in society will always be pleased. Even though rulers use all of their willpower to make their followers believe that nothing can go wrong, but there will always be people who see through this masquerade. The Party in 1984 and the Handicapper General in Harrison Bergeron use these techniques and others to establish their dominance over everyone else. The news station Fox News, specifically CEO Roger Ailes, dictates how his company is run in the same nature as a figurehead in a dystopian novel would. Although utopias and dystopias are thought to be complete opposites, in 1984, Harrison Bergeron, and Fox News the two types of societies intertwine through the use of propaganda,

A perfect world has varying levels depending on the person and what they believe is perfect. For there to be perfection in a society there has to be flaws. When there is something shared between two things, there will be things that one has that the other doesn’t. Within the many differences of modern day society and Jonas’s society there are some similarities. Rules in society will never be the exact same as another communities but they will have something in common.

Unlike us where we have the privilege of choosing even though most of the time we choose wrong. “‘What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And choose wrong’ (98).” This is Jonas after he learned about choices and how bad they could be. I think that he is totally right because in our world people have had multiple wife’s or husbands. They can never choose the wrong job and be jobless for the rest of their lives or choose the wrong husband or wife. If they had kids and they got a divorce the kids are sad for the rest of their lives having to go to a different parents house each week. If someone loses their job and can’t afford a house they could be homeless with kids living on the side of the street with no food or shelter.

In the book The Giver Jonas and the community have little choices they can make. In America we have lots of choices like how long your hair is, what you are going to wear to school and what color we want to wear. In Jonas’ community they cant even do that. Jonas left the community because he yearned for the freedom of choice. “If every things the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things”(PG97). Jonas wants to be able to pick his own tunic and job, but in the giver community he cant. He wants to pick his own spouse. Jonas is tired of sameness

Jonas society is a utopian society because everything and everyone is the same. How are people suppose to see the differences in life if they can't see no color. On the other hand if you wanted to pick a color to wear they could not because no one can see color(Lowry 120).we relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences.Jonas replied ¨we shouldn't have!¨he