The Community Differences In 'The Giver'

“Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It's what they've chosen” (Lowry 103). Imagine a world with no control over who you marry, what your job is, what you wear, or what you get to eat for every meal. This is what it’s like in The Giver by Lois Lowry. The people live in a community that is severely more controlled than ours. We have the freedom to have a pet, have as many kids as you want, and say what you want. The people in The Giver do not have those freedoms. The people in the community don’t even know what love is. In our world love is each individual’s choice, but not in The Giver. In other words, they don’t get to experience the precious parts of life, such has having a wedding and giving birth to your child. No society is perfect, but citizens of every community have an

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

Could you imagine your world in which everything was predetermined for you, and you didn’t have a choice? This is the reality in The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character Jonas faces these problems and many others as he completes his adventure. Although some may think this to be devastating, this is normal in his society. In the dystopian society conveyed in the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, there are many similarities and differences to our modern day societies.

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

Imagine living your life with no feelings, no choices, and no individuality; that is what it is like living in Jonas’ community. Visualize being only one of a few that knows what the world used to be like with joy, excitement, sadness, and fear; but you cannot change anything. All you can do is receive more memories of freedom, love, war, and happiness. Would that not haunt you? You can just watch the people of the community and know moat of humanity has been stropped of them like a band aid on a cut after it has healed, and only a scar is left; but the skin will never be the same.

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?

Jonas began to feel like her wanted to go home. Jonas can't go back to his community, "But he knew he couldn't go back to the world of no feelings for that he had lived in so long" (Lowry 131). Jonas wants to leave the community and never come back to it again because no matter how much he tries to give them memories he can't change them. Jonas decides that it is ok for him to leave his community. “ If he stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hanged for feelings, for color, for love” (Lowry 174). Jonas made the right decision of leaving his community because he would have been starving for answer on why they never changed the community but he feels happier that he rejected his society and left. (SIP-B) Jonas doesn't want to be a part of his community anymore. Jonas doesn't want to go back to his dwelling to see his family, "I won't! I won't go home! You can't make me!' Jonas sobbed and shouted and pounded the bed with his fist" (Lowry 153). Jonas doesn't want to go back to his dwelling to see his family again because his father lied to him about the ceremony of release for babies. Jonas wanted his childhood back, he didn't want to be the receiver anymore, "Jonas did not want to go back. He didn't want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games" (Lowry 121). That Jonas doesn't want to be the receiver of memory anymore he wants to get his childhood back so he doesn’t have to know about the memories of past communities. Jonas is rejecting his society because he finds out the true meaning of his community and why they took out what they

In my opinion, Jonas left the community because of the memories and the reality presented to him by The Giver. After realizing the truth, he wanted to alter the perspectives of the citizens in the community by releasing his memories, he believed that the way people lived without any knowledge of the world surrounding them was wrong, and wished to live a more meaningful life when he left.

Jonas is just another member of his community. He spends his life following the rules that his community has imposed him. In all his life, he has blindly followed the rules and has never questioned them. For that reason, it comes to a shock when he receives new instructions that go against everything he has been taught:

One reason why Jonas hates this community is because of the rules. If you make one small mistake, you can get in serious trouble, also known as being released (killed). “ When an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice….Needless to say, he will be released.” (pg. 13) This suggests that the rules in the society can have a major impact on someone if they make just a slight error. The fact that the person did not follow the directions well enough and got killed is appalling. These unpleasant and ridiculous rules support a dystopian novel because they show how unpleasant living in this community can be.

In The Giver Quartet, written by Louis Lowry each book has it’s own utopia or perfect world. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines utopia as an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect. Each of the four books in the quartet is perfect in their eyes, but in others’ eyes it is flawed. For example, in The Giver the government suppresses individuality but, in Messenger the people of the village celebrate their differences.

Conformity, most people do not like it and most people do. There would be a time where you would want to be the same as someone is probably if you and your best friend wear the same exact outfit and you two might say, “Twinsies”. Do you ever wonder what it would be like if everyone dressed the same as you and not just one person? In a dystopian novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, everyone is forced to live the same way. Everything in the Community is the same. For instance, their clothing, skin tones, the size of their family, house, everything is identical. That is just how their community works. If everyone in the world lived the same like The Giver, society would not have originality and diversity. Just imagine living in that world instead of your world here where everyone is different.

There are no distinct differences between each other so no one is singled out for any reason and no one commits crimes with fear of being released outside their community which no one is ever allowed to leave. They seem out and everything is peaceful, the community runs like a machine. They all seem to think this “Sameness” is the only way to live. Jonas also grows up seeing nothing wrong with this, for he has never known anything else to compare it to. That is until he meets the community’s

The book the Giver by Lois Lowery is told in 3rd person limited. The setting takes place in a futuristic society in several communities and in a utopian/ dystopian world. These communities are ruled by the Elders which are like the community. Somehow everything is controlled in the community, for instance, their jobs, and the weather. The people in the world are really strange because they can not see color, does not know any types of music, nor knows about death.

In my opinion, we are lucky to not live in a world like the one The giver takes place in. The giver society is very different from our society. An example of one of the many differences between the society in The giver and ours is traditions or rules, but it also has a few similarities. One way The giver’s society differs from ours is how each society deals with rules and discipline.