The Giver: A Short Story

The Giver is it a utopia or not? A community that has solved hunger, poverty, and weather , how could it not? The Giver by Lois Lowry makes you wonder this while reading it. The book is about a boy named Jonas who is chosen to become the new Receiver of memory.

“For the boy sake, it would be beneficial if you could explain things to him and then maybe Manyara would loosen-up.”

Imagine living in a society where all emotion is suppressed and all knowledge of the outside world is not available to any person. How would that make a citizen feel? Well, of course they wouldn’t have the correct knowledge to understand how the feeling truly is, but those who are not ignorant would feel a starvation to know more about not only the outside world, but their own history. Within the novel The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, the reader is brought into a society where most emotions and knowledge are suppressed. As well as the fact that it isn’t very encouraged to have individuality.

The sled slowed as they reached the bottom of the hill. Jonas stood up trying to get to the house that was straight ahead of him. It took all his strength to keep walking. He was so bitterly cold he would have thought he was frozen. The only thing that kept him going was the thought that he could save Gabriel. Give him a life that he himself didn’t have. Each agonizing step he thought he would die ,but he made it to the house ,his only hope of survival. He transmitted his warmest memory to Gabriel with the only strength he had left. Jonas saw the door open as everything went dark.

Through her Newbery award-winning novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry demonstrates the incalculable value of making decisions, by creating a dystopian society that does not know the meaning of choice. The ability to make choices is generally taken for granted in modern day society. Since the beginning of our society, people have pushed beyond the confines of not having choices by starting revolutions. During the 1700s, the American colonies led a revolution against the tyrannical mother country of Great Britain. Had the American colonists stayed submissive to British rule, the USA would not exist today. Another memorable instance occurred during the Roaring Twenties when strong-willed women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton declared

“Okay.” Jonas replied, thinking that atleast he will be with the one he loves when he finds out about the death of a loved one.

Every move was being watched, including his partner's action at the firing end. No firing was heard from the store, so that was good. Once the stream of dead was reduced to stragglers, the weapon fired then ratcheted to the left. A line of the dead dropped to the pavement , the black mist floating in the air. The observers were all grins, as the operation repeated several times. The convict's positions were taken over by others. The jobs weren't difficult once they were shown what to do.

What if you lived in a community with no clue that your life was not as perfect as you thought? In Louis Lowry's The Giver, Jonas lives in what the community thinks is a Utopia but they haven't experienced the real world. His community is a Dystopia because of the lack of knowledge, sameness, and complete control.

Imagine your mind changes in seconds to not having feelings to feeling what real life is. A feeling that is filled with family, life, and emotion. Well, in the novel The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, Life was gone and the expert Chief elders, who watched after the community, shut out emotion, love, pain, and sadness. Jonas, the main character, who lives in a utopian society and is chosen to be the receiver of memory which is the job to hold all the memories of the past and is trained by The Giver. In his training he discovers that there is more to life than the one he is living in now. In the novel we learn the theme is that a life without emotion, love, and pain is no life worth living.

Imagine living in a society where you have the freedom to do what you want. No one telling you how to live your life and you make your own choices. A democratic society allows for freedom of choice. Living in the democratic society with freedom is better than living in a utopian society because you get to do what you want, pick how you want to live and be free to express yourself.

There were flashes everywhere. Each flash was directed towards Jonas and Gabe. The bright flashes made Jonas’s sleepy eyes glance up. He knew he reached Elsewhere but why didn’t anything happen? He thought that something magical was going to happen. But he didn’t feel any sensation. Then, sleep overtook Jonas and he fell to the ground, glimpsing at the vibrant shade of red on the sled.

Back at Jonas’s dwelling, Lily is excited about getting a bike, and Gabriel has learned how to walk. The Ceremony of Nine, when all the Nines get their bikes, is coming soon. It is almost December, almost a year since Jonas became the Receiver. Jonas’s father has to sleep early because the twins are being born tomorrow, and he has to decide which one to keep and which one to send to Elsewhere. Jonas asks his father if he actually takes it to Elsewhere. His father explains that he has to make a selection, weighs them, hands the larger one to a Nurturer standing by, and gets the smaller one “all cleaned up and comfy”. He then performs the Ceremony of Release. Jonas asks if someone from Elsewhere comes to get the baby. His father answers yes.

The memory of war was very traumatic for both the giver and Jonas. So much that the giver even had to transmit the memory to jonas to help ease the pain as it was unbearable. In the memory, Jonas is in a battlefield when he looks to the side and sees a young boy and his horse bleeding excessively from their wounds.

The community had changed a great deal, since Jonas left. Where he had gone, no one knew, in fact many suggested a ceremony of loss for him, but it was never executed. There was no ceremony needed to remember Jonas, for he had given them something more. When the community first received the memories, there was chaos. They panicked at the fact that they now saw, and felt things that no amount of word precision could describe. Lily distinctly remembered the first time she witnessed a fantastic phenomenon the Giver called colors. All of a sudden, bright shades swooped over the room,reds and

Jonas was coming in for his first meeting with the Receiver of Memory. He was nervous at first, but then went inside of the first door. The secretary let Jonas in. Jonas was surprised by the locks on the door, but when the secretary explained it was to help keep the old Receiver of Memory concentrated, he felt relaxed.