The Giver: A Utopian Society

“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’ 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 waking up one day, and all your choices are stripped away from you. You can no longer choice blue or red, up or down, one or two. Everything has been picked out for you whether you like it or not. The community in the Giver is a utopian society. All members have a clear-cut set of rules they must follow. The rules were made to get rid of pain and fix society’s problems. On the occasion of when the truth is revealed Jonas, a unique boy, questions society, and its motives. Personal choice is one of the most important things, even in the event that it may cause pain or suffering. Individuals within the community should have a right to pick their spouse, have their own children, and pick their careers.

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?

In today’s society there are many authors who write dystopian novels. They write these novels to give knowledge and to tell how our world is very different from dystopian life. Lois Lowry shows readers how people can suffer in dystopian society. In The Giver, Jonas’ community appears to be a utopia, but in reality it is a dystopia because everyone is under the illusion that there is freedom, dehumanization, and their strict regulations.

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?

I would not want to live in this society because they want everyone to be the same and not make mistakes.Jonas stated,”We don’t dare to let people make choices of their own.” (Lowry 93)This is one of the reasons I don’t want to live in The Giver’s society because I like to make my own choices. They also stated,” “They chose their own jobs? “ “Frightening isn’t it?” The Giver said.” ( Lowry 93)

Jonas’ society is utopian because there are very strict rules that everybody must follow. If they fail at following

In Jonas’s world their community is a dystopian society. Their community is a dystopia because the citizens have no choices, the society is in “Sameness”, and the people who run the community make all the decisions.

According to The Giver, “It does matter doesn't it? We don't dare let people make choices of their own”(Lowry,98). Jonas’s community doesnt let citizens make choices in fear that they will make the wrong choice. Instead, the government makes choices for them. Jonas realizes that this is dysfunctional for the community and realizes that he wants to make choices for himself and not feel controlled.

Is it true that we accept the life in which we are presented? In The Giver, Jonas does not question his society at all, because to him, his perfect life, is perfectly normal. He believed that until the current receiver of memory, or The Giver told him how life was before the flawed Utopia’s existence. That’s why the Utopia in The Giver is linked with our society. However, how different is Jonas's society from our own.

“Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choices, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person” -Meadeline L’Engles. Living your life in a society where everyday is the same, in constant repetition, and sameness without the freedom of to make decisions, right or wrong, one is not fully living, Going through the day in a “perfect” utopian society, and not experiencing unpredictability, and some of the most incredible things in life is not fully living. A utopian society may define perfection by some standards of an ideal community; however, the benefits of being ideal versus the consequences of losing freedom is too high of a cost. Utopian lifestyle means you are giving up your creativity, without imagination, and not sensing common, and wonderful things, like color and music.

The Giver delivers a motion picture of a dystopian culture that restricts their community from their freedom of choice. The social commentary found within this film can be identified as being having the freedom of choice taken by an authoritarian government and also how emotion takes a toll on many actions. For example, they’re stripped from their right quite subtly, in fact, the communities are unaware that there was once a society in which people chose to do what they did and were not told to do so or appointed. In the film, those whom were coming of age are appointed to certain jobs based on how they behaved in their childhood rather than choosing what they really wanted to be. A few other subtle restrictions include their curfew, what they are, what they wore, their family units, which they’re appointed too, and much more.

Imagine living in a community where you have no control over your decisions and everything from the homes to the people are the same. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas, the main character and everyone else in the community believe that they live in a perfect, protective, and caring utopian society. In this society everyone fits in and everyone’s the same. The dwellings are the same, the rituals and traditions are the same, the clothes are the same, and the meals are the same. There are no hills and mountains, and no water source except for rivers.

In The Giver story by Lois Lowry, this book is a utopian society and it reveals to be dystopian later on. Jonas is the main character in The Giver, in this story Jonas is a receiver of memory, he struggles with concepts of all the emotions, and a lot is being introduced to him like good, evil, and in-between. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate and terrain. Capricorn Anderson is the main character of Schooled by Gordon Korman, a story about Peace and a Hippie Commune, in this story, we follow the adventures of Capricorn Anderson, he is a 8th grader and for the first time, he goes to a regular school. Cap has no idea about the ways of an outside world, but he takes Rains ideas and tips for help and the true message is that it is important