The main theme shown in The Giver is the idea that good cannot exist without evil, and evil cannot exist without good, thus making reaching a perfect society impossible. It does not matter how amazing an experience is, unless you have something bad to compare it with you can never taste the true meaning of that moment. The members of Jonas’s community cannot appreciate the joys in their lives because they have never felt sadness. Correspondingly, they also do not feel grief because they have never appreciated the true wonders of life. Throughout the novel, Lois Lowry uses multiple literary devices to conjure these thoughts into the readers mind.
When Jonas is chosen to take the role of Receiver of Memories, he starts to learn how life
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Where there is war, there is the blasphemy known as death. When loved ones meet death, it causes a lot of grief and sadness, in this thinking people took away the emotion of love to become emotionally detached to other things, and then the loss would not be so devastating. When the community also got rid of color, they also disposed of problems, such discrimination over reasons such as skin color. A world is definitely not perfect with wars, segregation, and grieving; but it is just as flawed without the magnificence of color and deep feelings such as love, causing world-wide perfection to be impossible.
Jonas learns that his community, although it may seem perfect at first, it is lacking many of the key things that make life special and worthwhile. When pain, hate, and grief are taken away, along with them disappear snow, color, and love. For without evil, you cannot have good. When negative things are eliminated, something wonderful is sacrificed along with it, causing a perfect life to be impossible to achieve.
Works Cited
Wikipedia contributors. "The Giver." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 12 Dec 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver>.
Sparknotes contributors. "The Giver." SparkNotes. 12 Dec 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/giver/themes.html>.
Shmoop contributors. "The Giver." Shmoop, We Speak Student. 12 Dec 2012.
The giver follows the life of a young boy named Jonas. In the future, society is different from now, emotions, colour, pain, and liberty are all things of the past, in this alleged dystopian novel. Thorough explanation of this is left out in the novel, what we know is some war or tragedy due to all the emotions, opinions, cultures etc. led to great measures being taken. Thus eliminating all feelings both good and bad, which in turn dehumanized the whole population almost making them in to living robots, just so that the chance of another catastrophe is narrowed down to almost zero. Liberty is merely an illusion in this novel since no choices are made by the people only by the “elders” who aren't explained a lot either
Set in a community with no climate, emotions, choices, or memories Lois Lowry tells the tale of Jonas in The Giver. Jonas is selected to be the receiver of memory, which means the memories of generations past, before the community was created, will all be transferred to him to hold. As Jonas receives memories his concept of the world around him drastically changes. Jonas starts out as twelve-year-old boy with perceptions different from those around him, he then begins to see the community for what it really is, and he makes a plan to change it.
“’Memories are forever”’ (Lowry). People make new memories every day without even realizing it. Some good some bad, that’s just the way of life, but in The Giver nobody knows what happened before them. People barley remember what their childhood was like, they don’t understand the importance of memory and that memories are forever. Aspects of life, rules, and prosperities between our world and Jonas’ world are very different yet have some similarities. Things that are crucial to the characters in The Giver are not as meaningful to the people in our world.
Jonas is helping his family take care of a problem newborn. His name is Gabriel, he had problems sleeping at the Nurturing Center. Jonas helps Gabriel sleep by transmitting memories to Gabriel. They become really close. Jonas finds out that Gabriel is in danger of being released. He talks to The Giver and finds out that release means the same thing as death. Jonas gets really mad knowing that his father killed the babies. That was his father’s job. Jonas wants to create a plan to change the community forever.
Imagine living in world where there are no feelings, color, or pain, and everyone is the same besides you. Jonas realized he was living in a world without color, pain, or feelings. Without color, pain, and feeling Jonas wasn’t able to express true happiness, and he therefore left the community. “Lois Lowry’s childhood escapades inspired her books,”(Dellinger). Also Lois loved photography and it resulted in the cover of The Giver, which is a photo of a blind painter. This connects to the book because no one can see in color besides the giver and the receiver, which is Jonas. Lois Lowry uses the literary elements foreshadowing, symbolism, and imagery to express the theme that one cannot have happiness without pain, in the book The Giver.
The Giver describes a society in search of perfection, which is a recurring theme in literature. Somebody in Jonas’s society decided that eliminating or limiting choices and feeling, among other things, would ultimately create a perfect place in which to live. By eliminating and/or limiting choices and feelings, the creators were able to implement Sameness, which would then provide a conflict-less environment in which to exist.
Starting the story, Jonas receives his assignment at the Ceremony of 12. He was chosen to be the receiver of memory. Jumping forward to his training, an old man named,¨The Giver¨ transmits memories for Jonas to cherish. He was told he will experience joy, happiness, loneliness and most importantly, pain. Beginning his training, Jonas lays on a couch for The Giver to lay his hand on his back to transmit Jonas´s first memory. It was very joyful. As an
The setting of The Giver takes place in a fictional community known as the “Sameness”. Life here is supposed to be "perfect" because there is no pain or suffering. They don’t have to take
Is Jonas’s community a perfect place to live in, or is a “nightmare” or a not so perfect place to live in? In The Giver, Jonas’s community is a dystopia due to utopian characteristics, dystopian characteristics, and dystopian exceptions. Firstly, I will be
Jonas was selected as the next Receiver of Memory. Upon his training, he discovered and felt things that not all people in their society know. He realized a lot of things about the world. He discovered there is something more with the world than what he has known of. And as he felt things, he realized the things that are wrong with their idealistic society.
Imagine a world with no choices, or not really having to much concerns. For example, what if you only had a first name, but instead of your name you were identified as a number. In addition, what if your life was planned for you, nothing was much of a surprise. "How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made." (Chapter 6). In other words, in the community that Jonas lived in, everything was already prepared for them. By the time you turned a specific number they already had certain things planned they expected you to do.
This is exactly how it is for Jonas, a pale-eyed 11 year-old boy, who is like any other child in the community and about to turn 12, meaning that he will be assigned his job at the 11’s graduation ceremony. Lowry makes it that a job in the community is one of the most important things that they’ll have in their life. So, when Jonas is skipped during the ceremony, he is perturbed that he has done something wrong and that he might have to be released. Later on, Jonas is called up and announced as the new Receiver of Memories.
In Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the biggest flaw in Jonas’s community is their awful idea of hiding the past from the citizens to create an unreasonable world with no disappointments. They almost never admit that a mistake had been made, and they wiped away memories of the past, like war.
In the novel, the author uses the characters, plot, and conflict to develop the theme that life can not be taken for granted. The author uses Jonas’s father to help develop the theme that life can not be taken for granted. The author uses Jonas to help show how emotions help people not take life for granted. The author uses Jonas and his father to help show how people can not take life for
To begin, the elders set apart Jonas and give him the prestigious job of “Receiver of Memory.”