The Giver Background

Hook: Imagine living in a perfect society and hearing all of the jobs that the people would get, but if someone got the Receiver of Memory, they would receive a lot of the pain from the memories. Jonas’s assignment as the next Receiver of Memory is a punishment. The job as a Receiver of Memory caused a lot of pain. Jonas feels separate and different from his fellow peers when he became the Receiver of Memory. When The Giver became a little older, age showed a lot more when The Giver became the Receiver of Memory than if he had a regular job.

The storyteller is able to keep his or her memories fresh and alive through the act of telling stories. At the age of forty-three, Tim O’Brien is still able to remember his childhood friend, Linda, who died when he was nine. “Even now I can see her walking down the aisle of the old State Theater in Worthington, Minnesota. I can see her face in profile beside me, the cheeks softly lighted by coming attractions.” Linda is given the gift of life through death by the power of the story. She not only lives in the mind of Tim O’Brien, but now Linda can live in the mind of anyone of whom he tells the story to. O’Brien’s audience is even graced with the pleasure of imagining what Linda looked like, “There were little crinkles at her eyes, her lips open and gently curving at the corners.” The audience can nearly see Linda, nine years old, standing in a childlike manner before

V.C. Andrews was best known as the author of the Dollanganger series. It’s the story of four children trapped in an attic by their cruel grandmother because of an incest situation. Because men didn’t like to read novels by women authors during this time, Virginia’s publisher decided to use the initials V.C. instead of her full name. The intention was to neutralize her gender so men would buy her books. Her accomplishments were familiarized by a worldwide audience. In 1984, Seeds of Yesterday was the best-selling fiction paperback novel. That same year, in Norfolk, Virginia, she was honored with the title “Professional Woman of the Year.”

Few authors in history have had an impact that has lasted beyond their own time. I was born on the 29th of November in 1898 and died on the 22nd of November 1963 not quite living until my sixty-fifth birthday (“About C.S. Lewis” 1), and during my life, I earned somehow the right to be remembered like few authors have gotten he chance to do. Although, I do not know how I came to earn that. I grew up in Belfast, Ireland surrounded by the plains to Flora and August Hamilton (About 1). My childhood was often filled with fantasy as my brothers and I wished for greater adventures. I found this adventure in some ways when World War I was on the rise and I participated in the British army (About 2). Later in life, I attended Oxford and had

Gwen Harwood’s mournful laments Mother Who Gave Me Life and Father and Child explore the challenging ideas of nostalgia and mortality to provide valued texts.

The movie “My sisters keeper” is about 13 year-old Anna, who sues her parents for medical emancipation when she is expected to donate a kidney to her sister Kate, who has leukemia. This essay will focus on three events in Anna’s life, and discuss how each event in the characters life had an affect on her physical, psychosocial and cognitive development. The events that will be discussed are: how being brought into the world to save Kate affected Anna’s psychosocial development, how having to undergo many surgeries at a very young age affected Anna’s physical development, and also how Anna’s cognitive development was affected by her sisters sickness and death.

Newberry Medalist, Lois Lowry, reflects her fascination with the stages of life into her many novels that depict young adults coping with the challenges that come with growing up. And like many recognized authors Lowry has been asked again and again, “Where did you get this idea?” For each novel written by Lowry the inspiration arises from diverse occasions from her life. In The Giver Lowry explores the new territory of a fantasy realm of society that is free from pain, disorder, and overpopulation; but in a world without love, color, and memories the perfect society turns to dystopia. (Novels for Students) As an explanation for the origins of The Giver Lois Lowry, in her Newberry Medal acceptance speech, compares her inspiration for the novel to the river Jonas looks into, seeing the world differently for the first time. Her ideas started as a mere spring, trickling in from a glacier; and each of the tributaries came from memories, coming together to make the flowing current of the river. (Lowry)

In the 1994 Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech given by Lois Lowry, she uses a big metaphor to explain her life and the inspirations for The Giver. The “tributaries” she went through during her life became major inspirations for her novel “The Giver” She was talking about her journey when she said, “...if I’ve learned anything through that river of memories, it is that we can’t live in a walled world. This essay explains the memories she has and how it connects to The Giver.

Tamora Pierce is a young adult fantasy fiction author who is quite well known for the young, strong and rebellious heroines in all of her novels. She was born December 13th, 1954 in Fayette Country, Pennsylvania. During her childhood, her family moved a great deal and books became her solace. Her uncle gave her a set of books including several from A.A Milne, who wrote all of the “Winnie the Pooh” books, and Dr. Seuss’ “Cat in the Hat.” What really got her into writing was when one day, her father told her she should start writing down her stories instead of just telling them to herself out loud, while also giving her some of her first book ideas. After that it all writing and reading every genre for Pierce, until she got introduced to J.R.R Tolkein in the sixth grade which was her window into fantasy novel, then eventually science fiction. She began writing stories mimicking all her favourite authors writing styles, something she encourages every young writer to do now. Later on in life as she reflected on the writing she did as a child she said: “I tried to write the kind of thing I was reading, with one difference: the books I loved were missing teenaged girl warriors.

Joyce Carol Oates’ unique style of writing has left an impactful, yet meaningful mark on many individuals lives today. The compelling literature she has written over the span of her career has established a unique style that has won many awards. At age fifteen, Joyce Carol Oates wrote her first novel, which was at first rejected by publishers for being too depressing for teenage audiences. From a plethora of books, novels, short story collections, poetry, young adult fiction and plays, her work has had an impactful last on our society today. Joyce still continues to expand her knowledge and continues to follow her love for writing as a Professor at Princeton University, in New Jersey.

On October 26th 1962, one of the most known authors was born: Amy Chua. Amy Chua was born in Champaign, Illinois in the Unites States. She was raised as a catholic. Despite her having ancestry whom are Chinese, to be more specific Kokkein dialect, she proudly carries around an American identity. She was born in the year of the Tiger. In their culture, that represents people who are fearless, powerful, noble, and authoritative. “My family comes from southern China’s Fujian Province, which is famous for producing scholars and scientists.” Her parents migrated from the Philippines to the States before she was born in order to continue their educational studies. Her father, “Leon Ong Chua is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is a professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley.” His nationality is Holko and American. On the other side, the authors mother, Diana Chua was born in China and moved to the Philippines at the age of 2. She converted to Catholicism when she was in high school and received a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Santo Tomas. Amy has three sisters and they are all known to be successful in their own ways. Amy Chua has 2 daughters: Sophia and Louisa. With Chua’s Tiger parenting methods, Sophia seems to respect and listen to her mother which is the opposite than Lulu (Louisa). Lulu has more western characteristics. For example, she talks back and doesn’t respect her mother’s orders. Briefly, these aspects form her native identity.

A certain image, scent or sound can bring back moments that may have been forgotten. The speaker is astonished by the dreams she has of her mother. Her mother died very ill, the person who she was when she died was merely a shell of who she truly was. She describes her as “so much better than I remembered.” (Monro, 151). At the end of her mother’s life she could not hear her voice. She remembers her “mother’s liveliness of face and voice before her throat muscles stiffened [as] a woeful, impersonal mask fastened itself over her features.” (Monro, 151) In her dreams she was able to hear her mother’s voice again, opposed to the reality before her death. A mother’s voice is beautiful, and there is no other sound that compare to something as unique. Elliot writes “The unconscious sifts through memory, and then offers up details either strangely distorted or implausibly combined. As in art, as in story, dreams too, render experience metonymically.” (Elliot, 79). With time memories inevitably fade, but the dreams bring a sense of comfort and replenish the image of her mother. “How could I have forgotten this?” (Monro, 151). Heller writes that this scene “serves as a springboard from which the narrator launches into a story being told by her mother.” (Heller, 1). This scene leads us to the central conflict in the story of her mother’s life, and assists in understanding the conflict

In a letter to anyone, Lois Lowry recalls her childhood belief that “writers were creatures with mythical status: unavailable, inaccessible, perhaps dead” and her journey to discovering that writers are none of these things. Lowry explains that it had never occurred to her to see them as real people. Her letter was written to explain that authors and writers are just normal people. Lowry herself sat “chewing on a strand of hair” as she wrote the letter, with a stack of other letters addressed to her sitting on the desk. In order to illustrate her point that writers are just regular people, Lowry sets a tone of nostalgia, gives examples of her own experiences, and uses repetitive phrases.

In the novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, the topic of life occurs throughout the story. Jonas lives in a community based on conformity and sameness. Jonas is chosen as the receiver of memory. As he is trained he learns that change is needed in the community. At the end of the book, Jonas tries to go elsewhere to return the memories back to the community. In The Giver, the author uses the characters, plot, and conflict to develop the theme that life can not be taken for granted.

Margaret Lester, mother of Helen Lester and sister to Hester and Hannah Gray, is a loving parent who wishes this best for her family. She was diagnosed with a deadly disease called Typhoid leaving her bedridden and quarantined. Due to her quarantine, she is only allowed to see Hester, leaving Helen without a mother. As a result of the abandonment of her daughter she is trapped in a consistent feeling of grief and sorrow. To combat this feeling of loneliness, Margaret and Helen Send love notes to each other as a form of communication. “She wrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which she concealed her illness; and these the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet with thankful tears, and kissed them over and over again, and treasured them as precious things under her pillow.” (Twain 13).