The Giver, By Lois Lowry

Do you want to reach perfection? Perfection itself is not captured through success, it is carried with you through failure. The average person wants to be perfect in some form, but never wants to fail. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, a group of elders try and perfect a world so people will never fail, like their previous world. The previous world was much like ours today, but humans’ freedom caused destruction. Although the new society holds memories from the people. This is completely wrong because memories guide us. Memories keep us from repeating our past and memories shape our future. Your memories are vital to achieving perfection.

The result is, as praised by Jonas’ family unit, that the decisions the Elders make are never incorrect or unsuitable. They seem omniscient, and this strengthens their claim to power, their right to make decisions for the whole community as they are excellent at it. As has been shown above, the novel contains various forms of oppression. In order for “people” to express their individuality and humanity, freedom of choice is essential. Dehumanization is observed in The Giver’s society, and life within the communities becomes deformed, manipulated, and far from being a utopia. Infact, due to all the dehumanization, fear, surveillance and inequality shown in this society, it now strongly resembles dystopian one.

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.

What do you do when you get a scrape on your knee? Or if your having a bad day and you want to have someone to talk to? Many people go to their mother when they get hurt, emotionally or physically. Mothers works hard and make sacrifices so we have a better life. In the book "The Giving Tree", the author Shel Silverstein uses the tree as a "mother" of the little boy because the tree played with the boy. The tree also would also give what she had to the boy, she would sacrifice what she had to make the boy happier. It would take care of the boy.

Everyone is burden with pain. No one can escape emotional, physical or mental misery because it is part of what makes us human. Without pain we would live in a world of sameness. Although there is no way we can escape this reality, what if there existed a utopian society in which everyone could live peacefully without the burden of pain? Would everyone be better off or would living in ignorance be a burden for someone else? Lois Lowry gives us a glimpse into what life would be like in a world where conflict does not exist and shows us what this type of world would do to our humanity. In The Giver, she introduces us to Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy who starts off as an oblivious member of his

Throughout our lives, as humans, we have to make many decisions about things such as, the clothes we wear, the people we will mary, and even the jobs we will work at. However, these decisions can either be very good for us, or they can come back to haunt us later in life. It is dangerous for us as humans, to make our own decisions, and it would be safer if society made these tough decisions for us. In the story, “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry, Jonas comes to the conclusion that letting people choose the things such as their clothes, their spouse, and their job would be very dangerous. If society chose things for people, then life would be a lot safer for everyone. Also, many bad things that can harm people can be better by society choosing things for people. It would be more dangerous for us to get through our lives if society didn’t make decisions for us. It is dangerous for us as humans, to make our own decisions, and it would be safer if society made these tough decisions for us.

At the start of the story Jonas is feeling nervous about the ceremony of twelve's, where the children are given their assignment. This is where for the first time in the children's life, they will be doing something different then every other person in the community. Jonas is given the very special occupation, which isn’t really an occupation at all, of Receiver of Memory. He is the only one that can have memories of what life was like before sameness. The memories are given to him by The Giver, who was the current Receiver of Memory. The Giver must transmit all memories of history (the good,

In The Giver the authorities aim at achieving “Sameness” which means all people must be equal and the same. Lois Lowry describes a world of “sameness” where the lack of differences allows all members of the community to have predetermined roles and to follow an enforced set of rules. The Elders depict sameness in a way that makes it sound absolutely necessary, and without it, the whole world may fall apart. In the community of The Giver people accept everything as it is because they do not know any difference: “Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time … we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference” (Lowry, Giver 95). This sameness is terrifying and further imposes conformity on all people. So the community of The Giver is a uniformed society. People wear the same clothes; eat the same food; their houses are the same; and most of them look the same as well. By the age of ten, they all have the same short hair style: “females lost their braids at Ten, and males, too, relinquished their long childish hair took on the more manly style which exposed their ears” (Lowry, Giver 46). In The Giver the purpose of sameness is to protect people from wrong choices and to achieve safety for them.

“I didn’t. I used my wisdom from the memories. I knew that there had been times in the past - terrible times - when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction.” (112) When a pilot-in-training accidentally flies over the residential community, the Elders consult the Giver as they are considering shooting the plane down. Later in the book, Jonas asks the Giver how he was able to figure out that the pilot was just lost. The Elders would have made a grave mistake if it were not for the wisdom memories give and, like the Giver states, would have “brought about their own destruction.” We see this in our lives as well. The leaders of our country have set up many laws and legislations so that certain disagreements do not happen

Elvis Presley once said, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain 't goin ' away.” Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave relates to this quote by focusing on the truths of reality that humans do not comprehend. We think that we understand what we are seeing in our world, but we really just perceive shadows of the true forms of the things that make up the world. We are ignorant about the true nature of reality. The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry also involves these concepts. The main character, Jonas, lives in a community of conformity and conflict. When he begins to spend time and train with The Giver, an old man who is the only keeper of the community 's memories, Jonas discovers the unsafe truths of his community 's secret past. Once Jonas discovers the reality about his community, it constantly pesters him until he makes an important decision. Jonas realizes that he must escape from his world in order to make a long needed change for his community. As the prisoner from The Allegory of the Cave seeks knowledge outside of the cave, Jonas from The Giver discovers dark and deadly truths of his community’s secret past that will change his life forever.

Through our society we are all raised up to be independent and unique individuals such as being ourselves and expressing who each of us are to the world. However, in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, everyone is raised to count on one another and everyone must look and act the same. Our society differs from Jonas’s in many ways, such as the family units, birthdays, and the way we each learn about our past.

H.L. Mencken, a prominent American essayist and social critic, said that people are better off being safe than being free. People do not want to have their freedom if they are not safe. The validity of this quote is one of great debate between people of our time. It is clear that it is a fair tradeoff to live in a safe society with little freedom, and it is more fair than having to live in a society with no safety and many freedom.

What are memories and why does society in The Giver by Lois Lowry need them? This essay will be covering what memories even are and why the people living in Jonas’ community need them. It will also cover how good and bad memories are important. What even are memories? A memory itself is a the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.

In the book The Giver Jonas and the community have little choices they can make. In America we have lots of choices like how long your hair is, what you are going to wear to school and what color we want to wear. In Jonas’ community they cant even do that. Jonas left the community because he yearned for the freedom of choice. “If every things the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things”(PG97). Jonas wants to be able to pick his own tunic and job, but in the giver community he cant. He wants to pick his own spouse. Jonas is tired of sameness

The Marxist criticism is based on the socialist theories of Karl Marx and how the readers must closely examine the dynamics of class as they attempt to understand the works they read. In a world where there is no pain, no prejudice, no emotion, and no detestation. Lois Lowry gives a vivid description of a community where everything is equal, everyone is just as important as another, and life choices are made by only one individual. In the book The giver by Lois Lowry, it expresses the exact opposite of Marx’s most important ideas which is a prime example of what people will do if they were forced to live a certain way.