The Giver By Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry’s The Giver is set in a futuristic, dichotomous society, one that is both utopian and dystopian. In response to the overwhelming destruction and chaos in the world, the Elders have attempted to create and maintain a peaceful and orderly utopia, but this security comes at a price. The citizens of the community have sacrificed their individuality and freedom. Although most adult members have some knowledge of the hypocrisies involved, they choose to perpetuate the deception, allowing the community, as a whole, to continue on blissful ignorance. When young Jonas is confronted with all the truths of the present and all the memories of the past, he must choose for himself

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.

Jonas is feeling things that no one in his community has ever felt before. He is beginning to understand that others are missing out on important emotions. He knows that The Giver has already given away most of the memories, and in order to stop the process, he must make a sacrifice in order for his community to be aware of what they are missing. This proves that he is conscious of the fact that his community is not perfect, and the act of staging an accident is a noble, selfless thing to do; something that his perfect peers would not understand. When talking about the harms of banning books and by quoting Lois Lowry, Jennifer Kendall states, “The world portrayed in The Giver is a world where choice has been taken away. It is a frightening world” (Kendall). Kendall makes the point that the Utopian society is not something that people strive for. As a middle-schooled child, it is easy to see that life is not perfect. I feel as if Lowry does a great job in showing the reader that Jonas does understand that his community is not perfect, and he goes to great links to stop the perfection. While there may seem to

The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a twelve year old boy, Jonas, living in a utopian society. This story follows Jonas on his way to find out the truth about his Community, and what secrets lie in the past. The society where Jonas lives knows nothing of the real world, and only know of their perfect reality. In the novel The Giver, the most significant theme is control because in the society there is no freedom of knowledge, freedom of love, or freedom to do what they please, which amounts to uttermost control.

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

Potter Stewart once said, “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” Often times, people try to censor works of literature because they feel that they contain inappropriate content that should not be shown to the public. Many have attacked Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver for its controversial content. The Giver is centered around Jonas, a boy who lives in a seemingly peaceful community where differences within people have been eradicated and people have no memories. Each member of the community is assigned a position in society to help the community function as a whole. When Jonas turns twelve, he is selected to be the Receiver of Memory. Only he and his predecessor, the Giver, know the truth and memories of the past. Feeling burdened with these memories, Jonas decides to flee the community altogether. Many people believe that this heart-warming novel contains questionable content that should not be shown to the public. Although some argue The Giver contains explicit sexual content,

The Giver, by Lois Lowry is about a young boy named Jonas who is growing up in a utopian society. In The Giver they have no memories of anything that has pain even involved which meant that the community had to get rid of some joyful things also. Jonas, the receiver, and The Giver himself are the only two that know the memories. The author, Lois Lowry, was given the Newbery medal in 1994. In her acceptance speech of the medal she stated things in her life that influenced her book, The Giver. Many of the events in Lois Lowry’s life had really influenced many of the big events in The Giver.

The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is an everlasting story that shows the importance of individuality. This novel is about a young boy named Jonas who was elected as the Receiver of Memories, a person who is given the memories from the world that existed before their current society, Sameness. In this society there is no individualism. People can not choose who to marry, or what they want to do for a living. Over time Jonas becomes more and more wise, and realizes that the supposedly perfect community actually has some very dark and negative aspects. The author, Lois Lowry is a 76-year-old writer who focuses her writing on helping struggling teenagers become individuals. Lowry had a very tragic childhood. After both of her parents were

The dystopian novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a boy called Jonas becoming the new Receiver-of-Memories. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Jonas matures as knowledge is gained, and begins to understand the deepest, and darkest secrets of the community he lives in that is seemly 'perfect'. The author has successfully analysed a variety of social issues present in today's modern world in the novel. Some issues implied are: lack of individuality which allows for easy control, the abandonment of emotions and the importance of memories.

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.

Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver, offers a thought provoking, well written story, because it changes the perspective of anyone who dares to read it to. Lowry places her novel, at some point in the future when mankind has gone away with changes and choices in life. She forces readers appreciate, or at least re-think the world they live in today. Her novel presents a fully human created environment where people have successfully blocked out conflict, grief, and individuality. Each person follows the same routine every day. Failure comply with standards, to be different, means death. Jonas, the main character, finds himself trapped in this world.

In the book, The Giver by Lois Lowry, the world is perfect. In this utopia there are no problems, equality, no homeless, nothing to worry about. Everything is controlled by the "elders", their word is absolute. Trouble here is nonexistent, no one rebels and no one goes out of the boundaries. No one dies, they have this thing called being "released", which is something that is never to be questioned..

Lois Lowry’s dystopian story, “ The Giver” takes places in a time when nobody has the past to look to, no memories. Also, this takes place in a society where they choose where you work and how you look. The main character that goes through this all is Jonas. One lesson this novel teaches us is that memory is very important and everyone needs memory to survive.

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.