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The Giver Controversy

Decent Essays

The Giver, published in 1993, is an American, young adult, dystopian, science fiction novel. This is the twenty-second book Lois Lowry has written. According to Marie C. Franklin, Children’s Literature: Debate continues over merit of young-adult fare (The Boston Globe, February 23, 1997, p. G1), some reviews have criticized The Giver for lacking originality.
Set in the future, the society described in The Giver has eliminated war, pain, hatred, and fear. It is in the point of view of an eleven-year-old boy named Jonas. At the Ceremony of Twelve, he is assigned the job of Receiver of Memory where he is the only one, along with the current Receiver of Memory named the Giver, who has the community’s collective memory.
With this new ability, he can now sense and know how the community was before …show more content…

It was a book that made you think because it displayed a style of life we as humans don’t have even if we live in the rich developed world. No matter where we leave, as a whole, we still have to face pain, fears, prejudice, injustices, and cruelties. In this book, it displayed a life where people didn’t have to worry about pain, fear, death, cruelties, and injustices. However, it came with a price. Would people nowadays be willing to sacrifice some of our most cherished characteristics for a peaceful society where everyone is basically the same?
The book as a whole has affected me. A world without violence, cruelties and everyone (including women) is free and equal would be a desirable world. Reading this book made me wonder if I would like a society like that. To be honest, I would not. I think that society could have done better. I am not sure if the tendency for humans to be violent and cruel towards one another is an inherent or learned trait. But, planning out people’s life is no better than those dictators telling others what to do even in the name of keeping the peace. After all, they will eventually be executed if they don’t follow every

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