The Giver Dialectical Journal

1.) People are not allowed to go outside after the specified curfew, this can help prevent someone getting injured, kidnapped, and just ensure a higher level of security for the residents in the society.

“’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.

“As a time when play was good and life so full of hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.” Pg 58

“He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something

Captain Jay Jonas never heard of such a radio transmission before. “ World Trade Center… ten- sixty. Send every available ambulance, everything you’ve got to the World Trade Center… Now!” “ Ten- sixty” meant a catastrophic event. Jonas got his first look at the North Tower.

“Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.” (Page 259)

4) On page 168 the author describes the feeling of relief and sadness when he says, “We were hugging but we were sad.”

How would it feel if this world didn’t let people have choices, didn’t let people share, or if they didn’t let people celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just celebrate anything? Well that’s what it was like for Jonas in The Giver. Jonas lives in the future in a community where The Giver is the only one who knows everything, but soon all that changed for Jonas. He became the the community 's new Receiver of Memory, and soon Jonas learns the terrible secrets of this “utopian” community. Later on as he learns some more about the community’s secrets he makes a plan to leave the community, and to take Gabe with him so he wouldn’t get released.(which means they die, but the community doesn’t understand that) In this book choices, sharing, and celebrations would have made The Giver community more positive.

"I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys" Part 2, Chapter 4, pg. 104

That when times did get bad, was when he should pray the most. When the Misfit explained how he had done something wrong, even though he never remembered being bad, the grandmother had claimed “That’s when you should have started to pray,” (O’Connor 12). The Misfit had enlightened her saying that he remembers being a good man and that putting him in prison was a mistake so again the grandmother told him “If you would pray...Jesus would help you.”(O’Connor 13). The grandmother then had changed her idea to believe, such as saying that he was a good man because the Misfit did not want help from God. She would try to believe in some other way to plead for her life, to save herself and no one else.The Misfit had stuck to one mindset even after the grandmother had changed hers over and over throughout the

“Though I lived as a religious leader without reproach, I felt, with the most disturbed conscience imaginable, that I was a sinner before God. I did not love, indeed I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.”

Jonas gets upset that she mentioned his eyes. Pointing out something with his appearance bothered him. Another example was when Jonas’s mother talked to him about taking the Pill to keep the stirrings away. Jonas recalls a time when he had been heading off to school with Asher, when Asher’s father called to him and said, ¨You forgot your Pill, Asher!¨ (Lowry 48).

Can you imagine a world without your without your own freedoms? In the giver they have hardly any freedoms, they don't and can't feel anything. They have to take stirring pills at a young age so they don't have feelings for anyone. They can't see color , and they have to where all they same clothes . No twins are aloud in the community . The line between personal freedom and public safety should be drawn where were aloud to do something if it doesn't hurt anyone else and yes, I think there should be law that protect the community but not take away personal freedoms.In the real world we have freedoms to like and have feeling about whoever we want. Where aloud to see colors and wear what we want. There freedoms in the book are very limited like love, diversity, and discrimination.

Blue Eyes Define Uniqueness The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement.” In most cases, individuals develops this characteristics as they grow older due to the fact that their experiences have aided them in making smarter, more thought out decisions. However, in the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, wisdom is a rare quality to have, as it represents the Capacity to See Beyond, which is subsequently an unusual characteristic in Jonas’s community.

Life would change drastically if we didn’t have books. In The Giver, Jonas has only seen three books. He has never seen another book in his life until he walks into the Receiver's room. It got me thinking. If there were no books in our world, I would be distraught. I would miss all books, but there are three books that I would miss dearly.