The Giver Snowflake Analysis

One of the themes portrayed is that of memory. Jonas’s people do not have memory, because some time ago, memory was eliminated as a result of the pain and regret that memories are associated with. As a part of the community’s “utopia” plan, memories had to be ousted from the community (Lit Charts). Memory is also eliminated because the community wanted to stop people from making bad choices.

In the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry, everyone who Jonas knows lives in the community, and nowhere else. The community is an organized society with brainwashed people. Virtually all of the people that live in the community know nothing about the past or anything else, beside the rules and the occupations in the community that they have been following for generations. Only the Giver and the Receiver of Memory know of the past and emotions and the secrets. Jonas is the Receiver in Training, and he acquires these memories and emotions from the Give. These memories are the memories that the people in the community don’t have, the memories that have been rid of and kept in the Receiver of Memory for generations. The Giver also reveals that the

Jonas begins to receive painful memories from the giver and he finally understands why the community would want to avoid such painful experiences. If people had these memories it would create choices, which can lead to many mistakes (Lowry 98). People could choose the wrong mate, the wrong job, and people could get angry which can lead to war. The elders, from a time long ago, did not want to worry about incidences like those happening; therefore they created a community with no memories or choices. So they gave all of their collective memories to a receiver of memory. Jonas, after a year of training

“Color.” It’s all around us, we see it every day of our lives, everything has color, but the people in Jonas’ community didn’t know this. They had no clue what color was or that it even existed. Their society was hue less, hopeless, and everything was the same until the new receiver of memory changed that for everyone. In our world choice is a big part of our everyday lives we make many choices a day, do I want this or that, green or blue, this shirt or that shirt? But in The Giver choices were made for them, what they wear, how they act, what they say, what they eat, and what they do for a living. Imagine all that stuff being chosen for you. Everyone would be dressed the same, act the same,

Jonas receives memories of color, something that is absent from his community. He realizes how absent his community really is. Jonas hurts inside to tell people in his community what they are missing. The only person that he can really open up to is The Giver. They grew really close, and it became like a grandfather, grandchild relationship.

Jonas, after the Ceremony, now realizes that he will be different then the rest of his friends, “Now, for the first time in his twelve years of life, Jonas felt separate, different.”(62) Jonas now is different then other kids. He realizes that his assignment has different requirements than the other children. He also learns he has the power of “seeing beyond”. Jonas saw Jonas and his friends playing a game of war , and then realized, “In his mind, Jonas saw again the face of the boy who had lain dying on the field and had begged him for water.”(126) Jonas, with the memory of war, understands that the game war is the same as the memory of the boy who was lying on the ground dying. He realizes that things that seemed harmless, now seem so scary and sad. Also, when Jonas and the Giver first meet each other and start talking about different things and the Giver says this,“Jonas, you and I are the only ones who have feelings.”(144-145) It's easy to think that being different or thinking differently is ok, but when you look at the facts, Jonas and the Giver have no one to share how they feel with, or what they are experiencing in the training. The Giver says that he and Jonas are the only ones who will feel feelings. In the community everything is perfect there is no wrong and no differences. Jonas will feel different about life because he will have memories of imperfect

Jonas discovers what is really beyond his community, beyond all the rules and policies they have to follow; he decides to leave and give all of his memories to the rest of the community so they would know about what they have not seen or experienced before. Jonas discovers that the community has decided too many things for everyone. He realizes Sameness is not right, that it cannot last any longer. He thinks of all the what-ifs. What if the Elders choose a wrong spouse? What if the Elders choose the wrong job for someone?

In Jonas society, nobody knows any information about anything. The elders, who are in the Giver’s community, believe that no community members except for them and the Receiver of memory should know all the information. Even in the beginning of the training, Jonas thought that he had to protect people from wrong choices. But, the Giver agreed that it was safer. Jonas was getting mad about how the memories couldn't be shared with everyone, so he decided to run away on his bike with Gabe. They decided to make a plan to leave. The Receiver and Gabe left the community together. Life is full of color, even though life was remained in this society, it was not colorful. All the bad days and good days were very valuable to

The giver by Lois Lowry was an interesting book to say the least. In the beginning you are lead to believe these are normal kids and characters, possibly in the future, but in pretty much the same state of mind as our definition of “human” today. As the book goes on, you are slowly let in on details, like the characters can not see color, and that the parents are not biological parents, and everything is organized and decided for the characters in the book. The author did a great job of slowly bringing us into the world of sameness quite the same way the giver slowly brought Jonas into the world of memories. I believe the subject of the book is the Importance of the Individual. As corny as it sounds, we spend much of our life trying to be just like everyone else. I think Lois Lowry wrote this entire novel just to show how horrible it would be if everyone was the same as everyone else.

Despite the fact that he could be killed if he was caught. Jonas also wanted to release the memories into the community to make it a better place. Jonas looked to The Giver for advice, and The Giver was almost like a father to him. Jonas normally followed the rules of the community for what was right and what was wrong except when he ran away. Jonas learned that the rules of the community were harsh, once he had his knowledge he got from The Giver, he kind of made his own rules. The Giver shows lots of moral courage because he helped Jonas run away despite the potential consequences of getting released. Also the Giver took the risk of giving Jonas the memories when the previous receiver ran away because the memories were too much and then those memories were lost. The Giver has all the knowledge from the previous generations so he uses that to decide what is right and

Jonas is not able to share the memories with any friends or unit family members and he has to deal with the fact that his friends and his family unit always ask him and he has t lie to them tellings them that they just walk all the time and he learns new

Jonas lives in a world of Sameness. In his community, life has been changed to be a place without color, choice, feelings, love, or inequality - a “perfect” world to all. No one ever complains: this is how the community runs, and has been running for as long as citizens can remember. At age 12, Jonas is assigned his life work as the Receiver of Memory and joins a mysterious old man named the Giver. The Giver uses his knowledge help the community make the right choices in times of crisis. He shares his memories about when life had the things that make life amazing - the color, the love, the feelings, the passion. Jonas is amazed and decides his world desperately is in need of change. The problem is, he doesn’t know how to fix his choreographed world to the place he envisions when Sameness is all anyone has ever known. Therefore, Jonas and the Giver make a plan to release memories to the people of the land and give them the wonders they’ve never known. Jonas runs away with the baby he loves, Gabriel, from the

“If you were to be lost in the river, Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you. Memories are forever.” (144) This is a quote that the Giver said to Jonas and it means that whatever happens a person has they will never lose your memories no matter how sad they are they will always stick. Because people know that the memories they hold are very precious to you. Memories are very important because they make a person who they are. And losing those memories and without them people wouldn’t know who they are. And people can also look back when a person is older to all of those happy moments that they have had and they also teach them lessons like mistakes they have had in the past. With everyone knowing that they have memories they will most likely live a happy life but they aren’t all happy ones there may be sad, infuriating moments and those memories may make them a bad person sometimes like getting revenge on someone else. And Jonas community doesn’t have those happy memories about the happy life of the

In the next piece, Jonas had to deal with the hardship of feeling love for the first time. When the elders made the decisions for the citizens of the community, they took away all feelings, even love. Even though the feelings had been taken away for almost everyone, Jonas had received the job of the receiver of memory [ a job where he receives the memories that have been taken away from the citizens], and after he felt love for a girl in his age group, Fiona. Jonas finally feels love for the first time: “[...] I am left with a vague wisp of that one [the memory]; and I have many other memories of families, and holidays, and happiness. Of love” (Lowry 125).After The Giver gives the memory of love, Jonas actually feels the emotions, and he knows what holidays are and what happiness feels like.

Jonas didn’t know that the society he lived in was so unrealistic at the beginning of the story, so, in a way, he changed because the memories allowed him to compare his community with the outside world and see it