Wisdom In The Giver

“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,

Imagine a world with no feelings, no color, no choice; a world where individuality and freedom are exchanged for security and sameness. This type of world is a reality for Jonas, the protagonist in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. After being assigned the next Receiver of Memories in the community, where he has the capacity to see beyond. As he begins his works, he gains wisdom and through that wisdom, learned that protecting the community from the memories, their lives lacked understanding and feelings. Jonas goes on an archetypal hero’s journey and chooses to risk everything to restore memories and wisdom to everyone in the community. Throughout this novel, Jonas is represented as a hero considering he demonstrates integrity despite living in a

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.

But a boy named Jonas (lives in a seemingly idyllic world of conformity and contentment). He begins to spend time with The Giver, an old man who is the sole keeper of the community's memories, Jonas discovers the dangerous truths of his community's secret past. Armed with the power of knowledge, Jonas realizes that he must escape from their world to protect himself and those he loves -- a challenge no one has ever completed successfully. This would be an example of knowledge being a blessing because everyone should be able to think

In the novel “The Giver,” written by Lois Lowry, Jonas is a boy who follows the rules, spends time with friends and family, goes to school, and at the Twelves Ceremony is given the job as the Receiver of Memory. At the end of the novel, Jonas learns information that makes him leave the community to save the people he loves. As Jonas becomes older, he acknowledges that he is different from his family and the people surrounded by him. Once Jonas got his assignment as the Receiver of Memory, his maturity became inconsistent throughout the novel.

He accepts the role and begins training with The Giver. As time goes by, and he has received numerous memories, he starts to realise how cruel his society is. (SIP-A) In one of his later memories, we see The Giver pass on the memory of a rainbow. Jonas starts to learn about colors and vibrance. (STEWE-1) Jonas is first given the memory of a rainbow. “Days went by, and weeks. Jonas learned, through the memories, the names of colors; and now he began to see them all, in his ordinary life (though he knew it was ordinary no longer, and would never be again)” (Lowry 97). He felt good about what he was seeing, for a good amount of time at the least. (STEWE-2) But, Jonas starts to change his mind, and wonder why people don’t have color. He realizes that people can make choices without having the government do it for them. “‘If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?’” (Lowry 97). Yes, Jonas does agree with The Giver after the fact that decisions can be dangerous. But, Jonas still likes the thought of decisions and colors. (SIP-B) The main reason Jonas decided to flee from his society, is the way that they handled releases. His father had been lying about the process for all of Jonas’s life. (STEWE-1) Jonas asks The Giver about release because of the release his father was doing that

In the story, the wise old man is the Giver. The Giver’s mind is filled with good and bad memories. He is in charge of holding the memories from the community to avoid pain or suffering. He is the only one that is allowed to break certain rules. His power cannot be “given” to anyone except for a special person selected by the Elders. Jonas is that special person, he is the “receiver of memory”. So, the giver’s mission is to “give” Jonas the power of receiving all the memories. Also, he must share all his knowledge with Jonas so he can become the new “giver” in the community.

In this novel, foreshadowing is a crucial literary element that Lois Lowry uses to give the reader hints about what is going to happen later on in the book. Foreshadowing gives the reader an idea of the main character's personality, introduces the conflicts that are yet to happen, and discreetly proposes the main theme: the importance of being an individual. Lois Lowry even chose to begin her book with foreshadowing by saying, "It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to feel frightened." (Lowry 6). For example, at the beginning of the book, Lowry introduces the one thing that makes Jonas physically different than the rest of the population in the community: his eyes. Jonas has pale looking eyes, just like the Giver. This is a way of telling the reader that he is special, and will have significant role in changing the community. Another example of this element in the book is the “seeing beyond” that Jonas starts to experience. This example foreshadows the internal changes that are going occur to Jonas later on in the story. “The apple had changed. Just for an instant. It had changed…” (Lowry, 51). Through these examples, foreshadowing easily gives the reader a better understanding of how important it is to have a unique personality.

The Giver is a story about a city that is cut off from all memories from the past and is strictly controlled by the government or the so-called “Elders”. There is only one person in the community called the “Receiver of Memory” who has the role of holding all the memories of the past and giving advice to the government when they need it. When Jonas gets chosen for the Receiver of Memory position, he realizes that there is and was much more to this world than the people in the community know about. Jonas soon starts to see colors(which only the person who had the memories could see) and comes to the conclusion that the other people need to know about and have the memories. He goes to the Giver(the person who gives Jonas the memories) and asked him for a way he could return all the memories to the citizens. The Giver said he was proud of the courage that Jonas had; that he was proud he had the courage to rebel against the government to get what he thinks is right. The Giver gives Jonas more memories of courage so that he will be able to survive through the harsh conditions outside the city. Jonas goes to the outside of the city and is faced by many harsh conditions and also troops from the government. But he doesn’t give up. He has the courage to get what he wants. In the end, Jonas makes it to the Boundary of Memory and releases all the memories to every citizen in the city. Therefore, courage can be

In the beginning of the novel, The Giver, a character demonstrates that memories can be kept, not thrown away. This story starts off with Jonas being nervous on the ceremony of twelve. Jonas discovers colors he never saw before. This experience resulted in a big difference of a bond of colors in memories through the progression of the Giver giving memories to Jonas. Jonas heard his first negative memory. Memories are very valuable. On page 68 It gives rules.

“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

Throughout the novel The Giver, by Lois Lowry Jonas goes through some challenges. When Jonas got selected to be the Receiver of Memory his whole life had changed because there wasn’t many things he could do now. “Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community including parents and Elders.”(68) This shows that when the Elders selected Jonas to be the Receiver

In the novel, The Giver, Lois Lowry also presented that Jonas’ ability to see color conjointly contributed to the theme in the novel, which was the importance of color, by proving that since Jonas can see color he can see the attractiveness in life. For example, in the novel, it indicates, “There would be a glimpse of green ----- the landscaped lawn around the Central Plaza; a bush on the river bank. The bright trucked in from the agricultural fields beyond the community boundary ------ seen in an instant, flash of brilliant color, but gone again, returning to their flat and hue less shade.” This explains what beauty Jonas sees in most of his daily life, and to him he would prefer those colors that he sees for a brief moment than the

Lowry, herself even says “she didn't think of “The Giver” as futuristic or dystopian or science fiction or fantasy, it was just a story about a kid making sense of a complicated world” (Ulaby). In his own way, Jonas served as his own protagonist as his mind attacks him with questions and uncertainty. Community elders also pose as a sort of enemy, keeping people away from the truth. Moreover, Lowry also included other characters to contrast Jonas. Firstly, his friends, Asher and Fiona show up as foils. When Jonas learns the reality of release and war, he looks at his friend in horror. Even the Giver reinstates “Fiona is already being trained in the fine art of release” (153). Giver tries to comfort Jonas by saying “listen to me Jonas they can’t help it. they know nothing... it’s the life that was created form them, it’s the same life that you would have, if you had not been chosen as my successor” (153). This shows how Jonas remains set apart because he was selected as the successor. Rosemary, the previous “Receiver of Memory” shows up as another foil. Although Jonas never met her, everyone, even the elders, compare him to Rosemary. They hope they did the make the same mistake again and watch him closely. All of Lowry’s characters are created to support Jonas’ role in the

Once he is able to see colors, he notices the apples on the table and exclaims that they are red. But how does he know? He has never seen color before and wasn’t taught colors and this relates back to the memory passed down from the giver. He knows the apple is red from memory, not emotion, senses nor from intuition. He knows that not from his memory but from the giver’s memory of the past.