The Giver :: Giver Essays

The Giver   onas lives in a perfect world where war, disease, and pain have all been eradicated. Everything is in order everything is under control. The throng have no worries or cares. The residential district strives for sameness, in which everyone and everything are the same and equal. To help the Community function as a cohesive unit, each member is assigned a position in society. When Jonas turns twelve, the Community selects him to be the new Receiver of Memories. only(prenominal) the Giver knows the truth and memories of the past, and now he must pass these memories on to Jonas.   The Giver is a wonderful book. Lois Lowry skillfully crafted an intriguing and profoundly thoughtful story. She subtly creates an uneasy feeling that something is wrong with this perfect world. The Communitys advisors intend to establish security within utopian society, but they really establish a stifling dystopia. To nourish people from the risks of making poor or wrong d ecisions in life, the advisors plan and dictate the lives of the people. In effect, the citizens have no freedom of choice they do non choose their job or even their spouse. Moreover, the advisors inhibit the peoples ability to feel because they want to spare them from the hardships and pain of life. For instance, individuals must take a pill everyday, which suppresses wild feelings. The citizens do not know or experience true emotions like love. One of the goals of the Community is to achieve sameness so that no one feels embarrassed or gets excluded for being different. However, this limits individuality and freedom of expression because everyone conforms to a certain desired image. Finally, to relieve the population of the horrors and devastation of the world and the past, the advisors isolate the Community from the counterbalance of the world (also known as Elsewhere) and give the burden of holding the memories of the past to a single member of society the Recei ver. Therefore, the Community lives only in the present, and the people have a narrow perspective of life because they only know their community and way of life. They are naive they do not gain knowledge or wisdom from the memories. While receiving the memories, Jonas learns a different and better way to live and realizes what he and the Community have been missing.