The Giver: Published 1993

By: Lois Lowry (Author)

The Giver is one of my favorite books ever written, it is a book about a boy name Jonas, The Giver, his family and the community he lives in. Jonas lives in a community where everything is the same. Everything is controlled to be perfect, and the people in the community depend on The Giver “Receiver of Memory”. (1) The community must obey these rules and patterns if they wish to continue living in their community. At the age of twelve all twelve years old children must attend the Ceremony of Twelve so that they can find out what their new job assignment will be in their community until they are adults. The Chief Elder has decided not to assign Jonas a job within the community. Jonas has been selected for training as a Receiver of Memory. It is the most important role in the entire community. Jonas didn’t know what his job was or what he had to do.

Jonas was told that he had to report to an Annex attached to the House of the Old for his training. Every day Jonas would go to this house and each day he would receive a new memory from The Giver, the first day Jonas learn about snow sledding, and hills. At first, Jonas could only feel coldness, over time he learned more. On the second day he received the memory of dream and he could lie because he could not tell anyone about his dreams. Then he learned about colors something other people in his community are not allowed to see. Jonas didn’t think it was fair that people couldn’t see color; he felt that everyone should be able to see color (20). As the time went on Jonas received his first memory of pain from sunburn.

Jonas finds out that the community is designed to have everything the same there are many rules and patterns, some rules include all families to have only one son and one daughter. Also, you’re not allowed to steal or have extra food. Lastly all nine year olds have bikes patterns including families share feelings and dreams and elders and newborns and identical twins can be release. That means they will be killed if they are too weak for the community. (24)

During Jonas training he ask The Giver to tell him about release, Jonas ask The Giver if he wanted to be release and he told Jonas he had to training him first. Jonas still didn’t know what release meant. He told Jonas about Rosemary who was the release of memory before him but asked to be release after working for 5 weeks because she couldn’t take the pain. The Giver takes Jonas to a windowless room to watch a video. Jonas get very upset with his father the Nurturer after seeing his father injected a fatal poison to a new child’s head. Jonas now learns what being release mean. (30) Jonas goes to The Giver and tells him he can’t go back home after he seeing the video. The Giver has his attendant call Jonas family to tell them he was with The Giver and he will not come home tonight.

The Giver tells Jonas his father was only doing his job and what he was told to do. It is their community rule. The Giver tells Jonas that that’s what happens when people are released. He also tells Jonas his friend Fiona has already been trained to perform release with no feelings to the elderly. The Giver tells Jonas what happen to the last Receive of Memory and how much pain and confusion it caused the community and if Jonas leaves, the community will pick a new Receiver of Memory to replace him, but the Receive they will pick is only 6 years old and her name is Katharine and she is too young to be a receiver of Memory in their community.

The Giver tells Jonas that he stayed in the community when the last Receiver of Memory was killed to help the people cope. The Giver tells Jonas he is too old and no longer sees colors. The Giver promise to give Jonas music before he leaves. Jonas tells The Giver things need to change there might be away to change things. But in a community a Receiver of Memory must keep things to himself. If Jonas leaves the memories he has learned they will go back to the people.

And in the end Jonas goes to his father house, steal his bike and kidnap the new child Gabriel because he did not want Gabriel to be release by his father. And he wanted to save his community so that they could all experience memories without the protection of the Receiver of Memory. Jonas try’s to go to Elsewhere, but they ran into a snowstorm, they got really cold, ran out of food, and then they beginning to starve because they had no more food to eat. Jonas thought he heard music but it was only an echo. (52) It is not clear in the end if they reach safety but they have sure left immediate danger.

This was a wonderfully written book that really makes you think. It takes place in a city where people are blind to more than color and it bares a striking resemblance to our day. People just move along and go through the motions. We live in a fine society most of the time but there are those moments when people and their problems are overlooked. Jonas really takes the time to help Gabriel. He reaches out where others wouldn’t. We can learn from his example and do the same in our lives and the lives of those we know.

 

Work citied:

Lowry, Louis. “The Giver”, 1993