The Giver, by Lois Lowry, depicts a dystopia that strips people of all their freedoms and humanity. On the surface, the Giver’s society is a perfect utopia, free from the problems that plague humanity today, but after looking more closely at the people’s lives, the dystopic nature of this society is evident. The Giver’s community and our society have many similarities and differences, although our societies are comparable in that they have similar goals, such as helping people and having perfect equality, the means to achieve these goals are very different and as a result, the freedoms, laws, and day-to-day lives of the people are vastly different.
The freedoms in the Giver’s society and our society are very dissimilar. In the Giver’s society,
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The people in the community also have to take pills to stop them from having Stirrings and feelings; this also bars Jonas from seeing color until he stops taking them. On pages one-hundred-thirty and one-hundred-thirty-one, the text says, “He had not taken the pills, now, for four weeks. (...) he knew he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings he had lived in so long. And his new, heightened feelings permeated a greater realm than in his sleep. (...) Now he could see all the colors; and he could keep them, too, so that the grass and trees and bushes stayed green in his vision.”
After Jonas stops taking the pills, he can feel emotions and see colors that no one else in the community, except for the Giver, can see and feel. The pills stop them from feeling emotions, one of the things that make us human.
The people in the Giver’s society have no strong feelings, only simple, easily comforted emotions. Without strong feelings, they do not truly experience their lives; they cannot feel extreme happiness or grieve properly for their loved ones. They are not free to enjoy life, instead being constantly
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In the Giver’s society, the people have no feelings and the Old are euthanized practically every week and their friends celebrate their deaths.
For example, page 32 states that “He [Roberto] just bowed to all of us [the Old] and then walked, like they [the Old being released] all do, through the special door in the Releasing Room. But you should have seen his look. Pure happiness, I’d call it.” Everyone is happy about release because they have no strong feelings.
Another way the community's daily lives are different from ours is the people living in the Giver’s society also lead very strict and plain lives. No one can go out after dark; there are very few household items. Page 74 states, “There were the necessary reference volumes that each household contained: a dictionary, and the thick community volume which contained descriptions of every office, factory, building, and committee. And the Book of Rules, of course. In his (...) dwelling were the only books that Jonas had ever seen. He had never known that other books
“Most of us knew in our bones that things with the world weren’t right long before they became a crisis” (Pernell Plath Meier). This quote means that people in these dystopias probably felt that somehow their life was not perfect even though they may have been told that it was. In the dystopian societies of The Giver and Fahrenheit 451 there are some similarities such as laws and people, although there are many differences such as mechanical hounds (Fahrenheit 451) and not seeing in color (The Giver). Although in both societies there are laws and citizens, still the people live very differently.
Stop, think about this for a moment. You are in a community that cannot see color, has no feelings, no choices to be made on your own, and no diversity between each other. How would you feel? Jonas, a twelve year old boy and the Giver have to live in this community knowing all this. As they live in this futuristic dystopian community they share memories of the past and what is elsewhere.
The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, shows how communities can become if they don’t question their traditions by adding information on how people are used to their oppression. When The Giver talks about his pain from memories, Jonas says, “‘But you have to suffer like that all the time,’ .
The last extreme change is that we have emotions, feelings and we can see color, Jonas’s society is so much about equality that they don 't want anyone to be different or they fear that the people will have the power to chose what they want to do. Today 's society and Jonas’s have some similarities. Such as, in both children are given comfort objects to help them through rough times. Well just like in The Giver all children go to school in our country too.
Whether from their experiences or if they were born with it, they can all be described as tortured Souls. The Giver is a book about a futuristic society where the officials try to make all its citizens the same. Parents can have a certain number of kids, and every child in the community gets the same present for each birthday. At the age of 12, each child would receive a lifelong job. Jonas, who is the protagonist of the book, received the job of the receiver.
Edward Mrs. Axtell English -ELA 8 7 February 2023 The Giver Essay “The life where nothing is unexpected or inconvenient or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past” (lois lowry) In this quote lies the very fabrication of The Givers community and what has happened due to sameness. Due to this quote there is so much to deduct and show for comparing and contrasting.
The Giver is based upon a society in the future that has eliminated most forms of individuality. The Council controls everything that the people in this society are allowed to do. The Council has put an end to anything that may cause their people any type of pain or emotion. These people are no longer allowed to make any decisions of their own, the Council determines everything to
In Document E no one has any memories of color which is one of the reasons of why Jonas was so upset about because since there was no color in the community people couldn’t decide. This also builds on the idea that people have no freedom because they don’t even get memories of color, they don’t get memories of feelings, they don’t get memories of anything besides what the community lets them know. The idea of them having no memories is also told in Document B where the Giver tells Jonas how he has to hold all of the painful memories and soon he will to. The other people in the community have no idea of any of these memories and sure some of the people who say that this could be good because they are protecting the people from anything painful, but this is also bad because that is the problem without them knowing what hurting yourself is they think they can do most things like jump off of high ledges or other cases where it will end in harm. Since they don’t know what pain is they wouldn’t know what hurts them and they will probably end up living dangerous lives just how they don’t know that release is actually where they kill
(95) This quote explains how the decision to remove colour may help eliminate differences, but it takes away what makes people and life special. It is also a sort of turning point to Jonas, as it builds on his opinion about why his community isn’t perfect. In relation to the book, in “The Giver” movie colour is also a factor that has been removed from the community. This is clear to the viewer, as in the movie until Jonas gains the ability to see colour, the viewer gets to watch the movie in black and white.
The film “The Giver” is a movie about a society perfectly built in which everyone has a purpose and is equal. Jonas uncovers the truth of their society
“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others” (Lowry). In other words, this means that to get what you want, you have to get rid of other things you have. Although there are many similarities between The Giver and our society, there are a lot more differences like families, rules, and personal freedoms. For starters there are many differences with families between their society and our society.
He is under sameness and the influence of the community. Jonas is chosen to receive feelings, colors, and emotions from memories. As time goes by Jonas sees the community not as a utopia but a horrible place. Jonas wants to change
One of the main themes in “The Giver” is the importance of individuality. The people in the community are not given any freedom to be individuals. They are not allowed to be different, and this creates less understanding of the world. This is why the community needs a receiver to understand these things for them.
While a dystopian society may seem perfect, the novel represents the limitations and expectations of an ideal community. The Giver displays the similarities and differences of our modern world versus the “flawless” model of a perfect society. In a perfect society, everyone must be the same. To make sure of synchronization in the community, there must be discipline.
The Perfect Place The society Lowry depicts in The Giver is a utopian society; a perfect world as envisioned by its creators. It has removed fear, pain, famine, illness, conflict, and hatred, all things that most of people would like to eliminate in today’s society. In this utopian community, major problems are rare, only minor problems such as scraping your knee would happen. Even when this would happen there would be medications sent to them.