Examples Of Power In The Giver

Becoming ambitious for more as well as being a megalomaniac and sanctimonious are characteristics resulting in having too much power over people. Although power can be used acceptably, when given ability over others, humans tend to get carried away and strive for more. Having too much authority over others causes innocent lives to be manipulated, the guiltless to suffer from being abused, and individuals to act egotistical.

When presented with too much power, it can cause individuals to wield it in incorrect ways, hurting blameless beings. Although some may believe that power is a good trait to have, it may harm faultless people and cause them to be maneuvered against their own will. In the book, The Giver, Jonas lives in a bland community

Although having a perfect Community where everyone follows rules and no one misbehaves may sound like a place from the dreams, it actually manipulates people into believing in false thoughts and ideas. Jonas can see color, while the rest of the Community can only see grayness. Due to this reason, Jonas gets selected as the Receiver of Memory, since he can see beyond. During his training, the Giver gives him memories handed down from generation and generation. For the first time, Jonas experiences color vision, fright, the joy of tasting snow, the feeling of love and gets an understanding of battle, grief, and death. Jonas discovers that true happiness cannot exist without memories, even though memories can be gruesome at times. All these emotions are removed from the Community’s everyday lives (Lowry, 1993). As shown, the Receiver of Memory is forced to hold all the pain and joy from the memories, while the rest of the Community is free from these emotions. Memories are key bridges to connect two ends of human emotions of extreme sorrow and extreme happiness. His experiences make him unsure if the Elders made the right decisions by taking these emotions out of people’s lives and making everything colorless. Another instance is the Community rules. The Elders have set rules, such as ceremonies for every year you grow older and assigning jobs. Everyone is forced to attend each ceremony, and during the Ceremony of Twelves, the Elders assign each person a job. Apart from choosing their own job, they also cannot choose their life partners, their babies, their education status, and what to eat. The Elders also choose houses, called dwellings, for them. Besides that, they also spy on people by installing speakers and cameras to see and hear what people are saying inside the dwelling. They are told not to lie, or terrible consequences have to be faced. When Jonas used the word “starving” instead of “hungry”,