Essay On Modern Society

What would it be like to live in a perfect society? What would be different from our modern day society? The novel The Giver models what an ideal utopian society might look like, but later in the book, the protagonist, Jonas, realizes his society is not so perfect after all. Jonas’ society and our modern society are alike and different in many ways both resembling and having distinctions through subjects like family units, Birthmothers, and release.

Family units are an important part of both Jonas’ society and modern society; even though we call them families, not family units, but they also contrast in many ways. Family units in The Giver have many rules that we don’t. For example, families are only allowed to have two children. “Two

Mothers today belong in the category of family, but in Jonas’ society all of the sentimental value was taken from the assignment of Birthmother and they are considered dishonorable. “‘I hope I get assigned to be a Birthmother.’ ‘Lily!’ Mother spoke very sharply. ‘Don’t say that. There is very little honor in that assignment’”(Lowry 21). Birthmothers in The Giver are only allowed to have three births, then they are reassigned to be labor workers for the rest of their lives. The women have their kids then give them up to be nurtured, named, and given to a family unit, so the Birthmother will have no way of knowing which children are hers. In the same way, there are people in modern society that give up their children for adoption if they feel they can not take care of them or don’t want to. “Each year in the United States, about 51,000 American children are placed for adoption. In addition, about 6,500 foreign children are adopted by Americans, for a total of a little under 58,000 children adopted per year”(pregnantpause). Some mothers might not even know where their adopted baby is living, just like in The Giver; although most mothers in modern society do keep their babies and take care of