The Significance Of The Community In The Giver By Lois Lowry

The Giver is a novel that is set in a society that strives to be a utopia. A utopia is essentially a is “a place where no one has to make a decision, feel pain or even have a negative thought or a bad memory” (Goepfert). In The Giver their community focuses so intensely on this concept of a peace that they make many sacrifices in their pursuit to obtain it. This includes the loss of emotion, lack of individuality, deceit of the public, and a great burden on a small few. Ultimately the cost of this utopia is too high for this society.

What if we lived in a world of peace and equality? What if we lived in a world with no differences? A world with no social classes and inequality. That sounds pretty amazing doesn’t it? In Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver that is the reality. The catch? The catch is freedom. There is no room for being different, no room for spontaneity, no room for experimentation and breaking the rules. If you break the rules you will be caught and their is no room for forgiveness. Also, if you are diagnosed with a disease, or just simply sick, you must likely will be released into the “elsewhere” world.

“’She skipped me,’ Jonas thought sunned” (57). Jonas didn’t know why, but the Chief Elder had skipped him and he was so embarrassed. Little did he know however, that his journey as a hero was about to begin. Jonas must walk through pain and danger. He must rely on support from the Giver and he must become mature, in order to complete his journey to heroism.

In chapters 7 and 8, Jonas is assigned the job of Receiver of Memory and although the Chief Elder calls it the greatest honor,it might give him more hardship and pain than fortune. She explains that the selection is rare and his role is very important because there is only one Receiver and it takes integrity, intelligence, courage, wisdom, and the capacity to see beyond to be that person. At first he wants to tell he has no idea what she means and that he doesn’t have it until he notices a change in the crowd that was quick but he knows that he isn’t dreaming because it’s happened before but to his apple. Then he realizes

Perfection is the main goal of both the society of Pleasantville and the society The Giver lives in, in the book The Giver. Although both societies strive for perfection, the goal is almost always unreachable; however, during the pursuit of perfection, both societies reach the exact opposite. Pleasantville is a TV show created in 1950. When two kids from the real world are sucked into the tv and placed in this world of “perfection”. This world is only in black and white, every single day there is not a cloud in the sky, 76 degrees and sunny. At first, David/Bud believes this as well until he realizes everything their society misses out on. David and his sister then slowly bring color into the “perfect” society. Going along with the “perfect”

Anthem and The Giver are almost alike. In both the book and the movie, utopian societies are portrayed through idealistic systems and community framework. The Giver depicts a people of which past memory of human civilization and emotion does not exist. In addition, people living in this society can only view their surroundings in black and white. Jonas, the main character, is assigned as the Receiver of Memory. Through his lessons with The Giver, Jonas learns about past human society, and he begins to view his world with color. Society in the Anthem is also described as utopian. When children reach the age of five, they are placed in a hall called, Home of the Infants. These children then do not have contact with their parents as the state is responsible for their care. At the ages of five and fifteen, they become placed in Home of the Students and later in the Home of the Street Sweeper. As adults, they work to sweep the street. In this community system, individuals are not able to communicate with one another for friendship and developing theoretical and material innovations are nonexistent.

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. In Lois Lowry’s award-winning novel, The Giver, Jonas’s society is considered to be utopian because the society has an overall sense of sameness, organization, and minimal problems.

Jonas’s society is extremely different than the one we live in today.The first difference between The Giver and our society is the number of family members. In the book they can only have two kids, one boy and one girl; however, in America we are free to have as many kids as we would want. The second

Different feelings and emotion are not known in the community within the people.The Giver and Jonas are the only true people that know how to feel the different emotions. Every night at the conclusion of their evening meal one of the rituals is the evening telling of feelings. In the very first Chapter Jonas talks about how it was almost December and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. But then thought that was the wrong word to use. Frightened ment that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Now that it was almost upon Jonas he wasn't frightened but he was eager he decided. He was eager and excited. But then their was a little shudder of nervousness when he thought about what might happen at the ceremony of twelve. Apprehensive, Jonas decided. That's what I feel like. (chapter 1)

People have always wondered what a difference and similarity a dystopian/utopian society would have with our modern day society.With the help of modern day society and the givers society we can figure out the differences between Modern day society and the Givers society.Modern day society and the society in the Giver have many differences including Rules, Family, And Figurehead/Leadership; however they also have a few similarities.

What we desire, and we need has a very clear distinction. Desires may not increases the chances of survival, but what we need is it self our survival. The things we try to obtain may include,independence,rights, and most importantly freedom. Freedom is only obtained for our enjoyment but is it really what we need? A certain movie revolving around this very subject answered my question, the movie was called “The Truman Show”. The segment that really caught my attention was the first scene that showed the director of Truman’s life talking about the perfect world that be home to Truman for the rest of his life.Truman lives perfectly happy with no Freedom,Rights,and independency. Truman still sought his freedom and escaped the artificial world he was in. Why would we face the dangers of the world if given the choice. So I thought, why would we still want Freedom anymore. That was when I realized, the best way to live life, is to live in detainment.

“Someone who can’t sacrifice anything, can’t change anything.” (Whisper.sh). Jonas sacrificed everything to change his community, other communities, and the world. Lois Lowry creates a flawed and controlled setting in chapters 1 and 2 of The Giver using specific words and phrases.

How is the society of The Giver really that different from being a modern day society? When people try to create perfect societies, it creates mayhem! Our modern day society is far from a perfect society in the novel The Giver. While appearing perfect, Jonas’ society has many rules and laws under the surface that make it much more dangerous than modern day society.

“Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting” (Anne Lamott). Can you picture our world as a perfect society? For perfection to be achieved everything would have to change. Through the book, The Giver, Lois Lowry shows how a perfect society is not always ideal for everyone. The rules of the society portrayed include a discipline wand, chosen spouse, and release. 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.

The movie “The Giver” sets place in a community that is very different than our own. The film is shown in black and white which represents the community and how they live their lives. At the head of the community is the elders who have come up with the rules for the community and choose the jobs assigned to the children. In charge of the elders is the chief elder who is like the president of the community; has the last say. One of the elders is very unique from all of the rest, he is the receiver. The job of the receiver is to retain all of the memories of the world that the community members are not allowed to have themselves. The receiver is also very unique in that he is not allowed to follow the same rules as the rest of the community.