The Giver: Individual Text Feature

In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the protagonist, Jonas, lives in a future community that values uniformity, order and what they call “precision of language”. The novel begins with Jonas struggling with the concept of his future occupation, as he is about to become a Twelve, and take part in a ceremony in which the children of the community are assigned their careers. At the ceremony, however, Jonas is chosen for an exceptionally rare and important job, that of the Receiver of Memory. As the new Receiver, he is tasked with receiving all of the memories of past generations of humans from the old Receiver, or as Jonas calls him, The Giver. The Giver gives Jonas memories of color, snow and sunshine, family and love but also, tragic memories like loss, pain, starvation, war and the understanding of death. The Giver explains to Jonas that the Receivers throughout history hold these memories so that the community can live peacefully without knowledge of difference or emotion. Jonas always feels uneasy about this, believing that everyone should be able to feel love and see colors and hear music, even if it means that they can suffer. He is then forced into action when he realizes that the elders, troublemakers and undesirable babies that are “released” from the community are actually killed. He and The Giver agree that the community must go back to the times where everyone had memories to stop the injustices of their society. In order to do that, Jonas escapes his community with a baby scheduled for release so that his memories will return to the populace.

            This text is critical in the genre of adolescent literature because it explores a number of characteristically adolescent themes and how they interact within a protagonist of a dystopian society. Some of these key themes that could be explored further are the newfound understanding of death, the need to escape from the rules and corruption of society and the adolescent propensity to realize their own agency and use it to make significant change.

            The theme of death and how it is portrayed in this novel was especially fascinating because it also ties into the community’s use of “precise language” to keep their citizens from contemplating abstract concepts like love, justice and suffering. The community uses the term “release” to reference death, choosing to use a vague euphemism to describe an act that would usually result in fear or loss or mourning. The elders of the community are released with a glorifying ceremony, delinquents who repeated break rules are released and, most disturbingly to Jonas, babies who are not big or strong enough are released as well. Death is all around this society but only Jonas and The Giver have any recollection of the consequences of killing the outliers of society. Once Jonas realizes that his father regularly kills babies as his job and is planning on killing Gabe, the baby that he has bonded with or even shared memories with, because he cries too much at night, he feels that the society must sacrifice their relative peace to once again have a full understanding of the consequences of their actions.

            Jonas’ realization of his own agency throughout the text is also a key element that could be discussed at length. The transformation from powerless to empowered that Jonas goes through is a vital part of his character development as an adolescent and as a dystopian hero. At the beginning of the text, Jonas is significantly worried that he will not fit into his new life as an adult with career but he still places his faith in the Elders that they chose the proper path for him and that he must follow it, whatever it is. His existence up to this point has been entirely in the hands of others, with ever present rules such as scheduled curfews, not being allowed to ride a bike until a certain age, or having to take a pill to stop the “Stirrings” of emotion. This all changes when Jonas becomes the Receiver. His newfound ability to act according to his own conscience is helped along by his career instructions allowing him to lie and to be excused from dream telling and from taking his “Stirrings” pill. Choices that have never been available to him are now and although he does not use them often, it is empowering to even have a say in the decision. As Jonas receives good memories and feelings, he takes it upon himself to share these feelings to as many people as possible. He tries to explain love to his family but they can only understand lesser feelings of pride or enjoying one’s company. The only person he can effectively share memories with is Gabe and while that does bond them together, Gabe cannot really communicate with Jonas to experience those feelings together. This realization of agency is also vital in Jonas’ quest to escape the society and help it to improve in the future.

            The last theme that I could discuss is the adolescent’s proclivity to see the corruption of institutions and be empowered enough to try to change it. Through receiving memories, Jonas has new insight into the true workings of the world and how the life that he and his community have lived is a dull and often unjust version of it. In order to bring the community back to the way it was before they lost their memories, Jonas must leave the community and find Elsewhere because as soon as the memories leave the community, they are given back to the people. Jonas sees that his family and friends are suffering without even knowing that there could be a better way so with his newly discovered agency as an individual, he takes it upon himself to defy his society and leave. This adolescent trope of leaving society to find real truth and knowledge is modified in this story with the juxtaposition of The Giver’s part in Jonas’ plan. He has long desired to give the memories back to the people but never had the courage and when the plan does go into effect, instead of going away with Jonas, he vows to stay with the community and help them through their initial confusion so that they may come to terms with it and live better lives. This shows that while Jonas is certainly more grown up than he was at the beginning of the novel, he still does not quite have the adult wisdom to realize that reform must also come from within society, not just by criticizing and abandoning it.