The Giver

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The society Lois Lowry depicts in The Giver is a utopian society—a perfect world as envisioned by its creators. They have eliminated fear, illness, hunger, pain, conflict, poverty, and hatred—all those things that most of us wants to eliminate in our own world. But in order to uphold peace and order in the society, the citizen has to follow strict rules concerning their behavior, their relations, and even their language. Human passions and individual freedom add chaotic elements to society, so even the memory of freedom of passion, along with the pain and conflict that human choice and emotion often cause, has to be suppressed. As an effect of this, the citizens of the society, although they are happy and peaceful, lack the basic freedoms and pleasures that our own society values.
I feel sorry for the inhabitants of the community, they don’t get to experience love, passion and all other feelings that makes our lives worth living.

However, they don’t even know these feelings exist, so why should I tell them? Why can’t I let them continue to live their life in peaceful ignorance?
They deserve to know. They deserve to have all these wonderful feelings just as much as we do. Of course there’s bad feelings too. But if there weren’t, we wouldn’t cherish all the good ones.
Thus, I would tell them.

The worst part of the society portrayed in The Giver is the lack of feelings described above. I can’t imagine living a life without love and passion. I’m aware that the inhabitants of the community never have experienced these feelings, and thus can’t miss them. But still, I have to say that that is the worst part of the community.

The community is an improvement of our society in many ways. As I stated in the beginning, the creators removed many bad things like poverty, illness, and pain—in effect also removing many good things.
It seems like ever answer I give somehow return to my views on feelings. I suppose that’s important to me.
The citizens are nice and polite to each other, nobody has to starve, there’s jobs for everyone, and so on. It’s like a perfect American suburb. Underneath, everything isn’t as perfect.

I choose to be optimistic in this case and think that Jonas and Gabriel do reach ‘Elsewhere’, and that they live happily ever after. There’s almost certainly total chaos back in the community, but they will work it out with the help of The Giver. The sled, the first memory Jonas receives from the Giver, symbolizes the journey Jonas takes during his training and the discoveries he makes. Jonas felt so delighted running down the hill. But the first memory of extreme pain that he experiences also involves the sled. When, at the end of the novel, Jonas finds a real sled, it symbolizes his entry into a world where color, sensation, and emotion exist in reality, not just in memory.

In general, the end of the book is very moving, and it leaves many things open to reflect over. Almost everyone has an own opinion on the outcome of the book.

I think that Lowry wants to tell us many things with this book. One thing is that we have to start va...