essay of The Giver

Government creates laws to make the community orderly. Order makes citizens obey laws and be controlled by government. The laws limit people’s behaviors and force people to obey social regulation. Laws are developed by the government to manage the community better. Order is necessary in a community, but too much order leads the community to be stiff. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the life in this community is full of rules and Sameness. People wear the same clothes, have the same dwelling and family unit, learn the same knowledge, use the same standard respond, see no colors, have the same opportunity to work. Jonas was satisfied about this society until he became a Receiver at which point he desired more freedom. Although The Giver demonstrates that order benefits the community by promoting peace and safety, it shows that in the end, order cannot work, because it makes people lose their own freedom and the meaning of life.

In the society of The Giver, the rules are passed to keep the whole community free from worry and secure. Order makes the community worry free because “Loss of a child was very, very rare. The community was extraordinarily safe, each citizen watchful and protective of all children.”(56) It shows that children are taken good care by citizens, so there is few social problems which harm them in this community. Next, doors aren’t locked in this community and bikes are put outside which means people trust each other and the community has no danger, so people don’t need to keep their own things personal. Then, people have to be released if there’s a third transgression. This rule controls crime so that the community has no threats. In summary, this community is peaceful and well controlled. Second, every citizens is given an assignment when they are twelve. The Elders do a lot of observation, take notes and meet for love hours with all of the instructors for people’s assignments, so the choices of assignment are carefully made and the assignment fits everyone exactly. The government also offers training to help citizens to accommodate to their jobs which makes people are exactly good at their jobs. Citizens have no worry about getting jobs when they become adults. Also, when people become adults, they get a dwelling and a family, so people don’t need to think about place to live and having a family because government provide these things for them. These rules makes sure that each job have appropriate person to work on, all people can have a good life and the whole community is going properly.

            In The Giver, in order to keep the community methodical, the government controls people’s behavior so that people don’t have any decision for their life. Citizens can’t hide feelings in this community. They must tell all their feelings at the morning ritual when the family members tell their dreams. When Jonas had his first stirrings, “he knew he had to tell it all, that it was not only all right but necessary to tell all of a dream. So he forced himself to relate the part that made him uneasy.”(45) In Jonas’s situation, it is embarrassing to talk about feelings and thoughts, but he had to obey the rules and talked about it without any hiding even he didn’t want to do so. Government completely controls people’s behavior and people have utter obedience to the government. Next, new children need to pass the tests of maturity that the Nurturers give each month, otherwise they will be released. In this community, to be released from the community is to be killed. To keep the community in sameness, new children have standard behavior like sleeping soundly. But each one has their natural habit which is hard to change especially when they are only babies and know nothing. This shows government control every part of citizens’ life since they are only babies. Furthermore, people in this community don’t have any love and care to the new life. Then, citizens can’t touch another outside of family units. It means verbal communication is the only way to contact with people. Close emotion isn’t allowed so there is distance between people, no hugging between friends, no shaking hands with strangers. Distance represses deep relationships, and it causes a stiff society.

In the stiff community of The Giver, there are no strong emotions or wisdom because the community is all in Sameness. First, the family is distributed by the government, “Two children--- one male, one female--- to each family unit.”(11) People get their family when they become adults, and their children will leave the family and get their own family. When they are old they go to The House of Old and live with other Childless Adults. The only purpose of the family is raising children. People can’t have their family by their own, so the family in this community is only a group of people living together. There is no love in the family, even in the whole community. When Jonas asked his father “Do you love me?” his parents asked him to be precise of language because love is a very generalized and meaningless word. This shows that citizens have no idea of what a family is and have no family affection. When Jonas had his first Stirrings, he was asked to take the pills in order to control this kind of feeling. He couldn’t hold the feeling even if he loved it and wanted to have it again very much. It shows there is no desire in this community. Second, pain is forbidden in this community. People are not supposed to talk about the failure of the Receiver ten years ago. Their negative feeling are all released by the Elder which means the government controls their emotion. They deal with pain by taking pills, “There was always a daub of anesthetic ointment or a pill; or in severe instances, an injection that brought complete and instantaneous deliverance.” They have no experience about failure and they are not able to get wisdom from it. Third, knowledge is limited in this community because only three books are allowed. All the knowing is only about present. There is nothing that mention about the world outside. People only know about the standard lessons that they are supposed to learn. In the society, there is no exploration of unknown which means no one studies for something new to improve and know the world.

            In The Giver, after Jonas became a Receiver, he got the memories and learned to appreciate emotional depth. He got the memory of loss and he was affected by it deeply. He was in the war, listened to the death of soldiers and animals and lay there in fearsome stench for hours. He was overwhelmed by pain and knew death and cruelty. But he also got some happy memories. He saw a celebration of Christmas of a family in a warm room filled with people. From this memory he got warmth and love, and he got to know what grandparents and complete families are. “Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy.”(153)From the pain, Jonas gets the feelings of joy which is an important emotion. People in this community are enjoying their life without deep emotions because they can’t know what the real joy is without having negative emotions. In other words, they have no knowing of what they are living for or what their life is exactly like. Second, there is no wisdom which means people in this community don’t have experience. Their life is liked planned and regular, no failure, no hard feelings, no worry, no difficulties.  Wisdom gives the knowledge of life and being to people, that’s why people know what’s right and wrong and what things they shouldn’t do. Because of wisdom, people get to know about the world. But in the book, the giver said that the other people know nothing. For example, Jonas’s father felt cheerful to release a twin because he thought the twin will be sent to Elsewhere. But in fact Jonas’s father killed the twin. After Jonas got wisdom, he thought it was unacceptable. When many years ago the Elders came to The Giver for advice about increasing the rate of births, The Giver used his wisdom to reply to them. The strongest memory that he got was hungry, because the growing of population would cause more hunger. Excruciating hunger and starvation. So if people have no wisdom, they don’t have the ability to realize their flaw and consider the proper choice.