The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a boy named Jonas, who lives in a futuristic society that has eliminated all pain, pleasure, hatred, and fear. In this society, there is no prejudice. This is because everyone looks the same, basically acts the same way, and competes the same. One major thing this society has eliminated is the freedom to choose. For instance, every child in their society at age twelve is assigned a job based on their interests. Everything changes when Jonas is assigned the highest honor in their community. He is to be the receiver of memory. Jonas receives memories from the past, which might be either good, or bad from an old wise man, the wise man has asked Jonas to call him The Giver. As Jonas starts to receive more memories from the Giver, he starts to learn the difference between pain and pleasure, two emotions his society has taken away from everyone.
One way that Jonas
has learned about pain is when he starts receiving memories from the Giver,
Jonas realizes that the memories he receives that involve pain open him up to
the idea of love and comfort, these are two feelings his community doesn’t show
towards one another. The problem with Jonas’s community is that since no one
has experienced pain, they don’t have anything to compare their memories to;
this means that, they cannot value the experience. Another problem with Jonas’
community is that they don’t feel grief. This means that they don’t honor life.
In fact when a baby is born in their community, if the baby doesn’t pass the
community standards, the baby is put to sleep. Since the member of his society
are emotionless, they are not concerned with this including Jonas’s father, It
is his job as Nurturer to perform this responsibility.
One way that Jonas’
community takes away pleasure from its members is that they took away people’s “stirrings”,
which are emotional feelings toward another person. Jonas experiences this
during a dream, when he shares the feelings he’s having about Fiona. His
parents, instead of explaining what he was feeling, took away his stirrings,
and gave him a pill, that he would have to take every day, so that the feelings
wouldn’t come back. Another day Jonas learns about pleasure is when the Giver
passes on the memory to him about the meaning of the word, “love”. Jonas gets
upset when he asks his parents if they love him, and they reply, “You used a
very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become obsolete” (pg. 127). The
Giver teaches Jonas about how pleasure is an important emotion to feel in life.
The Giver by Lois Lowry,
tells us about two important emotions. The Giver teaches Jonas, that without
feeling pain he will never feel love and comfort. The Giver also teaches Jonas
that without being able to feel and show love towards another person, he will
never truly understand the value of life. Lois Lowry teaches her readers that
without pain and pleasure, they will never understand life. Jonas learns the
difference between pain and pleasure through the memories he starts receiving from
the Giver.
