THE GIVER by Lois Lowry: About the Book

This is a story about a boy named Jonas who lives in a somewhat sheltered community. Jonas lives with his Father, a newborn caretaker, his Mother, a judge of some kind, and his younger sister, Lily, an imaginative girl who asks a lot of questions.

This community regards age as extremely important, tracking each boy and girl with various labels based on their age. Because Jonas is turning twelve, he will be assigned his job. And while his friends and peers are assigned regular jobs in the community, he is selected to be The Receiver, a prestigious position that must learn and keep the memories of the past.

He begins training with the previous Receiver, The Giver. The Giver is an old man who is wise and tired. The Giver begins transferring memories from the past to Jonas through touch. At first this is exciting because he experiences things like snow and colour, which are absent from this community. However, The Giver then transfers memories of pain and other negative images, which hurt Jonas.

After contemplating what to do with this knowledge, Jonas decides to take a newborn, Gabriel, with him and run from the community. He eventually makes it to society, where he is greeted by the sight of brightly decorated homes.

And while there are elements of the supernatural - the passing of memories - the somewhat utopian/dystopian society established in the story is a topic of important discussion.

The community in the story feels no sense of emotion, colour, feeling, or remorse. And while our current society is not as blatant in these absences, we can, still today, feel the lack of those same things.

Colour seems to be an important characteristic in this story. The majority of the community sees the world in a literal and figurative grey tone. Also, the use of red appears several times in the story - the apple, a girl's hair, flowers.

This story presents a scary scenario where a community decides the lifestyle of individuals and individuals have no real choice. Does it sound familiar?

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