Analysis Of The Giver, By Lois Lowry

Most people in the world today live with many kinds of freedom. For example, freedom of speech and freedom of marriage is stated in constitutions of many countries. Recently, the right to free access to information is also an important right of every citizens. However, there are countries that make light of these civil liberties. China bans use of websites that are inexpedient for their governing, thereby violating the civil liberties of its people. Lois Lowry’s The Giver introduces a world similar to China. In it, the hero Jonas lives in a community extraordinarily safely with his family, with no memory. His father is a Nurturer, who is in charge of newborn babies and infants. His mother works in field of law. He has a younger sister, Lily,
In the world of The Giver, people apply for spouses. In the real world, a pair of male and female meet naturally, and get to marriage naturally. That is because love for each other. However, when one’s spouse is selected by other people, it is likely that they do not feel love, which has been essential for human beings, for each other. Even after people have their spouses matched, there are restriction on their children. The rules in the community states clearly that people can only have “[two] children-one male, one female-to each family unit”(42) In the real world, couples can have their children freely, without much restriction. This restriction also contribute to robbing feeling of love. The complete safety of the community also plays a role in lack of love in people. The community is “extraordinarily safe, each citizen watchful and protective of all children”(63) In this kind of community, as it is not any danger at all, though the community is protective of children as a whole, parents might not have feeling of protecting their own children, which reduces the kind of feeling of love. In Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver, she illustrates a world where people have no fundamental human rights that people have in the real world, and lost their humanness. In this world, people are required to use “precise” language, which can have many evil effects on them. People do not have access to true information, which make it impossible for them to take control of their own lives. Marriage and children system is controlled by the government, which causes lack of feeling of love in people. Having read The Giver, I realized that freedom and rights must not be restricted and