Chapter Summary: The Giver

The Giver placed his hands on Jonas’ back, and decided to transmit the memory of summer. Jonas awoke in a foreign place far from the small room in the Annexe, he was in a place where there was constant sunlight and the sound of laughter surrounded him. There was a place where everyone seemed to be which was a combination of sand and salty water, beach he thought. Aside from the constant laughter of children and adults, Jonas could see several colors, the light blue of the sea that grows darker as the sea gets deeper and deeper. The salty and fresh smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves, gently and harmoniously on the sand at the shallowest point of the beach. There was a taste of the salt on his lips from the evaporated salt water and
He saw children playing sports, a ball game where tow teams stood at a short distance and threw a ball in the hope of it getting past the other teams last man. He seemed to like how the game looked and thought of trying it back in the community with Asher but that would be breaking his rules and transmitting memories to the public.

Jonas disregarded that feeling and continued to observe the scene, the colors where immense, people had different colored short-tunics, which he found out where called bathing suits, the name bothered him. They were not bathing and they were not suits, Jonas thought to himself, “I guess precision of language was not that important back then.” And just shrugged the feeling of error off completely.

It was a good memory, the water splashing, the children laughing, the people eating food at the beach in a small basket called a picnic, but Jonas remembered what the Giver had told him constantly, “The community is the way that it is because all these activities would be dangerous to the members of the community,” and with that phrase ringing in Jonas’ head repeatedly, he rose up to find himself of the bed, in the Annexe, with The Giver’s hands firmly on his