Dystopia In The Giver

As perfect as it appears, the community in the novel “The Giver” can be considered a dystopia for numerous reasons. Three of which are limited rights to the civilians, only one person suffering, and severe or humiliating punishments. A disadvantage of Jonas’ community that factors into why the community is a dystopia is that the civilians have limited rights. The people have to “apply for a spouse” and are assigned a significant other during the Matching of Spouses (Lowry 48). In this ceremony the members of the community that applied for a husband/wife are paired up based on their character traits. Another right that the community’s members do not have is the right to vote. In the community all of the choices are made for them and they never get to make
It is understandable that they want the people in their community to have a perfect and carefree life, but having one person have to suffer for their life is unacceptable. Jonas’ mom confirms that “there’s only one receiver” when he is talking to her (Lowry 67). Jonas had made the assumption that there would be more people so that there wouldn’t be so much pain on him. A final reason as to why the community in the novel “The Giver” is a dystopia is that there are severe and humiliating punishments for simple mistakes that would barely be acknowledged in our society today. An example of which this took place is when, as a child, Asher mixed up his words, saying “smack” instead of “snack”. As a result, “The discipline want, in the hand of the Childcare worker, whistled as it came down across Asher’s hands… painful lashes that left marks on Asher’s legs” (Lowry 55). An example of an embarrassing punishment is when they announce it over the loudspeaker, even if they don’t directly say the person's name, everyone can still assume that it was a certain person. As exceptional as it may seem, Jonas’ community has its’ imperfections, and a lot of them at