Preview

Lack Of Choice And Freedom In The Giver

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
650 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Lack Of Choice And Freedom In The Giver
Despite the lack of choice and freedom in their life, the characters in ‘The Giver’ should be happy that they live in a safe and predictable society. To what extent do you agree?

INTRO:

Lois Lowry’s novel, ‘The Giver’, is about a society's attempt at a perfect community, everyone has a place and is guaranteed order and peace. It is shown as this novel progresses, that this security has eliminated the citizens freedom and choice.

A community should have boundaries, limitations and rules, to regulate harmful behaviour.
However, the lives that citizens in this community are living isn’t entirely human. We all have a right to be able to learn through failing, to have freedom and speech and make our own decisions about our future. Emotions and all happiness have been eliminated, so people can’t truly experience true satisfaction and joy. The leaders view this as the right way to lives as there are no dangers, however as readers we know that there should be more to life than predictability.
…show more content…
Each person is given a family unit, a house, clothes, assured safety and a job. This should be valued as many people today lack these things, evident through the homeless. However, citizens are missing out on the extra things of life. It is not worth giving up the experience of beauty, joy and love for an end to all pain. As humans, we have a right to make our own choices and decide our future. They should be able to create an individual identity by exploring and making

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Is there really such a thing as a perfect society? Will modern day society really be as perfect as some might want it to be? Many books that are written, such as The Giver, reflect on these questions and recreates the idea of a perfect society. While the society in The Giver and modern day society have some similarities, these two are much more different from each other. Although, Their society might seem as a perfect place and a perfect way to run a community, there are many more things behind this perfect looking place.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Dying Lioness

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Dying Lioness a small detail of one of the many Assyrian relief carvings that were found during the Assyrian rule. The Relief itself was titled Ashurbanipal hunting Lions and belonged to the North Palace of Ashurbanipal. It was created in 645 to 640 BCE and like many reliefs; it pictured a hunt taking place. It was average sized at about five and a half feet tall and carved out of Gypsum rock giving itself a red hue. This falls into place with the description of most reliefs from this time. But what made this Assyrian relief stand out? It was a small detail, a lioness to be exact. The hunt depicted did not take place in the wild but in a controlled environment, ensuring the king would be victorious. The king is in his chariot with his attendants. He is throwing a spear into a lion, which already has several fatal wounds on its body. All around the royal chariot is a pathetic trail of dead and dying animals pierced by far more arrows than needed to kill them. All around the chariot are the bodies of dead lions littering the ground, most overkilled with far more arrows and spears necessary to kill the beasts. The artist does a fantastic job of showing the rippling muscles and facial wrinkles in all of the lions. But there is one lioness that is different from the other lions. She is pictured holding herself up with her front two legs while dragging the back two on the ground. Her muscles are tense and her face is full of emotion. Even though the multiple wounds she has sustained will inevitably be the death of her she still holds herself up to let out one last roar. Her roar is a roar that suggests defiance against the cruel game that is being played against her and her fallen feline comrades. The artist was obviously not re-creating exactly what happened during this “hunt”, suggesting that he would have had to feel sorrow or sadness for these animals to depict them this way. Otherwise the…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Giver Research Paper

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jonas new levels of feelings were caused by the stirrings, he had pleasurable dreams, because he hadn’t taken his pills in about 4 weeks.…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The American writer, Lois Lowry in her novel, The Giver, claims that in creating a utopian society the creator manufactures a dystopia, since the individuality of a person contradicts the creator’s idea of a utopia. She develops her claim by first creating a utopia where the residents lack individuality conforming to the criteria of sameness, then presenting the absence of intense emotions, then convey the reader’s thoughts of the utopia by placing a main character who gains his emotions and individuality, and finally declares that the utopia lacks morality spawning a dystopia. Lowry’s purpose is to criticize conformity in order to state that to enjoy life one must suffer to appreciate life. She establishes a thoughtful tone for the audience…

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Giver Research Paper

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “No one in the community was starving, had ever been starving, would ever be starving.” (Lowry 89). The Community in The Giver is called a utopian society, what is a utopian society? Webster Dictionary says, “an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social condition are perfect...” Even though they may be “perfect”, utopian societies never really work out, and usually people have to take risks in order to change the society. In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas takes risks by, helping family members, doing what he thinks is right, and helping friends see the truth.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Giver Theme Essay

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages

    While there are many themes that are present in "The Giver" and "Harrison Bergeron", one theme stands out. That theme is, memories are important and if they're lost, they can cause pain.…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    ASSIGNMENT#3 The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study(1997) Source: (Book) The project was started in 1960. It was a longitudinal study to measure the effects of preschool education for low-income children where the children were tracked from the age of preschool years to the age of 27. There were two groups.…

    • 1505 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Piper checked her bag on a flight from Chicago to Paris, then switched planes to reach Brussels. Upon arrival, she discovered her bag was placed on the wrong connecting flight and would not be arriving until later. She sweated out several hours in the Belgium airport, frantically speaking to attendants until her bag appeared in the carousel, much to her excitement. She proceeded to evade customs and meet Alex downstairs, successfully completing her assignment.…

    • 1597 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Giver Identity Essay

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In a world of no differences, a young twelve year old boy named Jonas is chosen to bear the weight of all of humanity's memories. This book takes place sometime in the future when we humans have totally lost everything that makes us, us. Because we were able to figure out a way to erase all emotions and memories from ourselves, we created a place believed to be a utopia. Jonas is just a regular boy living in his community with his mother, father, and sister. On the day of the ceremony of twelves, things change drastically for him. He is chosen to be the next Receiver of Memory. Jonas soon starts his training by being transmitted the world's memories from the Giver, the current Receiver of Memory. He soon learns much about the past and realizes that things aren't perfect in his current world.…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay on the Giver

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I thought that being the Receiver was a punishment. He had to know everything from before his time, and he had to live with feelings while no one else had any. Being the Receiver was more like a burden than an honor, even though it was considered an honor to the elders. It was a huge punishment to all of the previous receiver’s and the previous givers.…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Giver Strength

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Free will is crucial to an individual’s life, a source of strength for all humans. Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993) is about sacrifice, rules and order, the consequences of peace, and ultimately, the significance of free will. Jonas, the protagonist, lives in an intended “Utopian society”. It is a society without passion nor apathy, independence nor enslavement, created in attempt to produce an orderly community where pain is nonexistent. Yet such society has a flaw—the lack of human rights. Free will is a vital element of an individual’s personal, professional, and political life. The supposed ideal life of Jonas’s community in The Giver fails to promote free will, contradicting…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Giver Argument

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Page

    In The Giver, the people of the Community get rid of sexual desire and romantic feelings using a pill. They call these feelings ‘the Stirrings’, and believe they are bad for the Community as a whole. I disagree with them. I think that we need these feelings in our lives. For one, they make us happy. When someone is close enough to someone that they feel comfortable sleeping with them, they are happy. Some people argue that love and sex can only bring heartbreak and pain. Although that is a valid argument, heartbreak and hurt is something that eventually fades. When it is gone and you let love back in your life, it’s something wonderful. Another argument given is that without the Stirrings, there would be no rape, pedophiles, sexual assault…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Giver Essay

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Could you ever imagine living in a community where there are no feelings, memories of the past, or color. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character Jonas is singled out to become the new Receiver of Memory for his community that strives to be perfect by stopping emotions, taking away color, memories of the past, and many other things, except for the Receiver. He learns about Elsewhere, the real truth about life, through memories he is given, both good and bad. He is not allowed to tell anyone about his training or experience, but he wants everyone to experience the memories that they could never have. Then he watches a video of release, and flips out when his dad killed a baby. For the community, he plans to escape with the Giver.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine a perfect society where there is no lying, and no war. Pretty awesome society right? One thing, they don’t have emotions, color or fun. Think would you like to live in this society and why or why not? Jonas lives in a society that isn’t very interesting.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Countries Go to War

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There are many reasons why countries go to war. One country may want to go to war to take revenge on something that another country or countries did to them. Germany, for example, wanted to take revenge on the rest of the European nations after they all unanimously agreed that the responsibility for the First World War should be laid upon Germany. Countries also go to war for another reason, territorial expansion. The crusades were a good example of this because even though they started out a holy war, they converted into wars that focused on expanding borders. There are many other reasons why wars start, but revenge and land expansion are the two greatest ones.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays