The Giver Analysis
The main theme shown in The Giver is the idea that good cannot exist without evil, and evil cannot exist without good, thus making reaching a perfect society impossible. It does not matter how amazing an experience is, unless you have something bad to compare it with you can never taste the true meaning of that moment. The members of Jonas’s community cannot appreciate the joys in their lives because they have never felt sadness. Correspondingly, they also do not feel grief because they have never appreciated the true wonders of life. Throughout the novel, Lois Lowry uses multiple literary devices to conjure these thoughts into the readers mind.
When Jonas is chosen to take the role of Receiver of Memories, he starts to learn how life used to be, when love, pain, hunger, and happiness existed. After deciding that the community is meaningless, Jonas sacrifices himself in the end so his friends, family, and others from his community will be able to experience life to the fullest. The story proves to us that even though we may wish for a perfect world by eliminating the bad, we also take away some of the good, making the perfect life we strive for impossible to achieve.
Lowry uses imagery to show how receiving memories is like a sled ride. At first the sled ride starts as extremely delightful and pleasurable, but then it slowly turns a bit harsher when you realize the snow piling up on you. When Jonas first learns of snow through a sled ride he takes in as a memory, he does not understand why such a wonderful experience would be kept from the community. The Giver says that "snow made growing food difficult...and unpredictable weather made travel almost impossible at times. (p. 67)". By the end of the scene, Jonas accepts the memory more as a burden than a enjoyable nostalgic memory. To the people of the community snow had made everyday tasks difficult to complete, but when climate control stopped snowfall, the community never knew of the delightful snowflakes,
When Jonas is chosen to take the role of Receiver of Memories, he starts to learn how life used to be, when love, pain, hunger, and happiness existed. After deciding that the community is meaningless, Jonas sacrifices himself in the end so his friends, family, and others from his community will be able to experience life to the fullest. The story proves to us that even though we may wish for a perfect world by eliminating the bad, we also take away some of the good, making the perfect life we strive for impossible to achieve.
Lowry uses imagery to show how receiving memories is like a sled ride. At first the sled ride starts as extremely delightful and pleasurable, but then it slowly turns a bit harsher when you realize the snow piling up on you. When Jonas first learns of snow through a sled ride he takes in as a memory, he does not understand why such a wonderful experience would be kept from the community. The Giver says that "snow made growing food difficult...and unpredictable weather made travel almost impossible at times. (p. 67)". By the end of the scene, Jonas accepts the memory more as a burden than a enjoyable nostalgic memory. To the people of the community snow had made everyday tasks difficult to complete, but when climate control stopped snowfall, the community never knew of the delightful snowflakes,
Cited: Wikipedia contributors. "The Giver." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 12 Dec 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver>. Sparknotes contributors. "The Giver." SparkNotes. 12 Dec 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/giver/themes.html>. Shmoop contributors. "The Giver." Shmoop, We Speak Student. 12 Dec 2012. <http://www.shmoop.com/the-giver/literary-devices.html>.