The Giver by Lois Lowry Essay

The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a young boy named Jonas and about the perfect community he lives in. Their life-style is a lot difference from ours because they don't get to choose what they want, they are just told to do it. They also do things differently, an example would be the way they celebrate there birthday. Every children from 12 and under celebrate there birthday on December as a community. Another difference is the way they create their family unit. They are only allowed to have a certain amount of children in their families and I know this because in the book it says “ 'Lily you know the rules.' 'Only 2 children- one male, one female- to each family unit. It was written very clearly in the rules.' ” (Lowry, 8)

In Jonas society they get a certain gift that symbolizes something significant. For example when the turn 9, they get their own bicycle (They don't have cars, only bicycles), and they can also start doing their volunteering hours. Another example is that when they turn 12 they get assigned their job in the community and immediately start their training the next day. After they have turned twelve, they say in the book that their age doesn't matter anymore and one of the reasons would be that they are considered adults after 12. I also know this because in the book the Chief Elderly said to Jonas friend, Asher “Thank for your childhood.” (Lowry, 56) after getting his assignment in the community.

Our community is a lot different from theirs because we celebrate our birthdays on the day we were born. We also sing happy birthday and the presents they give us don't have any special meaning to them like they do in Jonas community. And we don't become an adult until we are 18 or so, but we keep track of our age as time goes on. We also don't celebrate our birthday with the whole community we only celebrate it with our friends and family.

Another Difference between our communities is the way they create their family unit. They get picked a spouse even though they don't have any physical or emotional affect for each other. Also like I said earlier, they are only allowed to have one boy and one girl in their family unit, but they first have to apply and get approved like it says in the book, “Because we'd made our application and been approved.” (Lowry, 12) And like I said, they don't have any emotional affect for each other because Jonas once ask his mom and dad if they loved him and this is what they responded, “ 'Jonas. You of all people. Precision of language, please!' 'What do you mean?' Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated. 'Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's almost obsolete,'” (Lowry, 127)

Our community is different because we get to choose our own spouse. We can have as many children as we want, or if we prefer we can adopt children. And we have physical and emotional affection for each other.

So these are some of the differences that both of our communities have, but we also have some similarities, for example, in both communities the children go to school, graduate, and then get a job like us. Well now that I have told you a bit about Jonas Society and our Society. You should ask yourself, What's a perfect Society to me?