The Giver Community Analysis

What is more valued - personal rights or the common good of the community? In The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, a boy perfectly adapted to his unique community named Jonas begins to open his eyes, sees the reality of his world, and searches for the true values in life. In this community, the citizens want to live a simple, predetermined life and also strongly believe that they are living in a “perfect” society through the system of sameness which eliminates risks. However, they do not have any knowledge of history and the time before the idea of sameness except for The Receiver, the person who holds all the memories of the delightful but sometimes painful past. When Jonas gets chosen as the next Receiver, The Giver who is responsible for handing
In The Giver, the citizens in Jonas’ community are living in a dystopian world due to the fact that they do not possess any freedom nor rights as a human in the community for the greater cause.
The residents in Jonas’ community living in an oppressive and deprived world are treated less than a human being throughout the book. As Jonas gains more knowledge, Jonas and The Giver discuss the big flaws of the community and during the first couple months of training, he is very uncomfortable talking about the flaws of the “perfect” community that he believed in and breaking the rules that he had followed for twelve years of his life. For example, while having a discussion with The Giver during his training session, “[Jonas] glanced quickly at the wall speaker, terrified that the Committee might be listening as they could at any time” (Lowry, 132). Every house has a speaker and the speaker is used to make announcements and enforce rules; the community members are used to their every move being watched and scrutinized by the speaker. While Jonas never addresses the role of the speaker, he shows discomfort with speaking about things that he does not want The Elders to know about during
In The Giver, The Elders who are the leaders and the members of the government decide on an answer; they choose to let go of the individual right such as freedom of speech and freedom to choose that people had fought for in the past in exchange for the development as a nation which leaves the people without any rights as citizens nor a human being and makes their world a dystopia. The search for what is more important between individual or community good still remains as a mystery for people today and will never have a definite answer. However, this lesson would at least benefit everyone from choosing the wrong