the giver notes

“There's much more. There's all that goes beyond – all ... that is Elsewhere – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat. He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

I believe that Jonas’ assignment as the next Receiver of Memory is an honor. It has only a few negatives, but many important and serious positives. I will start with the negatives of this assignment. First of all, he is not allowed to discuss his assignment or his training (even if he did no one would understand him without the memories.) with his friends at school, like everyone else did, nor with his family at home. But what makes this assignment look different and weird to many people, is that they don’t really know what it is to have the memories. There are positive things about this assignment, but no one except the Giver and the Receiver can understand. They have the privilege to see beyond, and by that, receive the memories which show emotions, colors, music, places and weather-changes that don’t exist in their community because of Sameness. Jonas and the Giver are the only people in their community who actually know, with the help of the memories, how awful their community actually is. They know that everyone is pretending, without knowing it. They don’t know what marriage is or how a real and normal family looks like and acts like. And the most important, is that the Giver and the Receiver are the only ones who can change their community, who can change Sameness and make everything like it used to be a really long time ago.