Theme Of Personhood In The Giver

If the definition of personhood is the presence of mind, will, and emotion, what results when those essential qualities are crushed by a brain-washing society? This was exactly the case in Jonas’s community. Founded on constant deception and manipulation, Sameness led the citizens of this society to forget. They forgot how to reason, how to be independent, how to feel and see beauty and pain. They were all asleep—asleep to the fact that while there may have been pain in the past, there was also pleasure beyond their comprehension and the shadow of their simplified world.
For instance, in the world encompassed by The Giver, individuality and independence were abandoned for Sameness. Yet, as Jonas began to “wake up,” he realized that, “‘If everything’s