What Is The Climax Of The Giver Essay

The Giver by Lois Lowry was written in 1933 about a dystopian society, in which the memories of pain, war, hatred, hunger, conflict, and sadness have been eliminated from society, and placed onto a single man, called “The Giver.” The protagonist, Jonas, has the ability to receive these memories and is charged with the task of taking all of the memories from the current Giver, because he is getting old. During this process, Jonas realizes that the society he grew up in is far from perfect, and that something needs to be done to reform the society. Eventually, he and The Giver formulate a plan for Jonas to escape the city, and break the “memory barrier,” which would return all of Jonas’ memories of the old world to everybody in the society.
The main protagonist of this novel, Jonas, begins as a cookie-cutter mold of a perfect citizen in a highly government restrained society.
He seems to be slightly more perceptive and compassionate than his peers, and he has an uncanny ability to detect “strange changes” in objects, although he doesn’t tell anybody about it. His life is completely normal, until on the day on which his job is supposed to be chosen for him, he is told that he is the be the new Receiver of Memory, and everything changes. As Jonas receives more and more memories from The Giver, the wiser and more aware he becomes. He realizes that memories like pain and love need to be shared; as explained in chapter 20; “But the memories tell us that it has not always been. People felt things once. You and I have been part of that, so we know. We know that they once felt things like pride, ‘And love,’ Jonas added, remembering the family scene that had so affected him. ‘And pain.’ He thought again of the soldier. ‘The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.’ It is around this time that the true antagonist is revealed to be the tyrannical government that is confining this society to an environment where its people are not allowed to have or express free thought, emotion, or given the ability to make decisions for
themselves.
In The Giver, there are few instances of high advancements in technology. Many times, the opposite occurs, for example, all citizens are given a bicycle on which to travel around everywhere. The advancements that do occur however, are for the purpose of aiding the government to enforce uniformity. Everybody in the society has been genetically modified to only be able to see things in shades of grey, there is no disease in the society, and everyone, starting around puberty, takes medicine to regulate their hormones. This is all in the effort to keep the society conformed, as explained by The Giver in chapter 12 “Your friend Fiona has red hair--quite distinctive, actually; I've noticed it before. When you mentioned Fiona's hair, it was the clue that told me you were probably beginning to see the color red.’ ‘And the faces of people? The ones I saw at the Ceremony?’ The Giver shook his head. ‘No, flesh isn't red. But it has red tones in it. There was a time, actually--you'll see this in the memories later--when flesh was many different colors. That was before we went to Sameness. Today flesh is all the same, and what you saw was the red tones. Probably when you saw the faces take on color it wasn't as deep or vibrant as the apple, or your friend's hair.’ The Giver chuckled, suddenly. ‘We've never completely mastered Sameness. I suppose the genetic scientists are still hard at work trying to work the kinks out. Hair like Fiona's must drive them crazy.’ “Sameness” The Giver calls it, the concept of regulating everybody to be similar, all the way down to their genetic code. Nobody gets hurt when nobody is different.
In The Giver, Lois Lowry is trying to explain to any reader that you cannot take away pain and suffering at the cost of individuality. Before Jonas comes to realize that there is a problem with his society, he comments on the philosophy behind all this totalitarian control in chapter 13 “Oh, I see what you mean. It wouldn't matter for a newchild's toy. But later it does matter, doesn't it? We don't dare to let people make choices of their own.’ ‘Definitely not safe,’ Jonas said with certainty. ‘What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?’ ‘Or what if,’ he went on, almost laughing at the absurdity, "they chose their own jobs?’ ‘Frightening, isn't it?’ The Giver said. Jonas chuckled. ‘Very frightening. I can't even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices." The government is totally convinced, and Jonas as well, that people are not responsible to be allowed to make choices and do things on their own, because it is too dangerous. When people are allowed to make choices they may disagree, they might offend one another and want to hurt each other, which can lead to war, strife and hunger, everything the government worked so hard to get rid of. Lois Lowry asks the question to us all, “is losing your freedom and individualism really worth the absence of conflict?” The Giver points towards the contrary.
Lois Lowry has crafted an excellent Science-Fiction novel in The Giver. Elaborately painting a picture of a society where through science, everybody has been made to be completely the same, minimalizing even differences between genders and races. A perfect example of a failed utopia, the novel shows the flaws in the ideas of total equality and lack of self expression, and teaches any reader not to lose their individualism. Frighteningly close to our own society, The Giver is a perfect illustration of a science fiction novel.