Alvarez 1

Briana Alvarez
English 113B
Professor Lawson
11 May 2016
project text final draft
word count: 1587
The Juxtaposition Between Living in a Utopian Society and the Real World
Everyone desires to live in a world where everything is equal and perfect and a world
without crime or misery. However, a society that is perfect does not exist without the cost of
losing valuable things in life, which people take for granted. In The Giver, the community lives
in a society of sameness, where everybody is the same and therefore results in no more
violence, prejudice, intolerance or indifference. Although, the society might seem perfect without
the negative things people deal with in their everyday lives, the society of sameness forfeit some
valuable and precious things of life. A society needs balance and with a society of sameness
its hard to balance good and evil. In The Giver, Lois Lowry builds a dystopian society and
disguises it as a utopian society where the cost of sameness and stability is losing experience of
diversity, personal choice, and the beautiful things of life. Through this novel, Lowry gives us a
warning about our own world, and what can happen when we sacrifice diversity, choice, and
beauty for security and homogeny.
Lowry creates and reinforces sameness by having the society look the same and follow
strict rules on how they should live their lives. For example, she shows that almost every citizen
in the community had dark eyes (20), and have special aging ceremonies for children between
1-12 and also rules were very hard to change (14). However, the notion of sameness can

Alvarez 2
benefit the society because hierarchy between gender or race would no longer exist. Women or
people of color would not have to worry about being minorities because they will all be the
same. The author displays this when in the household of the protagonist, Jonas. His mother and
his father switched family custom roles; whereas the father is displaying the nurturing role and
the mother showing authority role in the family. The Elders who make all the decisions in the
society do this to create equality and have a controlled society to prevent chaos. However, the
job that Jonas was assigned caused him to be alienated from his own society. With the
knowledge he was going to inherit, it was forbidden for the others in his society to be aware
about it. In The Utopian Function of Memory in Lois Lowry's The Giver, an essay by Carter
Hanson she states, both Jonas (once he becomes the new Receiver) and the Giver express severe
dissatisfaction with their society and with the knowledge about this past exist but are off-limits
to all but one person. This prevents Jonas from interacting again with sameness and his own
community and because of that it results to him becoming defiant and going against them and
even his loved ones. The sameness that the society deals with removes diversity in their world.
Diversity is an important aspect of societies because belonging to a group that accepts people for
being different is significant.
In the book, everyone is colorblind and it symbolizes that everyone should be colorblind
and see all the other races as one color. Most people and especially The Givers society believe
the idea of colorblind would prevent prejudice and intolerance. Although this may be true but
rather than seeing people as one, people should learn to accept everyone for who they are. When
one thinks of seeing the race as no color they still decide to see white as a default and refuse to
accept whats different. In Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using The Giver to Challenge Colorblind
Ideology, Susan Lea states, such colorblind stances promote the ideology exemplified by the

Alvarez 3
community of The Giver, that is, emphasis on Sameness and avoidance of difference, particularly
at an individual level, with no awareness of the institutional systems at work. She analyzes how
people, mostly white people, ignore the differences of a person and dont acknowledge other
races problems simply because they have never experienced it before and believes that people
have the same opportunities as they do. The colorblind ideology might seem ideal but it actually
dehumanizes people by not letting humans be accepted for they are and destroy the uniqueness
everyone holds.
However, when one can relate to others and socially accept and value each others
uniqueness, the community can be stronger in diversity and people will most likely define a
community diverse when they feel socially accepted. In an experiment where they tested
students perceptions of diversity by the numerical representation or social acceptance; the
results showed that both Whites and racial minorities conceptualize diversity in terms of both
representation and social acceptance (Chen). This is important because when one feels alienated
or not part of a community, they most fall into depression or rebellion. Jonas is not given social
acceptance or representation because of his job and with his job their can only be one giver and
receiver and that alienated from his own society. This is why diversity is significant and essential
to a society because people can experience things from different points of views, create more
options in life and have a sense of belonging. This does not play in a society of sameness because
they dont have anything different neither do they have personal choice.
In the novel, the society has no personal choice or freedom when it comes to choosing
things for themselves. Jonas realized that having people make choices on their own was
Definitely not safe (98), and We really have to protect people from wrong choices (99).
Jonas expressed his fear of imagining people having the right of personal choice and choosing

Alvarez 4
the wrong decision. This shows how controlled Jonas has been throughout his life living told
what to do. The elders decide how each individual will live their lives; they choose a persons
spouse, children, and jobs. Without having people making their own decisions, it leaves no room
for errors. However, risking personal choice is worth freedom that people are given in America
today. Having personal choice is important for the development of a human. Not only do you get
the chance to make your own decisions but one also develops responsibility. Also, reasonability
is a big factor in personal choice because one becomes responsible for their actions and they
learn from their errors. If personal choice does not exist, humanity wont learn from their
mistakes or from accomplishments. Goran Duus-Otterstrom, states choice is valuable because
it promotes valuable personal growth and is conducive to qualities such as discretion,
independence, maturity, and a sense of responsibility and within it also benefit peoples in a
psychological aspect because we derive enjoyment from having and making choices. So in
defense the community removes personal choice to prevent people from making the wrong
decision but it also removes all of the important qualities that individualizes a person.
In Jonass community, the citizens live in a sedated state of mind. Rather than to be
living their life the way they want to, they are being brainwashed into sameness. Yes, they still
live their lives, but from the hands and decisions of other people who tell them how they should
live their life and sensor the aesthetic things of life. They are immune to color and emotion, pain.
Because of sameness everyone sees the same color and dont experience the varieties of color
that life and the world has to offer. Color can affect someones mood, and show the unique things
of the world and something so simple like color can carry so much meaning. Not only did the
community lose the experience of color but also the experience to human emotions and
sensations.

Alvarez 5
The citizens are forced daily to take medication to suppress their sexual urges and share
their emotions to their families and take pain medication. Jonas is given pills because he started
feel emotions for Fiona, his mom told him youre ready for the pills, thats all. Thats the
treatment for Stirrings (37), and when he stops taking medication, he started to feel pain and
emotions and realized that they have never known pain (110). Although, it maybe nice not to
feel pain and emotions like anger and sadness but not feeling happiness or love is not worth it.
Emotions are so important to humans because it consociates and plays an important role to
memory. The importance of human emotion is evident in that what we notice and remember is
not the mundane but events that evoke feelings of joy, sorrow, pleasure, and pain and a lack of
emotional equilibrium underpins most human unhappiness (Dolan). When deprived from
emotion not only is one losing feelings to express themselves but they are also being deprived
from sanity and memory. Thats why Jonas is experiencing all these emotions from theses
memories and its something his community is not allowed to do.
In the dystopian society Lowry built, she showed us what world we would have if didnt
we have diversity, personal choice and the aesthetics of the world. Living in a world without
those things isnt worth it because its what makes life beautiful and makes everyone an
individual. As Johannes Kepler says, The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and
the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be
lacking in fresh nourishment. Diversity is so unappreciated and even though people feel like it
might cause chaos, it actually brings beauty to the world and creates new and different things
everyday.

Alvarez 6

Works Cited
Chen, Jacqueline, and David Hamilton. "Understanding Diversity: The Importance of Social
Acceptance." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41.4 (2015): 586-598.
This article is about a research on how academic and business people interpret
diversity within the minorities as non-Whites and with Whites. The article also discusses
how social acceptance connects with the importance of diversity and explains that with
diversity in societies people can achieve. I found this argument by accessing the CSUN
Oviatt Library website by using the One Search engine. I searched for Importance of
diversity in society and and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed)
Journals. I know its an appropriate source because its an academic source and a scholarly
journal. This article is useful for my essay because it gives statistics information on how
students of different races perceive diversity within their society. Its also has some good
significant intuitions on how theres problems with diversity in the societies and how its
important to have diversity and this information will help compare me with The Giver,
whereas, in the book they dont have diversity but sameness.
Duus-Otterstrm, Gran. "Freedom of Will and the Value of Choice." Social Theory and
Practice, 37.2 (2011): 256-284.
This articles argues on the value of having personal choice is associated with libertarian
free will and discusses the importance of having personal choice and the reasonability, control
and self determination its comes with. I found this argument by accessing the CSUN Oviatt
Library website by using the One Search engine. I searched for Importance of personal choice
and freedom and and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals and the

Alvarez 7
publication year to 2011 to 2016. I know its a trustworthy source because its an academic source
and a recent peer-reviewed article. This article is helpful for my essay because it explains how
about having personal choice works independently and its not controlled by other influences.
This is useful because when I compare it to The Giver because in the book they dont have
option of personal choice, everything in their life is chosen for them.
Dolan, R.J. "Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior." Science. N.p., 02 Nov. 2002. Web. 25 Apr. 2016
Hanson, Carter F. "The Utopian function of memory in Lois Lowry's The Giver." Extrapolation
50.1 (2009): 45+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
This article analyzes The Giver society and makes the connect that society that was built
to be a utopia society is truly a dystopia society. It goes in detail how the society gave up their
freedom, personal choice and all the aesthetics of the world like color. I found this article by
accessing the CSUN Oviatt Library website and using the databases by subject to use Academic
Search Premier search engine. I searched for The Giver and Lois Lowry and I limited the
search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. I found the article from my results. I know
its a reliable source because its from CSUNs Oviatt Library website and a scholarly journal.
This article is useable because it has good insights and its related to my topic of me essay and
discusses the hidden issues within the society and also identifies what the society are living
without due to sameness.
Kepler, Johannes. "Johannes Kepler Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 29 April
2016.
Lea, Susan G. "Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using The Giver To Challenge Colorblind Ideology."
Children's Literature In Education 37.1 (2006): 51-67. Academic Search Premier. Web.
18 Apr. 2016.

Alvarez 8
This article scrutinizes how The Giver creates a mystical world for the society but
discusses the results when protagonist find outs that his world isnt so perfect. It also goes in
detail how the society is colorblind which connects to race and and racism and compares it to
their society to the reality. I found this article by accessing the CSUN Oviatt Library website and
using the databases by subject to use Academic Search Premier search engine. I searched The
Giver and Lois Lowry and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. I
found the article from my results. I know its a reliable source because its from CSUNs Oviatt
Library website and a scholarly journal. I will use this article for my essay when I discuss about
race and racism in my essay and use the insights of how people in the society of The Giver is
colorblind to race and to colors and are only allowed to see what the Elders in their society let
them see.
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Laurel Leaf, 1993. Print.