Sam Penkala

Mme Mortensen

Grade 7 English

December 13, 2016

The Giver Essay

In our world, we have the right to choose. We have the right to

choose where we want to go, who we want to marry and how we want to

live our lives. In The Giver, the people have lost this right to choose. There

is no freedom, there is no individuality and not every life is considered

important. Because of these reasons, Lois Lowry's The Giver is an

example of a dystopia.

In The Giver, the Elders completely control the day to day life of the

people as shown in the quote: How could someone not fit in? The

community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made

(Lowry, p. 48). In Jonas' community, everyone is told when to go to bed,

what they are going to eat and which job they are going to do in the

community. Even spouses are decided by the Matching of Spouses and

the process takes years to decide (Lowry, p.48). Also, in The Giver, they

cannot go past the community limits. In the book Jonas rebels and takes

Gabe with him and just for that they are hunted down. If Jonas and Gabe
were found, they would have been "released". Also, in The Giver, the

people cannot even decide how or when they want to die. Because the

Elders have complete control, the people have lost their freedom to make

any choices.

In our world, the things we do make us who we are and helps us be

an individual. For example, I like to make people laugh and keep everyone

happy which makes me a funny and caring person. When people are

passionate about their dream job, they have a lot of motivation to achieve.

If everyone does the same thing, everyone slowly begins to act the same

and life gets very boring. This quote shows that Jonas is getting frustrated

because he is doing the same thing everyday: if everythings the same,

then there arent any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide

things (Lowry p, 97 ). When everyone does the same thing, the same

work, and has the same opportunity to get a job, people start to lose their

motivation. It is only when Jonas becomes the ''receiver of memory'' that

he starts getting emotions and being able to see colour. At that moment

he starts becoming special and realizes that this is not fair to the other

people in his community. Individuality is very special and Jonas realizes

this when he becomes the receiver of memory. Without individuality, a

world becomes like an automated factory.

 In The Giver, human life is not very important and there are multiple

examples of this throughout the book. Twins were thought to be confusing.

So, they weighed them and the one who weighed the most would live. In

this quote, Jonas father throws a baby away like a piece of garbage: His

father loaded the carton containing the body into the chute and gave it a

shove. Bye-bye, little guy (Lowry, p.151). Rosemary, who was not ready

for the memories, was also "released" (Lowry p. 143). Roberto was

"released" for being old after having a wonderful life (Lowry, p.32). He just

bowed to all of us and then walked, like they all do, through the special

door in the Releasing Room (Lowry, p. 32) It is obvious that people in the

community are "released" for many reasons. This is the opposite of a

utopian community, where the only reason someone should die, is from

natural causes.

In the Giver, they attempted to make a utopia by removing emotions,

freedoms, and all individuality, and this did create a peaceful society. There

was no war, no starvation, and no racism. However, through Jonas we

learn that The Giver is a dystopia. As Jonas goes through his training to

become the Receiver of Memory he learns that the people around him

have no freedom, no individuality, and there is no value to human life.

Even the emotion of love was not allowed in this society. How utopian can

a society be without love?

Works Cited

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 2002. Print.