Lois Lowry?S The Giver: A Study Of The Importance Choice Making Plays Essay, Research Paper
Lois Lowry?s The Giver: A Study of the Importance Choice Making Plays
in the Ultimate Happiness of an Individual
Lois Lowry?s Newbery Award winning piece, The Giver, takes place in a futuristic society based on the concept of sameness. A life lacking colors, smells, feelings, music or choices, 12-year-old Jonas discovers, is not a desirable way to live.
In the novel he expresses his frustration in the quote ?if everything?s the same then there aren?t any choices. I want to wake up in the mornings and decide things,?(97). Jonas is selected by the community to be the new ?Receiver of Memory,? to hold all feelings and memories that could ultimately destroy sameness and harmony. Jonas comes to realize that although the community harbors an apparent security and peacefulness, it deprives its people of the joy of individuality. Jonas therefore embarks on a mission with the Giver, the old receiver of memory, to restore all that has been lost to the community. According to Lowry herself, The Giver ?explores the importance of making courageous moral choices?(4). Lois Lowry?s powerful words and thought provoking ideas really encourage readers to think about what a privilege it is to make their day to day choices and the wonderful freedoms they possess in their society.
Lowry, in an interview with critic Carol Hurst, explains that the novel was inspired by her father ?who was, at that time, in a nursing home having lost most of his long term memory. I realized one day while visiting my father that, without memory, there is no pain, and I began to imagine a society in which the past was deliberately forgotten?(4). However, in response to Lowry?s portrayal of a secure, painless society, critic Jennifer Semple simply states, ?although they appear to have everything, they are missing something of great importance?(edtech.edu). This something that the citizens are
Bofinger 2 lacking is individuality. In the restricted community of sameness no one is free to be him or herself and the people live redundant, dull lives. Throughout Lois Lowry?s The Giver, it is clearly expressed that the effort to ensure the safety of a society by abolishing choice, will eventually lead to the elimination of one?s individuality and the destruction of the human spirit.
Initially, the point in the novel where Jonas begins to realize the importance of choice making, is where he and the Giver are in the Giver?s office conversing. The Giver asks the question: ?It?s the choosing that?s important isn?t it??(98), to which Jonas agrees. Then, after much discussion they come to an understanding of the dangers choosing can bring and what the consequences of wrong choices may be. However, ?when the conversation turned to other things, Jonas was left, still, with a feeling of frustration that he didn?t understand. He found that he was often angry now; irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them?(99). These thoughts and moral dilemmas Jonas endures are beginning to wear away at him. He is left with many unpleasant emotions such as anger, frustration, and confusion. His happiness is dwindling, and there seems to be something missing in his life.
Furthermore, what is missing in Jonas?s life becomes revealed. It is love. During one of Jonas? training sessions with the Giver, he receives the memory of a family at Christmas, surrounded by relatives, encompassed by love. Jonas then remarks, ?I was thinking, I mean feeling, actually, that it was kind of nice, then. And that I wish we could be that way, and that you could be my grandparent. The family memory seemed a little Bofinger 3 more–? ?Complete??(126), the Giver suggests, to which Jonas replies, ?I liked the feeling of love?(126). Without love one?s life cannot be complete. Not having the choice to love other people, Jonas discovers, is slowly destroying him. When discussing Jonas? changing feelings towards his friends Fiona and Asher, it is stated, ?he felt such love for Asher and Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories?(135). By harboring a sense of sameness the community has deprived its citizens of so much. No one is free to feel anything, such as love, and they have no individuality. Jonas finds this extremely frustrating.
Likewise, as noted earlier, Jonas discovers the lack of individuality in his community. He protests, ?If everything?s the same, then there aren?t any choices. I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one??(97). Even something as trivial as choosing what color clothing to wear becomes sacred to Jonas. His frustrations and yearning for individuality are changing him. He knows the community cannot possibly continue to strive on sameness. His newfound knowledge is the key to his decision to leave, and restore to the community its memories, which will transform the citizens into individuals, with the knowledge they need to make choices. It is apparent to Jonas that his decision is vital to the establishment of a future. Therefore, Jonas sets out one night, with the newchild, Gabriel. He takes some food, his bicycle, a few changes of clothing, ??and he takes the baby because he is going out to create a future. And babies always represent the future in the same way children represent the future to adults. And so Jonas takes the baby so the baby?s life will be saved, but he takes
Bofinger 4 Lowry clearly demonstrated that the community is in fact, not perfect. It shows that there is no future for the citizens, and that their way of life will lead them nowhere.
Consequently, Jonas?s decision to run away with Gabriel faces him with many obstacles. He must hide from search planes, suffer from exhaustion, and face the elements of nature such as harsh weather. All the while he is wondering if his choice to leave was the right decision. Weeks later, Jonas begins to lose faith in ever finding an elsewhere. He is tired, weak, and he and Gabriel are running out of food. He begins to wonder if he has made the right decision. His thoughts are explained best in the novel when it notes, ?Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had a choice, he had made the wrong one, the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love. So there had not really been a choice?(174). These thoughts which Jonas battles with further prove the fact that without choices, the whole purpose of life is gone. The citizens of the community are like robots, programmed to survive, but not really live, because life with no feelings is not really life at all.
Finally, it is made clear to the reader that throughout Lois Lowry?s novel the role choice making and decision make plays in ones life is an essential one. If a community harbors a sense of sameness, it is treating its citizens like prisoners, and controlling their minds. Absolutely no individuality is present and the human spirit is ultimately destroyed, resulting in anger and frustration. Throughout the course of this novel it ensures the fact that perfection cannot exist, and in the effort to achieve it, a community
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?The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings?(barnesandnoble.com). Lowry?s abstract concepts emphasize the lack of individuality and its negative effects. No matter what type of culture or what time period, these circumstances still apply. This novel gives the reader a greater appreciation of the freedoms they hold in the present and in the future. Choice making is crucial to people of all different sorts, and allows them a sense of freedom to be individuals. An ALAN Review critic, Laura M. Zaidman, remarks, ?Jonas courageously resolves his moral dilemma and affirms the human spirit?s power to prevail, to celebrate love, and to transmit memories?(barnesandnoble.com). Without Jonas, the community?s human spirit would have been suppressed and destroyed, perhaps forever. Lois Lowry?s novel, The Giver, leaves us with the question, ?How much should the individual lose of himself or herself for the collective good?? The only possible and rational answer is that, in the quest for perfection, we lose so much, our human spirit, and our individuality. Our differences and faults make us distinctly human. Mistakes, choices (whether right or wrong), and imperfections are all part of life, a real life, full of feelings, emotions, and individuality.