Imagine living in a “perfect” community, where people only command without knowing what decision they have made. In this scientific novel The Giver, Jonas saw the realization of his reality. Jonas lives in a society that mostly drastically changes his behavior and character throughout the whole book. People in this society do not know what is right and what’s not right sometimes. He knows this utopia and citizens experience the sameness in this story as he becomes a Receiver of Memory.
Jonas is the main protagonist who is 11 years old, he lives in a society where people obey commands whenever they are supposed to. In the Newberry Speech, Lowry influenced this style to create this society unfamiliarity to ours, she wanted to choose on what are the good things of her life and the bad things of her life so it’ll make the readers/audience want to understand and experience what she’s been going through. Lowry also created this novel based on living in a dystopian community. At the beginning of the story, Jonas’ characteristic trait is being an obedient person in this community. Many characters were influenced in the beginning such as the coach, the family of Jonas, his friend, Asher, and a lot more. One piece of evidence that conveys his trait is in chapter 1, “instantly obediently, Jonas dropped his bicycle”, page 1. This explains that Jonas had dropped his bike when he had instructions given by the speaker of this community. Many people are required to obey the rules because people need to be more respectful and obedient to their peers, it also needs to create this community “ safe in hands. “ Although he was frightened about the aircraft being way too close, it had been two times that he’d ever seen a plane in his life. It was the same plane that had gone in the opposite direction. Another text evidence that I have found is in chapter 2, mother said “They’ll find exactly the right Assignment for him”, page 16. His parents were describing the Ceremony of Twelve. The Ceremony of Twelve is the last of the ceremonies, after becoming twelve years old, Jonas shouldn’t worry about being in an assignment group including people who are training, although the worst part is that friends can no longer be so close for being so focused about their jobs forgetting about having a youth childhood expressing themselves with activities that are quite exhilarating for them. Another text evidence that I have found is Chapter 1, “I apologize for inconveniencing my learning community”, page 3. This had been described as Jonas's honesty because he was taking the blame for himself. He was blaming himself for scolding the children who were playing and cheering for a teammate would cause someone to miss a catch or stumble during a race. Jonas had cheered his friend, Asher while making himself make a clumsy mistake of losing a match for his team. After the match had been lost, Jonas had to be involved in a serious discussion with the coach, he expressed himself on that page as guilty and embarrassed by apologizing to Asher after his game.
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In the middle of this story, it appears that Jonas’ characteristic trait has changed from being obedient in the beginning to becoming a curious character. One piece of evidence that I have found that mostly explains his point is in chapter 5, “It was your first stirrings. Father and I have been expecting it to happen to you. It happens to everyone. It happened to Father when he was your age. And it happened to me. It will happen someday to Lily”, page 37. Jonas had a dream about Fiona bathing her, Fiona was Jonas’ friend, and he was disappointed that she misunderstood Jonas as he was commanding her to go into the tub in that dream that he had seen. He had to tell his parents about reporting his stirrings for his treatment to benefit himself. His parents had told Jonas that he wasn’t the only one who had “stirrings” at that time. Jonas was surprised that he needed to take pills each morning and most of his friends did. When he had finished his treatment, he had felt so pleasurable that he admired his feelings. He wanted to remember his stirrings. He drastically begged for his feelings to come back, although his feelings had disappeared and so was his stirrings. Another piece of evidence that I have found is in chapter 4, “This morning, we celebrated the release of Roberto”, page 31. Jonas had noticed the name Roberto and had responded to Larissa that he had fed him the last time he went to the House of the Old. Roberto had a job as an Instructor of the Elevens, and he had been on the Planning Committee. Jonas was curious about where Roberto went after his Release Ceremony. Larissa does not know where Roberto went, she described how he left. She said that he bowed to all of us and then walked, like when everyone was released. They then go through a special door in the Releasing room, she had called it “pure happiness.” Jonas responded to her that he wanted to see it, although she had said that children had been forbidden to come in the Releasing room. In chapter 7, “What had he done wrong?” page 58. During the Ceremony of Twelve most of his friends, Asher and Fiona were selected to have a role as an assignment from the Chief Elder. Asher was selected as a Director of Recreation, she had clipped on his new badge and had left the stage once the audience had cheered. The Chief Elder had discussed all about Asher’s tremendous childhood and when it was Fiona’s turn she had been selected as an important Assignment of the Caretaker of the House Old. Jonas had to wait for his turn as he was the number 19, a newborn that year.
He was also guilty of being mistaken for being chosen to be the next role as an assignment in the ceremony of twelve. After chapter 7, Jonas finally got a role as an assignment, he had the role of being the Receiver of Memory. Another piece of evidence that supports this text is in chapter 4, “she looked forward to Jonas and smiled, but her dark eyes were both clouded and blank. He realized that he was blind”, page 29. Jonas was curious about the physical appearance of having dark eyes, he was the only child that had pale eyes. It made the dark eyes experience bad eyesight on color, in his community people can only view the colors that are both black and white causing them to not see any variety of colors. He can only see a variety of colors, a physical feature of having pale eyes, had made him genuinely unique amongst others. Jonas had understood what was happening in his community after receiving memories from the Giver that were part of his training. One last piece of evidence that briefly states this support in the middle of this novel is in chapter 18, “I think about my release when I’m in an awful lot of pain. I wish I could put in a request for it, sometimes. But I’m not permitted to do that until the new Receiver is trained”, page 139. During his training as a Receiver of Memory, Jonas had responded to the Giver that he wasn’t allowed to see the release or be involved in being released. Jonas was curious about what the recent receiver had created a bad reference to the previous failure ten years before. The recent receiver’s name was Rosemary, she was a young woman whose very intelligent and “eagerly wanted to learn”. Rosemary received many memories about happy memories, he remembered her laugh from making him enjoy. Jonas had questioned the Giver if she had taken physical pain, and he responded no. The Giver said that she had given her loneliness, she had experienced loss, and had transferred a memory about a child taken from its parents. Jonas was wondering if she wasn’t brave enough but the Giver had said to him that it was his job to relinquish the agony of himself towards Rosemary, just like Jonas had to experience. After that, Rosemary stood up and bid farewell goodbye in the annex room that was part of her training. She had begged the Chief Elder to request a release. Jonas was disappointed in her because he said that requesting a release was not an option. The Giver had told him that “it’s in your rules, Jonas. But it wasn’t in hers. She asked for a release, and they gave it to her. I never saw her again.” The rules as a Receiver are in his own hands to this community. At the end of the novel, Jonas’ trait had changed from being a curious child into becoming a rebellious child. One piece of evidence that describes this characteristic trait is in chapter 15, “Take some pain”, page 118. Jonas had to brace himself from entering a memory from the Giver. In the memory Jonas had entered, had involved during an early morning that the air was thick enough to leave smoke hanging. It had also included a wide-eyed horse that was dangling its head, there were a lot of men groaning and whining in agony. Jonas had sensed a voice calling for him that was begging for water. It appears to be a whisper of some kind of boy. In the novel, it had described his appearance as a half-closed eye who does not look older than himself. It made me analyze the setting as this event was a civil war during old times and its voice was a call from a wounded soldier on the battleground. Jonas’ arms had felt his arms disabled with pain, and he could see that his arms looked like ragged flesh and bones that were splintered up into pieces. All he could hear was just noise, the boy who was begging for water had just died. There was a continuous outcry of wounded men begging for water and their mother’s death. Another piece of evidence that I have found is that in chapter 16, “Do you love me?”, page 127. In this memory, it had described it as one of the Giver’s favorite memories, this had meant that the memory that he had chosen, was a joyful experience. The memory that Jonas was involved in had a room that had taken enough space full of people, it was perceived as warm, and there were colored lights with a variety of colors such as red, green, and yellow that had been twinkling from a tree, the setting had been described as Christmas. Some packages were brightly wrapped in colorful paper and had been tied with glossy ribbons. He saw a small child delivering the packages around the room where the adults were. Inside the packages, there were toys revealed, clothing, and books. After the memory was transmitted, Jonas was questioned on saying “Who were the old people? Why were they there?”, page 123. The Giver had responded to Jonas that those old people were called grandparents. On page 127, Jonas asks his parents if they love him, and both of his parents respond that love is an inappropriate word and is also a meaningless word. After the argument was over, his parents asked Jonas if he had understood this discussion about the word “love” and he had dishonestly responded yes to his parents. It turns out he had escaped with his first life, although he had the opportunity to create lies in this community which is included in his assignment. In chapter 20, “I will take care of that, sir. I will do whatever you like, sir. I will kill people, sir. Old people? Small newborn people? I’d be happy to kill them sir.”, page 152. This chapter discussed that after the footage was shown by both Jonas and the Giver in the annex room, Jonas had told the giver that it’d be confusing if one of the two identical twins were familiar to the other. It was both of the identical twins that were kept in the nurturing center, each baby was tested on weight. Either two of them will be able to be accepted in this community, they accept only who's the stronger baby versus the weaker baby. The stronger baby had to be taken to the community, however, the weaker baby had to be taken to a room where it specializes through a place where people have been released. He began to realize that his father was lying to him about what the nurturing center meant when he wasn’t supposed to see anything happening because he was too young. He had also lied about the nurturing center being so careful and respectful towards the newborn children in this society.This conveyed people who had sameness with the same features such as eyes, weight, and color. He was so disappointed at viewing the demonstration of both of the identical newborn twins. In chapter 21, “We had to make the decision. Even I voted for Gabriel’s release when we had this meeting this afternoon”, page 164. Jonas was questioned that he had decided to be released and his family had made an agreement that it would be participating first thing in the morning, it was called the “Naming Ceremony.” He knew that he had to change his plan about leaving the community to get to Elsewhere. Jonas had taken his father’s bicycle and had decided that he should take Gabriel before he was released. He had prepared himself with a lack of food and he had brought both a transportation for him operating himself to get through Elsewhere and had also brought a blanket to keep him warm from hypothermia. When they had escaped the dwelling place, they found a stream surrounded by trees, all of a sudden the most terrifying thing was that there were planes. Jonas had noticed that search planes were tracking both him and Gabe. A disadvantage that the search planes have is not being able to see any color, he had remembered that from his science and technology studies at school. The search planes used heat-seeking devices that can easily identify people from body warmth. When he had heard the search planes, he grabbed Gabriel and transmitted a memory of snow so that together they would become both cold, and when the planes were gone, they had shivered themselves. In chapter 22, “after a life of sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that had beyond each curve of the road” page 171. He had seen so many birds and deer, and also a small reddish-brown creature with a thick tail, that he did not know this animal’s name. It made me figure out that this animal is a red fox. He had been fascinated by nature when he had slowed his bike to look curiously at these tremendous flowers. Over the years in his twelve years in this community, he had a moment of experiencing exquisite happiness. In this agricultural area, it was almost impossible to scavenge for lack of food. They had finished storing food of potatoes and carrots, the two of them were tortured by hunger and he remembered his life in the community where meals were delivered to each convenient dwelling. He had supervised his memory to recreate meal fragments included such as banquets with huge roasted meats, birthday parties with thick-frosted cakes, and lush fruits picked, and they were eaten. Jonas had convinced Gaberiel, that the word “starving” would never feel any hunger. He had regretted himself for choosing to leave, he had been starving in different possibilities such as hunger for feelings, color, and love. The climate in the weather began to change, it had rained for two days, Jonas had never experienced rain in his life, he had often seen it in his memories. He enjoyed rain and had a joyful feeling of it, but it had been different for him. Both Gabriel and Jonas had become cold and wet, it was a terrible day when both of them cried in disappointment from being hungry, cold, and weak. Lowry described how Jonas had transitioned from the beginning to the end of the novel. It also described how he had felt in this community which would benefit the readers to understand what the author had meant. Jonas is an obedient kid, who had no problem with this community experiencing sameness before. He enjoyed his childhood like everyone would do with being a youth. Jonas, then realizes that the Giver’s advice was about knowledge that had been conveyed on events that were meant in the past and future. The author also demonstrates that Jonas has changed throughout his personality and has shown his family and himself disagreeing with each other at the end of the story. At the ending of the book, Lowry makes a point that the readers can control the ending of how he ended up getting to Elsewhere. In chapter 23, “we’re almost there Gaberiel”, page 177. Jonas was hoping that in his journey he would make it to Elsewhere safely not worrying about his struggles on reaching a landmark that would make them sacred from the terrible society. He had found a red sled that was familiar to him and he had recognized it from one of his memories. He had to use the red sled so that he could climb on top of a hill. Jonas had forced his eyes to open them at once, he had seen lights, that he had familiarly seen them. From the windows shining through the rooms were the colors of red, blue, and yellow lights. This represented this moment as families were there and memories were kept, this had been a sign of love. He had also heard people singing and had heard music in his sense of hearing. When he had lost his consciousness, it may have made him dead although, they went to their destination where Elsewhere had conflicted both his past and future. This explains that Jonas had evolved as a protagonist from being obedient to rebellious.
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