Essay on Sameness in 'The Giver'

The plot twist surrounding the giver creates the question in the hearts of many readers: Does Jonas die? There are so many online entries trying to give explanations and perspectives to the looming question. The circumstances that surround the end of the story bring confusion as to whether Jonas truly died or not.

Jonas represents an aberration to a society beclouded with the loss of human choice and will all in a bid to generate a society void of confusion and errors associated with wrong choices. The man Jonas depicts an individual who decided to leave to leave a mediocre thinking society that has constructed men to live a life patterned by a set of elders waiting to enact punishment on all those who fail to line according to laid down rules and regulations.

The fact that Jonas dies is suggested by the very confusing play of events that further describe whether his journey becomes successful or not. As Jonas tries to apprehend what position he would be given during the ceremony of twelve he is ignorant of the effect of the loss of the memories of life that makes it beautiful. He is trained to adapt to a life void of the beauty of love, pain, and suffering to see sameness and lack of error as an approachable standard to life.

During his training with the giver, Jonas discovers the negatives of Sameness and realizes that it has terminated life's spontaneity and the citizens' independence and this becomes his. motivation for correcting the ills he finds in his environment. This drive is what motivates him above death. We see that this Zest draws him to the point where he desires to leave society despite the troubling circumstances.

Jonas did not know what release meant at first. No one in his community did. Sameness was the ultimate goal, and no one questioned it. It was their society’s purpose. When Jonas was selected as the Receiver of Memory, it meant that he would undergo special training, and learn his community’s secrets. Those secrets were darker than Jonas imagined. Jonas explains to the reader at the beginning of the book that there are only two occasions when release is not a punishment: the release of the elderly, and the release of a new child who has failed to meet growth targets. Jonas’s father, Chief Nurturer, manages to get a special dispensation for Gabriel, a new child who is failing to thrive, to come into their home at night for extra nurturing. Jonas has an immediate connection with the baby, noticing that they have the same light-colored eyes, seeing the new child and its expression, he was reminded that the light eyes were not only a rarity but gave the one who had them a certain look—what was it? Jonas’s connection to Gabriel only grows with his training. He learns to see colors and gains the community’s memories. As he does so, he begins to share them with Gabriel to help the fitful baby sleep at night. The fact that Jonas can transmit memories to Gabe seems to demonstrate that he too has the Capacity to See Beyond.

What does the death of Jonas in The Giver Mean:

If Jonas dies in The Giver, it would promote the story to be interpreted as a tragic one. One in which the hero whose struggles are founded on the genuine desire to bring a change to his world and society by restoring the lost memories of everyone and bringing balance to a world stripped of all the beauties of life. Jonas's new affiliation with a newborn experiencing troubles while sleeping brings him to terms with the effect of beautiful memories such as love, friendship, hope joy, peace, and closeness. This teaches him that the family experience he has been exposed to all this while wasn't founded on true mutual feelings but on a sense of responsibility to see everyone grow up into the stage where they are assigned different tasks to ensure the continuity of the society.

During his training with to giver, he finds out that the giver's daughter who was subjected to the same training he had, is being made to experience all the feelings of war, hate, bitterness, and human anger that make her break since these emotions are completely foreign to her. This causes the community elders to devise a technique for preventing the sudden influx of emotions and memories when she is eventually killed. Jonas is truly aware of all these risks and pitfalls. This makes me believe that having had a full understanding of the risks and complications involved in this task, it is highly not possible for Jonas to die in the end.

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In his bid to escape with Gabriel, he runs off to elsewhere a place outside of the community civilization. One built with real emotions and colorful atmospheres and weather. As Jonas approaches elsewhere he eventually tires out and the safety of Gabriel is at stake. This forces him to sustain Gabriel with little happy memories to enable him to keep on fighting till they eventually reach the end. As they live fitter, Jonas is stuck in a heap of snow and his Resistance eventually hives way as he slowly gives into the pains of his present situation.

Jonas doesn't seem to die at the end because the sounds of music and the sight of a hut just a little beyond the landslide reenergises him to continue to reach the hut believing someone is waiting to receive them.

Jonas's death at the very end would become a sad tale in the interpretation of a heroic effort to do all it takes to bring back the richness of societal values. In His training with the giver, his understanding of human emotions & feelings makes him appreciate the beauty of life. If Jonas dies in the end, it would make us believe that the subtle attempt of the writer to make us believe that trying to change a popular opinion of life that isn't correct would end up being futile. Many look to the inspiration of Jonas, risking all to save his dying society, and his determination and craftiness in achieving this goal as a morale booster in breaking their limitations.

Jonas can't die as a result of the amount of sacrifice that has been put into ensuring that he reaches his end and successfully escapes elsewhere. As an integral part of him, his escape elsewhere arms him with the mentality that if he fails, the sacrifices of others ultimately go down the drain. Jonas whose concrete determination to do and see things from a different perspective all his life has led him all this while right from when he wasn't yet assigned the duty of becoming the next receiver of memories. For Jonas to die at the end of the giver would bring total waste to his life principles.

The journey of Jonas in The Giver teaches so many lessons

• Determination:

Their determination of Jonas makes him achieve all he has set to and become a difference in a society shaped into a specific standard. In life, we have to be determined to achieve whatever we have set our hearts to do.

• Sacrifice:

The sole aim of Jonas in The Giver isn't to just live an exceptional life but to do whatever it takes even if it would cost him his own life to bring balance to an already blind generation. This means that whether he ends up dead or not, he has been able to drive home the point that nothing is too great a price to pay for the liberation of mankind.

• Love:

His determination and effort put into achieving his mission come to a full peak once he appreciates the beauty of life. His love for seeing this spread amongst everyone makes him see things to be done from a different perspective. In a bid to understand the family relationship, the moieties he transfers to Gabriel are important in proving that humans are worth loving. Not just tested as some firm of machines to be controlled and monitored into becoming all a set of elders chooses for them. Love is being eliminated from society as babies who are born are taken to families and caregivers who have no genuine affection for the lives of these newborns.

• Ability to stand out:

Another reason why Jonas can't die at the end is because his life suggests an ability in him to be different and stand out from others. The giver knew this and that propelled him into giving the necessary support to make sure that he followed through with the mission to the end. Though others had tried and attempted to solve the same problems Jonas had seen, most of them had failed because their approach to the problem was virtually the same. Out of the many stood Jonas who knew that if he must finish the mission he must apply a different strategy and become proactive. The elders could identify this and this made him selected as the best to suit the position of a receiver of memories.