Written perhaps for fifth or sixth graders, this book easily entraps adults into a community so foreign to our own that one's imagination runs wild. We live in a time of much freedom, but what if in the future all memory of the past was erased from our minds, differences were diminished between people, and everyone was no more than an automaton. What if such commonalities as color, weather, even music were eradicated?
Lois Lowry in
The Giver does an excellent job writing about a young man, Jonas, who has grown up in a community where there is no private ownership. His life is regulated by ridged rules and set standards. Relatively unable to express his true feelings and uniqueness, he goes through life as the rest of the community, coasting through life with no real meaning. Upon turning the age of twelve, many changes occur. His family has been granted permission to take care of one of the newborns who has trouble in the community care centers. There is something different about this child, which is seen as a threat to the infrastructure of the community. Jonah identifies much with this child throughout the story.
When children turn twelve in this community, they are commissioned to begin their adult life by taking on a job. When Jonah is skipped at the delegating ceremony he panics, only to find out that he has been selected to take on a job that is rarely given, he will be the receiver. Jonah, nearly clueless of what this job entails, arrives at the house of the man whom he will be an apprentice of. This man, an advisor to the governing council and the most respected member of the community begins to pass the job, and responsibility, to Jonah.
As the Giver begins to instruct Jonah to break rules and stop thinking is such a two dimensional world, Jonah begins to realise how deceived he has always been and how deceived the members of the community are. The Giver is the only person who has ever truly experienced anything. He contains all of the memories of the past for the community, to protect them from pain, sorrow, even love. He feels. He sees color. He hears music. All of these concepts the other people cannot understand. He begins to transmit these memories to Jonah, liberating him from the deception he has always known.
In an attempt to restore these memories to the populace and to liberate them from the grayscale life they are living, The Giver and Jonah devise a plan that will give the memories back. There is no other way to do this, the Giver has thought about it before. When Jonah embarks on his last voyage, away from this community, his memories will begin to be restored to the community. The books ending is ingenious and leaves many questions unanswered. Did this scheme succeed? What happens to the protagonist? Is the ending actually an event, or is it another memory? Read the book to find out how it ends. Read the book to discover what happens to this community.
While reading this book one may wonder if Jonah is really being liberated by knowing the truth or if he was better off being protected by the Giver who hoarded all of the memories, some of which he would have loved to have given away. It has striking similarities to Plato's account of the cave in
Republic. Once one sees the light he cannot settle for the darkness. Once Jonah receives these memories and knows the truth, he cannot return to ignorant bliss. Even if Jonah was to tell the members of his community about the memories, the truth, the forms, they would not understand.
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