The Giver: What's The Perfect Community?



    Lois Lowry describes in The Giver an orderly, rigorous, non-redundant community. People have to live by the rules, from speech to gesture.

    Honesty is the best quality to avoid fraud in studies and work. However, they will be released if they violate it. In return, there will be no war, poverty, complaint, or woeful loss.

    Jonas is an occupant of that community. To me, Jonas is a smart, biddable, peaceful, and cute sprat. Before turning 12, he'd had a peaceful and quiet life like numerous other boys and girls. His life fully changed after the age of twelve. Jonas can not accept the quest. Rather, he entered an honor, and he was chosen to be the receiver.

    Through training sessions with the transmitter, Jonas has been exposed to new knowledge and feelings through the rates of a receiver: intelligence, integrity, courage, and special capability. consume. After the training is over, Jonas alone will shoulder all of those good and painful recollections. No sharing. No empathy. Just thinking about it, Jonas felt lonely and tired.

    Jonas began to find the community strange, as indeed his family and musketeers. Because those humans live like robots without feelings? Oh no, indeed, if they live by "programming," they still have passions. Baby Lily is angry when she sees a boy defying orders. Jonas's father worries when a new baby is born. Jonas's mama is sad and angry when someone commits a crime again. Everyone has a passion. Still, as I previously stated, this is a community where nothing is redundant, including feelings. They, who live in that community, have only the most introductory and necessary feelings. All negative feelings, indeed passionate and violent climate and feelings similar to love or affection, are fully acclimated or excluded, to insure that community order isn't disturbed.


    No wonder Jonas was veritably worried when his mama answered the question, "Do your parents love you?" like this:


"The word you just used was so general, so pointless, that it's slightly used now."


    Going back to the question at the beginning of the composition, what's a perfect community? There's no perfect community. The people living in Jonas's community were not wrong. They only choose what's most applicable and good and accept the trade-offs to get those effects, despite going against nature. Running away was the right decision for Jonas because continuing to live where he did not belong would only lead to further tragedy. During his early days on the run, Jonas had to cleave his recollections of events to stay alive. When those recollections faded, he was hysterical and stalwart; he was sad and happy; he cried and laughed. Because everything Jonas has right now is by his own choice. He could have his own thoughts and passions without having to rely on historical recollections. For a mortal being, discovering himself and living true to himself is the most applicable and good thing.

    By writing imaginatively and naturally, Lois Lowry leads compendiums into a world both familiar and strange. Directly using adjectives to describe feelings increases the rigor and norms of the community, and at the same time helps compendiums more understand the characters, especially the boy, Jonas. It isn't difficult to realize then that there's both the participation of wisdom and technology and hidden caution. Jonas and The Giver's open exchanges reveal some of the homogeneous society and valuable humanities assignments. So, what's the perfect community?

    In 1994, The Giver was awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal for stylish children's literature. This is a well-justified award because The Giver isn't only excellent work for children but also for everyone. 

Hai Huynh

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