1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lowry, Lois. 1993. THE GIVER. New York, New York. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0440237688
2. PLOT SUMMARY
Jonas is a young boy who lives in a community with advanced technology and numerous rules. Jonas has only observed an aircraft twice in his eleven years of life. Airplanes are not allowed to fly over his community. It is against the set of laws of the society.
Children of the same age are brought up together and each December they advance a grade. When children reach the age of twelve, they are selected for professional training. Jonas’ professional training will be the “Receiver of Memory.” A “Receiver of Memory” is selected every so many generations and only one keeper of memories is chosen in each township. Being the “Receiver of Memory,” “Jonas’ heart swelled with gratitude and pride. But at the same time he was filled with fear. He did not know what his selection meant. He did not know what he was to become. Or what would become of him.”
Jonas and his family unit is allowed to take in an infant named Gabriel. Gabriel is not maturing and developing quickly enough for his age. Because of Jonas’ father’s position as a Nurturer, he is given a years’ extension to help Gabriel blossom and to reach his developmental goals. When Gabriel does not meet his developmental goals for his age group, he is sentenced to be released. Because of Jonas’ love for Gabriel, he decides to take Gabriel with him when he runs away from his community. During Jonas and Gabriel’s winter flight, Jonas and Gabriel are cold and starving. Jonas realizes he and Gabriel will not survive unless he transfers his memories he has received from the Giver of warmth to Gabriel so they will continue to exist.
Before escaping his dystopia community, Jonas believes his life is perfect and that the elders are right in all decisions. Jonas realizes he lives in a world without choices. Jonas is given the power of knowledge thanks to the Giver. With this power, Jonas must decide upon a life of sameness or a life in which he can save a child and they can make their own choices and memories together.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Jonas lives in a perfect world in Lois Lowry novel THE GIVER. The family units in Jonas' world consist of a mother, father, and two children (a boy and a girl). There are rules that everyone follows and nobody deviates from these rules. As a member of this community, if a member breaks a rule, the rule breaker is given three chances. If a given rule is broken after the third time, the rule breaker is “released” from the community.
Everyone is happy being the same in this society. Soon it is time for Jonas to have his twelve's ceremony. All the children who will be twelve will be given their role for their adulthood professions. Jonas is nervous because he doesn't know exactly what job he will be given. When it comes time for him to be given the job of the next Receiver of Memory, he has no idea what this job demands. He meets the current Receiver of Memory, who is now called The Giver. The Giver walks Jonas through the unavoidable training. It is through these training that Jonas comprehends there is more out there than sameness. There are colors and feelings. Jonas understands there is a life within reach that he never experienced before. Jonas wants to experience this life of choices.
THE GIVER is a science fiction novel. In Jonas’ community, there is no such thing as choice. When a child is born, it is placed in the hands of a Nurturer. The child isn't given a name until the December Ceremony. Every December, there is a ceremony celebrating the year's in the life of a child. The new-child is assigned his or her family (one that is chosen for that child). Every family unit is allowed two children. One boy and one girl. As the years move forward, so do the ceremonies. At age eight, the child is allowed to start his volunteer hours. At the age of nine, the child is given his first bike. At the age of twelve, the child is given his “Assignment”. This assignment is the job the child will assume for the rest of his or her life. When Jonas starts his training, he meets "The Giver", the man he is replacing as a Receiver of Memories. The Giver must "give" memories to Jonas. And not just memories of the Community, but memories that have been passed from Receiver to Receiver. He is given memories of color, because there is no longer color in the world of Sameness. He is given beautiful memories of snow and love and family, all things that he has never experienced. When Jonas is shown the tape of what it really means to be released, he must find the courage within himself to try to change this way of life for Gabriel. Jonas doesn't want Gabriel to be released.
Lowry has created a world that is structured and filled with sameness. Jonas is a compassionate, loving and courageous character. Lois Lowry presents characters that become less complex as the story becomes more involved. The reader will discover that the characters in this novel are superficial. This discovery binds the reader closer to Jonas and his journey of awareness of the world around him.
Lois Lowry’s use of imagery allows the reader to become accustomed to the abnormal society she portrays. By giving logical and thorough descriptions for everything from “comfort objects” to “Release,” the reader never feels that such a life is missing something important until he or she is introduced to “The Receiver.”
The Receiver is the holder of all memory, pain and pleasure that has been set aside in order to attain and maintain peace and order in this community. When Jonas is chosen as the next Receiver, he begins the process of taking on all of those memories. Through his explicit experiences Jonas begins to realize how much the community has lost by being the same. Lois Lowry uses language brilliantly in her novel to portray a character that changes the reader’s thought process. As Jonas becomes more aware of emotions and his individual purpose, the language becomes increasingly heated and urgent. As the climax is set up, an awareness of drastic change is felt by Jonas and the reader.
THE GIVER is convincingly plotted and rich with contemplation. The reader is left wondering if Jonas and Gabriel will have a better and a brighter future.
4. REVIEW(S)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's
adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. With a story-line that hints at Christian allegory and an eerie futuristic setting, this intriguing novel calls to mind John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Lowry is once again in top form--raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers.”
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “In a complete departure from her other novels, Lowry has written an intriguing
story set in a society that is uniformly run by a Committee of Elders. Twelve-year-old Jonas's confidence in his comfortable "normal" existence as a member of this well-ordered community is shaken when he is assigned his life's work as the Receiver. The Giver, who passes on to Jonas the burden of being the holder for the community of all memory "back and back and back," teaches him the cost of living in an environment that is "without color, pain, or past." The tension leading up to the Ceremony, in which children are promoted not to another grade but to another stage in their life, and the drama and responsibility of the sessions with The Giver are gripping. The final flight for survival is as riveting as it is inevitable. 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. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS: “In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future
society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility. As Jonas approaches the “Ceremony of Twelve,” he wonders what his adult “Assignment”' will be. Father, a “Nurturer” cares for “new-children”; Mother works in the “Department of Justice”; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named “Receiver,” to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories--painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder (‘The Giver”) now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as “release” is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to “Elsewhere,” a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a new-child he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing. Wrought with admirable skill--the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel.”
5. CONNECTIONS
*Many students are disappointed with the ending of THE GIVER. Allow students to write an alternate ending to THE GIVER in their journals.
*Create an invitation to Jonas' upcoming Ceremonies that invites Community members to attend. Explain what the ceremonies are about and what will occur. Include appropriate images and make the invitation attractive and motivational. The invitation should be designed in the shape of a card.
*The Giver passes the memories through his hands to Jonas. Draw around your hand on a piece of paper. On your hand shape, write about your favorite memory.
*In a journal, students are to write about their three most memorable scenes from the book.
*Other books by Lois Lowry:
Lowry, Lois. GATHERING BLUE. ISBN 0440229499
Lowry, Lois. MESSENGER. ISBN 0618404414
Lowry, Lois. NUMBER THE STARS. ISBN 0440227534
Lowry, Lois. LOOKING BACK: A BOOK OF MEMORIES. ISBN 0385326998
Lowry, Lois. AUTUMN STREET. ISBN 0395278120
