The Giver is a novel written by Lois Lowry and published on April 16, 1993. It is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian; therefore, it could be considered anti-utopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. Jonas' society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of "Receiver of Memory," the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. As Jonas receives the memories from his predecessor—the "Giver"—he discovers how shallow his community's life has become. (Soon to become a movie in 2011. Written by Lois Lowry and Directed by David Yates,; currently in production.)
Main characters:~Jonas- The protagonist, an eleven year-old when the novel opens, is selected to become Receiver of Memory at his Ceremony of Twelve. He has 'pale' eyes and often sees a 'change in scenery'. His Assignment is the most honored and respected one, and Jonas has the intelligence, integrity and courage needed to become a Receiver. Besides The Giver, he is the only person to see a full, emotional, world. As he begins his training with The Giver and slowly understands the truth about the community, Jonas feels that things must change. Planning together with The Giver, Jonas decides to flee with Gabriel away from the community forever in order to unleash all the memories that have been kept from the citizens for so long.
~ The Giver – The incumbent Receiver of Memory, who stores human experiences from the time before Sameness. The Community's Elders rely upon his "wisdom" in the event of emergencies; because no one wants the pain that comes with keeping the necessary memories, this "honor" is restricted to one individual. He is frustrated at the Elders for only consulting him during emergencies instead of all of the time, and seems somewhat disgusted by the actions of the community's people, though he tells Jonas that they "know nothing" and therefore cannot be blamed. His real name is never given in the story.
~Jonas' Mother- An intelligent, practical, well rounded woman who serves her Community as a judge.
~ Jonas' Father – A caring man, something of the ideal father figure, who works as a Nurturer for children in their first year of life. Later, Jonas learns that his father is, sometimes, responsible for the Release of defective children.
~Lily- Jonas's talkative, curious, energetic, enthusiastic and outgoing younger sister who likes to take care of Gabriel. She is also very good at storytelling and could be picked as the next story teller for the community
~Asher- Jonas's best friend. Asher is a fun-loving, hasty boy who usually speaks too fast mixing up his words. He is assigned as an Assistant Director of Recreation.
~Fiona- Female friend of both Jonas and Asher. Her red hair represents a failure of genetic engineering, as the Giver notes: "We never completely mastered Sameness. The genetic scientists are still... trying to work the kinks out. Hair like Fiona's must drive them crazy." She works as a Caretaker for the Old. Despite her kind demeanor, she is learning to Release the elderly without emotion. Jonas's first 'Stirrings', or sexual feelings, were expressed in his dreams of her. Jonas was supposed to take a pill for the stirrings, but stopped taking the pill after a couple of weeks (the stirrings returned). One may wonder if Jonas is still interested in Fiona after he finds out the truth, but the relationship between Jonas and Fiona was never revisited.~Gabriel– An infant from the Nurturing Center whom Jonas's father takes home for extra care. Slow in development and highly emotional, Gabriel is at risk of Release. Jonas takes him on his journey to Elsewhere. Gabriel is able to Receive memories from Jonas. He is also one of the only people other than Jonas, Katharine (a six who has pale eyes), The Giver, and Rosemary to have pale eyes. It is implied that the pale eyes are an indicator of the ability to receive memories.
Major Themes:>Color represents diversity and a depth of feeling beyond that which the majority of society enjoys. In The Giver, however, objects do not "gain" color through intense emotional experiences on the part of their observers; rather, Jonas learns to see the colors which objects intrinsically possess. Apparently, the transition to Sameness involved removing color vision from the people, although the Giver implies that genetic engineers also attempted to remove the variability in the human population, but can't do it completely; even light eyes (which may or may not indicate that the person possessing such eyes is meant to be a Receiver; Jonas appears to think such) and red hair is a rarity.
>An image of nudity recurs in several places. During his volunteer hours, where children aged 8 - 11 explore their Community and try to see what they like are good at as a future "assignment" Jonas assists in the House of the Old, where the most aged members of the Community reside. Lowry describes how Jonas bathes an old woman, Larissa; he enjoys the trusting, carefree nature of the experience, which reminds him of his father caring for an infant. (Jonas muses about how his Community has strict rules against nakedness in almost all circumstances. He personally finds them a nuisance, such as the admonition to keep oneself entirely covered while changing for athletic games, and does not understand why the Community would institute such precautions.)
>Later, the tenderness of the bathing scene gains a sexual edge, when Jonas dreams about cajoling a female friend, the red-haired Fiona, to remove her clothes and climb into a tub so that he can bathe her. Jonas recounts this dream at his family's breakfast "dream-telling", and his parents recognize it as an early sign of what they call "The Stirrings" which in this book is the name given to sexual feelings. Special pills are taken to remove any such feelings, so a person is not upset with their choice of a spouse, which is chosen for them by The Elders.
>Music plays a role in The Giver, despite its presence being very subdued. It is also easy to miss the fact that the Community has no music. One of the few clues is when Larissa describes a Ceremony of Release for an old man who was leaving the Community. "We chanted the anthem," she says, a phrasing which implies an absence of melody. Later, when the Giver is instructing Jonas, it is learned that as a boy, the Giver had a faculty much like Jonas's ability to "See Beyond". In the Giver's case, it was Hearing Beyond: he began to hear "something truly remarkable, which is called music". This sense is more mystical than Jonas's, in that it can be understood how objects have color which people are unable to see, but it cannot identify a natural source of music, unless the Giver discovered he could hear musical patterns in everyday sound.>Two important themes in The Giver is the selection of a citizens' career based on what they are most naturally suited for. This aspect of the novel could be inspired by the Platonic ideal espoused in The Republic. The other is that without pain and anguish we cannot truly feel love and joy. And that to live in a "perfect" world with no poverty, violence, hunger or heartbreak would be to live without love, beauty, joy or compassion.
Plot Summary:The novel's setting seems to be a utopia, where all possible steps are taken to eliminate pain and anguish. The people are almost always compliant; families share their dreams and feelings on a daily basis to diffuse emotional buildup. This society remains harmonious by matching up husbands and wives based on compatibility of personality and if there is any sign of feelings the match is denied. There is also a subtle theme of technology having only a minimal role in society; throughout the book, it is taken for granted that Jonas's community is without such technologies as television, or radio, although computers are mentioned at one point. Transportation is mostly limited to bicycles; however, cars and airplanes exist in small numbers.
As time progresses in the novel, however, it becomes clear that the society has lost contact with the ideas of family and love, at least in the "more complete" sense at which Lowry hints. Children are born to designated "Birthmothers" and then family units can apply for children. If the family unit applies for the maximum allowed number of two, it will always be one boy and one girl. This is to keep the genders even. After family units have served the purpose of raising the children in a stable environment, they cease to exist, the parents going to a communal housing facility for childless adults, and the children becoming involved in their work and starting mono-generational families of their own, forgetting their foster parents who are growing old. The community maintains this process using pills which suppress emotions, mainly romantic love and sexuality, or “Stirrings”.
All the land near the Community and around the other, similar communities clustered about the nearby river has been flattened to aid agriculture and transportation. A vaguely described system of climate control is used so that the weather remains constant. It is implied that genetic engineering has been used extensively to manipulate human beings so that they physically conform to Sameness.
****Despite controversy and criticism that the book's subject material is inappropriate for young children, The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 5.3 million copies. In the United States and Canada it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many banned book lists. The novel forms a loose trilogy with Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004), two other books set in the same future era.
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