User:Connorehl/The Giver

Plot[edit]
Jonas, a 12-year-old boy, lives in a Community isolated from all except a few similar towns, where everyone from small infants to the Chief Elder has an assigned role based on the tastes and qualities on of the selected member. With the annual Ceremony of Twelve upcoming, he is nervous, for there he will be assigned his life's work. He seeks reassurance from his father, a Nurturer (who cares for the new babies, who are genetically engineered ; thus, Jonas's parents are not biologically related to him ), and his mother, an official in the Department of Justice. He is told that the Elders, who assign the children their careers, are always right.

The day finally arrives, and Jonas is assembled with his classmates in order of birth. All of the Community is present, and the Chief Elder presides. Jonas is stunned when his turn is passed by, and he is increasingly conspicuous and agonized until he is alone. The Chief Elder initially passes over Jonas’s turn and the Chief Elder then at the end explains that Jonas has not been given a normal assignment, but instead has been selected as the next Receiver of Memory. , to be trained by the current one, who sits among the Elders, staring at Jonas, and who shares with the boy unusual pale eyes. The position of Receiver has high status and responsibility, and Jonas quickly finds himself growing distant from his classmates, including his close friends Asher and Fiona. The rules Jonas receives further separate him, as they allow him no time to play with his friends, and require him to keep his training secret. They also allow him to lie and withhold his feelings from his family, things generally not allowed in the regimented Community.

Once he begins it, Jonas's training makes clear his uniqueness, for the Receiver of Memory is just that—a person who bears the burden of the memories from all of history, and who is the only one allowed access to books beyond schoolbooks and the rulebook issued to every household. The current Receiver, who asks Jonas to call him the Giver, begins the process of transferring those memories to Jonas, for the ordinary person in the Community knows nothing of the past. These memories, and being the only Community member allowed access to books about the past, give the Receiver perspective to advise the Council of Elders. The first memory is of sliding down a snow-covered hill on a sled, pleasantness made shocking by the fact that Jonas has never seen a sled, or snow, or a hill—for the memories of even these things have been given up to assure security and conformity (called Sameness). Even color has been surrendered, and the Giver shows Jonas a rainbow. Less pleasantly, he gives Jonas memories of hunger and war, things alien to the boy. Hanging over Jonas's training is the fact that the Giver once before had an apprentice, named Rosemary, but the boy finds his parents and the Giver reluctant to discuss what happened to her.

Jonas's father is concerned about an infant at the Nurturing Center who is failing to thrive, and has received special permission to bring him home at night. The baby's name will be Gabriel if he grows strong enough to be assigned to a family. He has pale eyes, like Jonas and the Giver. , and Jonas becomes grows attached to him, especially when Jonas finds that he is capable of being given can receive memories. If Gabriel does not increase in strength, he will be "released from the Community"—in common speech, taken Elsewhere. This has happened to an off-course air pilot, to chronic rule breakers, to elderly people, and to the apprentice Rosemary. After Jonas casually speculates as to speculates about life in Elsewhere, the Giver educates him by showing the boy hidden-camera video of Jonas's father doing his job: as two identical community members cannot be allowed, Jonas's father releases the smaller of identical twin newborns by injecting the baby with poison before putting its dead body in a trash chute he released the smaller of two identical twin newborns through lethal injection with poison before putting it in a trash chute, since identical community members are not permitted. There is no Elsewhere for those not wanted by the Community—those said to have been "released" have been killed.

Since he now considers his father a murderer, Jonas initially refuses to return home, but the Giver convinces him that without the memories, the people of the Community cannot know that what they have been trained to do is wrong. Rosemary was unable to endure the darker memories of the past and instead killed herself with the poison. Together, Jonas and the Giver come to the understanding that the time for change is now—that the Community has lost its way and must have its memories returned. The only way to make this happen is for Jonas to leave the Community, at which time the memories he has been given will flood back into the people, as did the relatively few memories Rosemary had been given. Jonas wants the Giver to escape with him, but the Giver insists that he will be needed to help the people manage the memories, or they will destroy themselves. Once the Community is re-established along new lines, the Giver plans to join his daughter, Rosemary, in death. '''Jonas and the Giver devise a plan to return the community’s memories so they may find their way. They agree that Jonas will leave the community thereby returning the memories back to the community, while the Giver will stay to help them learn to live with their memories before joining his daughter, Rosemary in death.''' The Giver devises a plot in which Jonas will escape beyond the boundaries of the Communities. The Giver will make it appear as if Jonas drowned in the river so that the search for him will be limited. The plan is scuttled when Jonas learns that Gabriel will be "released" the following morning, and he feels he has no choice but to escape with the infant. Their escape is fraught with danger, and They plan to fake Jonas’s drowning to limit the search, but instead must escape in a rush to avoid the pending release of Gabriel. The two are near death from cold and starvation when they reach the border of what Jonas believes must be Elsewhere. Using his ability to "see beyond", a gift that he does not quite understand, he finds a sled waiting for him at the top of a snowy hill. He and Gabriel ride the sled down towards a house filled with colored lights and warmth and love and a Christmas tree, and for the first time he hears something he believes must be music. The ending is ambiguous, with Jonas depicted as experiencing symptoms of hypothermia. This leaves his and Gabriel's future unresolved. their Jonas and Gabriel’s fate is revealed and they are alive in Gathering Blue and in Messenger, companion novels written much later.

In 2009, at the National Book Festival, the author joked during a Q&A, "Jonas is alive, by the way. You don't need to ask that question."

Memory
In their book, Bradford et al. argue that The Giver represents a community where the lack of cultural memory leads to an inability to avoid societal mistakes, preventing the community from becoming a true Utopia, thus conferring transformational potential on human memory. Hanson interprets the restriction of memory as totalitarian and argues that Lowry demonstrates the emancipatory potential of memory in the Giver. Triplett and Han suggest that Jonas’s role as receiver of memory, allowing him a deeper understanding of his societal and cultural context, demonstrates the validity of suspicious methods of reading that attempt to obtain deeper rather than surface meanings.

Religion
Bradford et al. suggest The Giver’s depiction of Christmas at the novel's end implies that an ideal community is in part represented by a family Christmas therefore situating the novel as conservative. Academic, Graeme Wend-Walker, read the Lowry’s The Giver trilogy in 2013 through a post-secular lens and suggested removing religion entirely from human society and lives could diminish humanity’s capacity for accepting  differences rather than providing for human liberation as some may assume. Countering Bradford’s claim which would suggest that the novel is conservative rather than transformative due to its religious imagery and undertones, Wend-Walker’s post-secular reading suggests that the novel explores the ambiguity between the secular and religious binary which provides it progressive potential by allowing for the transformative potential of the spiritual.

Color
Susan G Lea in her article emphasizes that sameness is crucial to the world of The Giver, and furthermore that their monochromatic vision creates a color blindness within the community that cannot be aware of the effects of the absence of color. She likens the lack of difference and literal color blindness of The Giver’s community with color blind attitudes that act as if racial difference does not exist, and suggests that the book shows the way that colorblindness erases people of color and their experiences through their lack of visibility. Kyoungmin and Lee examine Jonas’s growing ability to see color rather than the lack of color in his community and argue that his selfhood grows as his memory and perception of color grow. They suggest that Jonas’s full perception of color at the end is what allows him to choose to travel elsewhere as an autonomous agent in comparison to others in his community.

Eugenics and Gene Editing
Elizabeth Bridges reads an implication of gene editing in the development of the homogenous community onto the text based on euphemistic language throughout the novel. She further suggests the release of those who do not fit societal conventions represent the ways that eugenics were employed by the society of The Giver. Robert Gadowski suggests that government control of bodies inhibits the society’s freedoms. He argues that through bio-technical planning, people’s bodies become vehicles of state control rather than the locus of their autonomy.

Literary significance and reception[edit]
While critical reception of The Giver has been mixed, the novel has found a home in "City Reads" programs, library-sponsored reading clubs on citywide or larger scales.The Giver, a part of Dystopian literature has left many readers questioning the classification of Lowry's novel. Some readers have felt that The Giver should be listed under "Young Adult Fiction" due to its graphic content detailing euthanasia, mental health and death. While the reception of The Giver has received critical acclaim and has accepted its share of accolades, it has remained a challenged novel by several schools for many generations. Controversies surround the novel's dark themes and topics of violence for young audiences to read has have not always been well received by parents and educators which has resulted in controversy surrounding the novel. being banned from academic environments. One of the first moments of The Giver being challenged occurred in 1995 when parents became concerned over the nature of the novel as a whole. Some parents felt that the content in this book was not appropriate for children to absorb at such a young age. It has even been banned in some academic environments with an example from 1995 when parents felt the content was not appropriate for young children.

In an interview with Lois Lowry, she states she is unsure as to why the novel has been continuously challenged amongst its readers. Lowry expresses that, "When most parents read a passage from The Giver, they take it out of context. Most adults who are upset by the dark nature of the novel have refrained from reading the text or have never read it at all". Lowry has discovered that most adults who decide to read the novel dismiss their previous impressions. She describes how parents feel that they have a responsibility in protecting their children from explicit content which results in not reading Lowry's work. However, regarding the idea of sensitive topics, Lowry feels that there is no subject "off limits" to discuss in literature. Avi shares Lowry’s opinion on why her work is censored suggesting that attempts at censorship have come from a misunderstanding of the text’s message or at the very fictionality of the text, combined with an attempt by adults to control the content and thoughts with which their children interact. Elyse Lord provides a nuanced argument that suggests although content is sensitive and can raise questions about what is appropriate for children, to completely censor it would ignore the novel’s point about the need to deal with and process uncomfortable memories.

While Lowry has expressed her own thoughts, However, other reviewers have also commented that the story lacks originality and is not likely to stand up to the sort of probing literary criticism used in "serious" circles. , while Others argue that book’s appealing to a young-adult audience are critical for building a developing reader's appetite for reading. Karen Ray, writing in The New York Times, detects "occasional logical lapses", but adds that the book "is sure to keep older children reading". Young adult fiction author Debra Doyle was more critical, stating that "Personal taste aside, The Giver fails the [science fiction] Plausibility Test," and that "Things are the way they are [in the novel] because The Author is Making A Point; things work out the way they do because The Author's Point Requires It."

In a 2013 study conducted by professors Johnson, Haynes, and Nastasis from Wright State University, they received mixed reactions based on students' reactions about The Giver. Johnson, Haynes, and Nastasis found that, although the majority of students said either they did not understand the novel or did not like the novel, there were students who were able to connect with Jonas and to empathize with him.

Natalie Babbitt of The Washington Post was more forgiving, calling Lowry's work "a warning in narrative form," saying: The story has been told before in a variety of forms—Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind—but not, to my knowledge, for children. It's well worth telling, especially by a writer of Lowry's great skill. If it is exceedingly fragile—if, in other words, some situations do not survive that well-known suspension of disbelief—well, so be it. The Giver has things to say that cannot be said too often, and I hope there will be many, many young people who will be willing to listen.According to The Horn Book Magazine, "In a departure from her well-known and favorably regarded realistic works, Lois Lowry has written a fascinating, thoughtful science-fiction novel... The story is skillfully written; the air of disquiet is delicately insinuated. And the theme of balancing the virtues of freedom and security is beautifully presented."]