Lois Lowry’s The Giver Essay Example

A life without love, emotions, freedom, humanity would be a life no one would want to live. In the book, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s community took away all emotions to create what they call a perfect society. The memories Jonas has received as the giver has made him aware of the things he's missing. The emotions in which he received had made him feel more human. In Jonas’s community, in order to have a perfect society with no pain, they decided long ago to relinquish personal freedoms, pain, and love. But in the process, they have lost what it means to be human.  

In The Giver, Jonas’s community has no freedom to be unique. they are all bound to the community with sameness. Jonas has no way of expressing himself, for instance, when Jonas said “I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?” (Lowry123) Jonas’s community renounced color of all kinds. This relinquishment has taken away the freedom to express himself. The community has also taken away all types of choices. For instance choice of who they marry, or what they wear. The elders like to say “We really have to protect people from making the wrong decisions.” (Lowry 124). Jonas’s society is so controlling, they don't let them chose how they go about their lives because they are scared that it's disagreeable, and will cause harm to the community. They are so frightened to have an “imperfect” society that they don't even realize what they are missing in the real world. The decisions which we make in our everyday life, and the decisions that Jonas's community make show how much freedom we have and how little they have. 

Everyone can experience pain right, Everyone but this society. Their lives are so predictable, they wake up to go to work, come back eat dinner and go to bed. Their lack of emotions caused them to not have to worry about heartbreak or loss of anyone. Jonas said “Life here is so ordinary, so predictable, so painless. It is what they’ve chosen.”(Lowry 130) Their lives are scheduled in Jonas’s community, nothing is different, it's the same every day. As the elders chose the lives for everyone, they still need to be educated on life. The elders talk to the Giver for advice so they know how to plan to make a better commonwealth. The Giver once said, “ They don't want to hear about pain, they seek advice.” (Lowry 141) When the Elders ask for advice they don't want to hear the details and the memories which you’ve received, they simply want to know how to make life better for the community.  

Jonas’s union has taken away love which has made them feel inhuman. Jonas wakes up every day knowing the ones around his don't love him. He knows that love is a strong word, but he feels love and wants everyone else around him to experience it. Jonas said, “ I like the feeling of love.”(Lowry 158) When Jonas finally felt the love he realized how much he seeks it in his community. This shows how his society is so emotionless. In his confraternity, they don't love each other. Jonas asked his father if he loved him, he was quickly remarked from his mother who said to check his “precision of language.” Instead of his father said yes, I love you he said, that he is proud of his achievements “...you used a generalized word, so meaningless that it has become obsolete.”(159,160) Jonas’s community is so immune to the pain of love. They have no feelings and opinions about the loss of love, frankly because they’ve never experienced it. 

Jonas’s perfect community took away all the things that make them human. For instance, love, freedom, and pain. Jonas doesn’t get to wake up and decide his life, it's already chosen for him. His community doesn’t know what it's like to love and to be unique because it's all been taken away from them. They have no opinions on the way their life is and they have nothing they want to change because they don’t know what it’s like having all these emotions. The body is dependent on the elders, and they don't know how to live on their own.