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In The Giver, what decision is made as a result of the climax?

In my view, the climax of this novel, or the most tense and most exciting part, is when Jonas learns that the baby Gabriel has been scheduled for release.


As a result of this, instead of following the careful escape plan that he and The Giver had plotted out, Jonas decides to sneak out of the community immediately and take Gabe with him.


All this happens in Chapter 21, toward the end of the novel:



It would work. They could make it work, Jonas told himself again and again throughout the day.


But that evening everything had changed. ...


That night, Jonas was forced to flee.



Up until this point, Jonas and The Giver had worked out a plan for Jonas to escape safely from the community on his own and to allow the memories to leak from his mind into the minds of the other citizens. The Giver would remain behind and help them all deal with those memories, after which, if all went well, the community would decide to trade Sameness for everything it was missing: music, colors, love, individuality, and so on.


However, because Jonas is so attached to the baby Gabriel, and because Jonas knows that release is murder, he cannot stand by and allow Gabriel to be released. (The committee in charge of nurturing infants had decided that Gabriel's nighttime fussiness made him unfit for life in the community, which is why they ruled that Gabriel must be released.) Jonas makes the dangerous choice to abscond with the infant instead of following through with the other, careful escape plan.

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