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Why is it bad that the people in The Giver don't understand feelings and emotions like we do?

I would argue the inability to feel emotions makes someone not fully human, and Lois Lowry's The Giver shows the high cost of suppressing emotion. Without emotions, we are not really that different from robots, and are easily led and controlled. Emotions motivate us and give us our drive. When we are stripped of these, as the people in the story are, the Elders can do what they please. After all, it takes a certain amount of anger to revolt. In the story, people have been deprived of not just the opportunity to be unhappy, but also the opportunity to be happy. They do not experience envy or jealousy, it appears, but they also do not experience love or sexual desire. Only when the Giver shares memories of love and pain does Jonah understand what he and the community have been missing. It does not seem possible to experience positive emotions without also being able to experience negative emotions. Even negative emotions can lead us to a good result, such as overthrowing a tyrant or leaving a bad relationship. In the story, the people have no such choices because they cannot feel anything. To feel is to be human.

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