Skip to main content

What is a good thesis statement about freedom in The Giver by Lois Lowry? What are three examples to support the statement?

I like to recommend thesis statements that force writers to discuss polar opposite topics.  It should go something like the following: "Such and such seems to indicate this and that, but the reality is that this and these are really this and that."  


Regarding freedom in The Giver, you should decide if the society has lots of freedom or not.  That will shape which part of the thesis statement comes first.  For example: "Although Jonas's society purports the freedom of its members, it is actually a very controlled and strictly ruled society."  You could reverse the statement, which would then cause your thesis to support the concept that the rules of Jonas's society actually help the people be more free.  Personally, I disagree with that one, but it is up to you.  


For either statement, you need support that focuses on freedom and/or control.  Use the Sameness.  It is an ever present societal system in the book.  There are things about the Sameness that I like, and there are things that I don't.  Not seeing color is a negative, but no hate is nice a bonus.  In general though, I think the Sameness removed a lot of freedom from society members.  



"Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."



Further freedom or oppression evidence is found in the concept of choice.  I should say the lack of choice, actually.  Nobody makes choices in Jonas's society.  If a choice or change has to be made, it is done through painfully slow bureaucratic procedures.  The freedom of individual choice has all but been eliminated.  Now you could argue that is a good thing.  There are times when I really like it when somebody else makes a decision for me.  It frees me from the burden of making the decision in the first place.  


Lastly, use the yearly ceremonies as evidence.  Each child is told what he/she can do when he/she can do it.  Even the child's future career is chosen.  He/she is not free to choose a desired path, which sounds terrible, but then again the Sameness removed any possibility of hate and anger against those decisions.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...