Skip to main content

In The Giver by Lois Lowry, how do the memories change Jonas over the course of the story?

The memories that Jonas experiences as received by the Giver give him knowledge and wisdom. First he learns about the ability to make choices based on preferences; then he learns about the concept of love; and finally, he learns what being released really means. Jonas learns about each concept from a different memory and they teach him more about humanity than any of his friends or family could ever understand.


The first memory Jonas ever receives is in Chapter 11. Jonas gets to go sledding down a snowy slope, which gives him a great feeling of joy that he's never experienced before. Afterwards, he is told that snow, hills, and sledding don't exist anymore because they were sacrificed for Sameness--the condition that makes the community equal, safe, and secure. This is the first time that Jonas realizes that there are experiences that he has never known about and that others whom he loves will never, ever know. 


As Jonas receives more memories, his insight into seeing beyond becomes sharper. This allows him to see colors. When asked, the Giver explains, "When you receive the memories. You have the capacity to see beyond. You'll gain wisdom, then, along with colors. And lots more" (95). With this information, Jonas's brain starts putting things together and he discovers what has been taken away along with the ability to see colors--the ability to choose based on preference. For example, in Chapter 13, Jonas says the following:



"If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?" (97).



In Chapter 16, Jonas receives a memory that seems to resemble Christmas because there's a family with grandparents giving and receiving gifts. The Giver explains the concept of love through this memory. This prompts Jonas to ask his parents if they love him and the response he gets is that love is an archaic word. A better way to say it, they say, is that they enjoy Jonas, not love him. This disappoints him and sets him up for even further disappointment later when he discovers that when people are released from the community, they are really killed.


Jonas learns about death and killing in Chapter 15 when he experiences a memory about war and dying on the battlefield. But things get far worse when he witnesses his father administer a lethal injection into the head of an infant in Chapter 20. This is the breaking point. The memory of war was bad enough because he could see the horror that killing brought to humankind. It was probably a memory that would help Jonas continue on as the full-time Receiver because it would stop his community from ever experiencing war. But when he sees that killing didn't end when the community went to Sameness, there doesn't seem like much point allowing it to continue from that point on. As a result, the Giver and Jonas devise a plan to end Sameness.

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more