TJC 1IP

1. The Giver
Revision

2. The Author, Lois Lowry
• Inspired to write The Giver after vising her elderly father in a
nursing home.
• Her father had lost most of his long tern memory.
• Occurred to Lowry that …
• No Memory = No Pain = No Relationships = No
Connections To The Past

3. Context : Utopia VS Dystopia
• Refer to Handout.
• Utopia: A place, state, or condition that is ideally
perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and
conditions.

4. The Giver: Utopia with Dystopian traits
• the citizens of the community in The Giver have to submit to strict rules
• Individual freedom and human passions add a chaotic element
• memory of freedom and passion, along with the pain and conflict that
human choice and emotion often cause, must be suppressed
• lack the basic freedoms and pleasures that our own society values.

5. Context of the times: 1993
• Political Correctness : tendency to ignore significant
differences between individuals in order to avoid seeming
prejudiced or discriminatory.
• the value of celebrating differences between people VS
• the value of making everyone in a society feel that they
belong.

6. Controversy
• The anti-abortion versus pro-life controversy
• ethics of a family’s right to choose to end the life of a terminally
ill family member (euthanasia) and an individual’s right to end his
or her own life (assisted suicide).
• single parents, extended families, gay parents, and community
child-rearing

7. Censorship
• Some parents are upset by the novel’s depictions of
sexuality and violence, and feel that their middle-school
and high-school aged children are unprepared to deal
with issues like euthanasia and suicide.
• Ironic?

8. MAIN LESSON?
•Lowry suggests that while tolerance is
essential, it should never be achieved at
the expense of true diversity.

9. Key Plot Moments
• 3rd Person Narrative, limited to what Jonas observes and thinks, his point
of view
• Tone: Lowry used direct, simple language with very few figures of speech or
ironic comments
• Conflict: Jonas’s new emotional and sensory awareness
• Rising Action: Jonas becoming the new receiver
• Climax: When Jonas realises his father’s betrayal.

10. The importance of Memory
• No memories = no emotions = no building of relationships
• The Price to pay to eliminate pain and suffering.
• Yet the Committee of Elders recognise the importance of keeping memory.
• Replacement Ceremony.
• Jonas view is that just as there is no pain without memory, there is also no
true happiness.

11. The Relationship Between Pain and Pleasure
• To feel pleasure, one must first be aware of pain.
• Jonas asking his parents if they “love” him.
• Death is not tragic because life is not preious.

12. Tragedy of Blind Obedience
• Lowry stresses the point that people must not be blindly obedient to the
rules of society.
• In Jonas' community, the people passively accept all rules and customs.
• Over time, because killing has become a routine practice, horrible and
senseless actions do not morally, emotionally, or ethically upset them.

13. Individuality
• The novel struggles with finding the balance between individuality and
‘sameness’
• Jonas however, points out that individuality should not be devalued
• Sameness= not truly living
• We become static, simple, one-dimensional characters.
• Rosemary’s decision

14. Bildungsroman
• The growth of the individual, coming of age journey of Jonas
• Development not just as physical, but into an individual.
• Maturing from a child dependent on his community into a young man with
unique abilities, dreams and desires.

15. Motifs: Recurring devices
• Vision
• Jonas’s unusual pale eyes
• Sees more “deeply” and sees “colour”

16. Skin: Nakedness
• Jonas and Larissa
• Jonas and his stirring
• Not sensual but intimacy.
• Idea of liberation/freedom.

17. Death / Release
• Release can be viewed differently in the novel.
• Physically sent to Elsewhere
• Death as witnessed by Jonas
• Or release from ‘sameness’

18. Symbols
• The Newchild Gabriel (redemption and hope)
• The Sled (journey that Jonas must take)
• The River (escape, Caleb)

19. What we should see…
• Lowry challenges her readers to reexamine their values and to be
aware of the interdependence of all human beings with each
other, their environment, and the world in which they live.
• Only by questioning the conditions under which we live, as Jonas
does in The Giver, can we maintain and secure our freedom of
expression.
• In a nutshell, we control our own destiny.

21. Physical Imagery
• Colours and emotions

22. The World of The Giver
• Introduced to the world via the eyes of Jonas.
• Age 12 – Assigned a Job
• Couples are assigned.
• Families have two children assigned.

23. (…continued…)
• Family units dissolve when children grow old.
• Spend last years in the House of Old till “release”
• Citizens who break rules or fail to adapt are “released”

24. Chapter 1-2: Foreshadowing
• Jonas and his family
• The “release” of the pilots
• The Telling Of Feelings
• Ceremonies of the Ages
• “Frightened” and “Apprehensive”
• Society seems positive but why do we feel bothered as readers?

25. Chapters 3-4
• Gabriel’s funny eyes
• Birthmothers
• Jonas and the apple
• The Release via volunteer service

26. Chapters 3-4: Analysed
• Gabriel’s funny eyes
• Birthmothers
• Jonas and the apple
• The Release via volunteer service

27. Chapter 5-6
• The “Stirring” and treatment
• Replacement ceremony
• De-emphasis of relationship between individuals.

28. Chapter 7-8
• Asher’s childhood as severe
• Ceremony of Twelve: Jonas the Receiver
• The physical similarities between Jonas and The Giver