Euthanasia In Lois Lowry's The Giver

Have you ever experienced having to put down a pet, or watching a grandparent die after suffering? The technique we often use is familiar to most people as euthanasia. In this process, we peacefully kill somebody to end their suffering. In Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver, a dystopian society uses euthanasia in a way that they call release. A boy named Jonas discovers his society is awful and very cruel, with the help of his mentor, The Giver, he realizes that people of the community are being killed for no reason, that they call release. Release is when the people in Jonas’s society end somebody’s life, even if they are not suffering. This novel promotes and accepts the practice of euthanasia. They perform release on newborns, on elderly people,

The society that Jonas live in has very strict rules. These rules could be broken easily, causing release from the community. “Needless to say, he will be released.”(p.2) This was spoken to the people by an announcer, who was explaining that a pilot who had taken the wrong path, would be released. In America and other places around the world, we have something called the death penalty. The death penalty is similar to release towards criminals, if somebody does something illegal, it could result in the death penalty. The death penalty and release are the most similar techniques in The Giver and the real world. The death penalty is never compassionate towards the person dying, because they have to die, because of bad decisions. I have personally never had to put down a pet. I could imagine that it would be hard to let them go, but happy for them to end their suffering. This is why I think that euthanasia is compassionate and humane. The community that Jonas lives in does accept the practice of euthanasia, but in a different way than we do in the real world. Release in The Giver is not compassionate because of they way they describe it and the process. They use release on newborn children, elderly people who are not suffering, and on criminals or people who break the rules of the