Jonas is a unique character in The Giver. In addition to having abnormally colored eyes, he is unique in his ability to have deeper feelings than anybody else in his society. Jonas’s feelings about his society change, too. Throughout The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s feelings of wariness about the society in which he lives transform to become increasingly resentful and distrusting.
In the beginning of the book, Jonas is wary of the rules in his society. Jonas is cautious of the possibility of punishment for breaking the rules. In the book, Jonas remembers that he has broken the rules before, “the only thing that happened was an announcement later that evening over the speaker, the announcement that had singled him out without using his name” (Lowry 31). Luckily for Jonas, a warning was the only thing he had to receive. For others however, depending on how severely they have broken the rules, the punishment for breaking the rules could be far worse.
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Jonas comes to the realization that no one other than he and the Giver understand true emotions, and the lives he and his fellow citizens lead are not fulfilling for that reason. Jonas notices that the emotions his family understands are simple and lack feeling, “But now Jonas had experienced real sadness. He had felt grief. He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and did not need to be told. They were felt” (Lowry 166). Jonas does not like that his true emotions are reduced to nothing by the lack of understanding others in his society have for them, and for that reason he has grown resentful. Jonas and the Giver are the only people who feel genuine human emotion, and consequently they are the only people in the society living genuine human