Individuality In The Giver

“It was the first thing Jonas noticed as he looked at the new child peering up curiously from the basket. The pale eyes.” (20) Jonas says, the protagonist in The Giver, by Lois Lowry. In the community that Jonas lived in, it was very different to have light colored eyes, and different was unacceptable. Like the new child, Gabriel, Jonas also had light colored eyes. Although the community thought that being different was unacceptable, later on in the book Jonas learned to embrace his individuality. He and Gabriel, although there were not a lot, were not the only ones with light colored eyes. The Giver, who passes on the memories to Jonas, has light colored eyes. A young girl that is a five, and Rosemary. Since all of these people have light

An Elsewhere was something that both The Giver and Jonas were confident existed. It was a place that had color, love, emotion, and many other qualities of life that Jonas’s community was missing. They had a very elaborate plan. “Then, in the middle of the night before the Ceremony, Jonas would secretly leave his dwelling” (158) This was very risky for Jonas to do, because it was a violation of a major rule for any citizen to leave their dwelling at night. This was one of the parts to their very risky plan. “Then he would make his way through the darkness, on foot, silently, to the Annex.” (159) This is another part to their plan. Jonas is going to go to The Giver, then he will help him get away. The Giver had been collecting food for him for the past two weeks, so he made sure that he would have something to eat on his journey. The day had come, Jonas would be escaping. Little did he know, that something would happen to put their plan at risk. “So,” Father went on, “we obviously had to make the decision. Even I voted for Gabriel’s release when we had the meeting this afternoon.” (164-165) Earlier on in The Giver, Jonas had learned what released really meant. When the community releases a child, they are actually killing them. No one knew this but Jonas and The Giver. So, after finding out this horrific detail, Jonas knew that he could not leave Gabriel back to die. As a result, he decided to take Gabriel along on his journey, although he knew that it would be very risky. So Jonas began his journey, while taking care a young child. At first it was just normal land, but as weeks went by, they started to see different geographic features, hills, grass, birds, the sun. Then one day, they saw snow. “His hope diminished further when the sharp, cold air began to blur and thicken with swirling white.” (175) This was not good for Jonas and Gabriel. They were both freezing, and Jonas