Internal Conflict In The Giver

One conflict that occurs in The Giver is an internal conflict in which Jonas struggles to go against what he has learned all his life and lie as the Receiver. When Jonas finds out that he’s allowed to lie as the Receiver, he immediately struggles with the idea, as it is stated that “He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech” (89). This internal conflict is immediately clear to readers, as Jonas has time when he must lie about his job as the Receiver, but as shown by this quote, Jonas really struggles with lying to his friends and family. This is an internal conflict because it involves a character deciding between two decisions

When it a child doesn’t have the attributes it is supposed to, or an elder is old and decides to end their life, they are released. This is explained as a positive thing in the community. However, when Jonas sees footage of his father performing a release on a child, he realizes that “He killed it!” (188). In this moment, Jonas realizes that the positive description of release that he has heard his whole life is false, and that it is all just lies to cover up that the people being released are simply being killed. This creates a huge internal conflict within Jonas, as he is struggling to understand how he could be lied to like that, and if other things had simply been lies as well. This raises tons of internal questions about his society and family, creating a large internal conflict within him. This is an internal conflict because it consists of Jonas struggling once again to make a decision within himself of whether to believe things he has heard before and even whether he can stay in the community knowing all that he has learned. Therefore, Jonas’s struggle with the truth about release is a major internal conflict for