Memories In The Giver

In the novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, the community takes away all memories and gives them to The Giver and Jonas. The community also took away pain, personal rights, and memories. Jonas was assigned for his job as the The Receiver. The Giver gave all of the past memories to Jonas and Jonas does not think that his community should live without these happy and traumatic memories. One person should not hold all the memories because people can learn from past mistakes, personal happiness, and diversity within the community. If memories in Jonas’ community are taken away, people can not learn from their past. The birth mothers who give birth to all the children are only allowed to have three children every year. The citizens in the community

The Giver was talking to Jonas about his favorite memory. According to Jonas’ memory, “He was in a room filled with people, and it was warm, with firelight glowing on a hearth. He could see through a window that outside it was night, and snowing” (154). Jonas felt happiness and joy for the first time and this memory made him happy. One of Jonas best friend, Fiona, is a nice and funny twelve year old girl. In Jonas’ community, around the age of twelve, the twelves start to have stirrings, which are feelings for the opposite gender. Every child has to take medicine for these feelings to go away, Jonas had feelings for Fiona. Jonas later stopped taking his medicine because Fiona made him happy. Other people in the community also made Jonas happy. Gabe, a one year old child, was going to be released to elsewhere because he was too small. Before his scheduled release, he was placed with Jonas’ family. He mostly stayed in Jonas’ room. He often kept everyone awake because he was crying. Jonas tried to calm Gabe down and accidently gave him a happy memory. Gabe stopped crying because he had a happy memory of sailing into the sunset. By recalling past memories, people are able to have more individual