The Giver, by Lois Lowry, depicts a dystopia that strips people of all their freedoms and humanity. On the surface, the Giver’s society is a perfect utopia, free from the problems that plague humanity today, but after looking more closely at the people’s lives, the dystopic nature of this society is evident. The Giver’s community and our society have many similarities and differences, although our societies are comparable in that they have similar goals, such as helping people and having perfect equality, the means to achieve these goals are very different and as a result, the freedoms, laws, and day-to-day lives of the people are vastly different.
The freedoms in the Giver’s society and our society are very dissimilar. In the Giver’s society,
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The people in the community also have to take pills to stop them from having Stirrings and feelings; this also bars Jonas from seeing color until he stops taking them. On pages one-hundred-thirty and one-hundred-thirty-one, the text says, “He had not taken the pills, now, for four weeks. (...) he knew he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings he had lived in so long. And his new, heightened feelings permeated a greater realm than in his sleep. (...) Now he could see all the colors; and he could keep them, too, so that the grass and trees and bushes stayed green in his vision.”
After Jonas stops taking the pills, he can feel emotions and see colors that no one else in the community, except for the Giver, can see and feel. The pills stop them from feeling emotions, one of the things that make us human.
The people in the Giver’s society have no strong feelings, only simple, easily comforted emotions. Without strong feelings, they do not truly experience their lives; they cannot feel extreme happiness or grieve properly for their loved ones. They are not free to enjoy life, instead being constantly
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In the Giver’s society, the people have no feelings and the Old are euthanized practically every week and their friends celebrate their deaths.
For example, page 32 states that “He [Roberto] just bowed to all of us [the Old] and then walked, like they [the Old being released] all do, through the special door in the Releasing Room. But you should have seen his look. Pure happiness, I’d call it.” Everyone is happy about release because they have no strong feelings.
Another way the community's daily lives are different from ours is the people living in the Giver’s society also lead very strict and plain lives. No one can go out after dark; there are very few household items. Page 74 states, “There were the necessary reference volumes that each household contained: a dictionary, and the thick community volume which contained descriptions of every office, factory, building, and committee. And the Book of Rules, of course. In his (...) dwelling were the only books that Jonas had ever seen. He had never known that other books