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The Giver: A Perfect Society

740 Words3 Pages

“Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting” (Anne Lamott). Can you picture our world as a perfect society? For perfection to be achieved everything would have to change. Through the book, The Giver, Lois Lowry shows how a perfect society is not always ideal for everyone. The rules of the society portrayed include a discipline wand, chosen spouse, and release. While a dystopian society may seem perfect, the novel represents the limitations and expectations of an ideal community. The Giver displays the similarities and differences of our modern world versus the “flawless” model of a perfect society. In a perfect society, everyone must be the same. To make sure of synchronization in the community, there must be discipline. …show more content…

The people in the book couldn’t handle major emotions if they were introduced to them. One emotion that they are not familiar with is loss, this dystopia explains death as “release.” The population is raised to believe that people just disappear or go away. While these citizens do not know it, people are actually euthanized. “As he continued to watch, the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and legs in a jerking motion. Then he went limp. He head fell to the side, his eyes half open. Then he was still” (Lowry 150). This illustration of someone dying, very few people of the community understand, so it is a shocking picture when Jonas experiences it for the first time. “He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing” (Lowry 150). In our world, death is something that we hear about all the time. This occurrence is what keeps us from having the same dull emotions at the characters in this book. Modern day society does not have the same rules and regulations as Lowry describes. In a dystopian community, the citizens are lied to and know nothing, so they have no idea of their full potential. Although, present day society is not perfect, we are not blind to the reality of how the world operates unlike the people in The Giver. If modern society were to try to function as a Utopia, the result is clear that it could not be

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Compare And Contrast Pleasantville And Society In The Giver

1818 Words | 8 Pages

Perfection is the main goal of both the society of Pleasantville and the society The Giver lives in, in the book The Giver. Although both societies strive for perfection, the goal is almost always unreachable; however, during the pursuit of perfection, both societies reach the exact opposite. Pleasantville is a TV show created in 1950. When two kids from the real world are sucked into the tv and placed in this world of “perfection”. This world is only in black and white, every single day there is not a cloud in the sky, 76 degrees and sunny.

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Comparing Genetic Engineering And Harrison Bergeron

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Based on the evidence found from the short stories “Harrison Bergeron”, “The Monsters are due on Maple Street”, and the nonfiction article “Genetic Engineering”, the utopian society in The Giver is destined to fail. First of all, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. writes in Harrison Bergeron on how divergent characters that strive for change. In addition, the short story “The Monsters are due on Maple Street” by Rod Sterling, prejudice against different people and fear is shown how a peaceful neighborhood can tear itself apart. Finally, in Matt Bird’s nonfiction article, “Genetic Engineering”, he expresses how attempting perfection can result in by flaws. In a utopia, differences wouldn’t make the community a utopia.

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Wishing for death is contrary to living with her child, and the disparity between those ideas is strong enough to ‘rip out’ her heart. Even so, the woman still chooses suicide, demonstrating the complete and utter hopelessness she felt. Next, the man’s last conversation with the boy before he dies shows hope manifesting the sake of survival. Here, the man’s health is failing substantially and he knows he will soon die.

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A Bullet In The Brain By Tobias Wolff

1499 Words | 6 Pages

These mind-boggling feelings of adulthood hold no bearing on death and aren't vital around then, as is appeared by what Anders doesn't recollect. "He didn't recollect the astonishment of seeing a school colleague's name on the coat of a novel not long after they graduated or the regard he had felt subsequent to perusing the book. He didn't recall the joy of giving respect." By having Anders overlook such things, Wolff demonstrates that these grown-up feelings, emotions, and complexities are not critical in death in spite of the fact that there is a considerable measure of accentuation put on them in life. In death, Wolff recommends, more just things must be more imperative than grown-up

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The Giver's Society: Perfection Is The Enemy Of Progress

733 Words | 3 Pages

Winston Churchill once said “Perfection is the enemy of progress”. Many books have a goal set to perfect the imperfect. The novel The Giver tries to use this mindset in their society by having strict regulations on just about everything. Modern societies nowadays are far from this illusion, but has concepts that resemble this dystopia.

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Communism In The Giver

733 Words | 3 Pages

The Giver Literature essay I have read the dystopian novel “The Giver” (1993) which is written by the beloved American author Lois Lowry. “The Giver” is about a twelve-year-old boy with the name Jonas. Jonas lives a similar life as all the others in the community, until the Ceremony of Twelve when he got assigned the task as the Receiver of Memory. As The Receiver of Memory it is Jonas’ task to keep all the memories of the past so not everyone needs to keep this burden. Although Jonas received beautiful memories with a lot of colors and happiness he also felt grief, pain and anger.

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Literary Analysis: The Giver By Lois Lowry

846 Words | 4 Pages

Literary Analysis: The Giver Imagine a world where everything seems perfect but truly it is not as pleasant as it appears. In The Giver by Lois Lowry shows us a community in the future with no feelings at all. Jonas a twelve year old boy knows his life as it is and one evening he learns the truth about the community. Jonas set’s off into a adventure to change it all. Character,conflict,and symbolism makes the reader see thru the eyes of a twelve year old in a place of slavery disguised without anyone knowing it.

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Theme Of Obedience In The Giver

915 Words | 4 Pages

One of the greatest goals to many is the pristine and luxurious idea of a nation without blunder or defect. This thought is a main focal point in The Giver, by Lois Lowry. " Jonas stared at the screen, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did. The little twin lay motionless.

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Dialectical Journal For The Giver

466 Words | 2 Pages

Lea Vilna-Santos Mrs. English, 7th September 1st, 2015 The Giver, by: Lois Lowry Log Entry 5: Chapters 9-10: Question 7: In chapters 9-10, Jonas realizes from reading the last rule in his list that allows him to lie, that what if what people say isn’t the truth, despite what everyone in his community learns about the importance of telling the truth. He was even chastised when he exaggerated as a Four. He said that he was starving, but he was only hungry. His teachers made sure he understood that even though it was an unintentional lie, it was still a lie because as long as he lives in their community he will never be starving so they didn’t want him to ever say anything like that again.

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Jonas: Changing The Community In The Giver

517 Words | 3 Pages

The most important assignment in the community. He must receive memories from the current receiver. The chief elder made the decision to make only one person bear the burden of the memories. Everyone thinks the community is perfect, a utopia, but Jonas sees all the flaws .Jonas changes throughout The Giver and as a result, tries to change the community.

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The Importance Of Memory In The Giver By Lois Lowry

1595 Words | 7 Pages

I have read the novel, “The Giver”, written by the famous American writer Lois Lowry. This book was written under author’s impression after visiting her aging father in the hospital, who had lost his long term memory. The idea of the book is the importance of memory. The novel is set in a society which seems like utopian, in this society there is no hunger, sadness, or misery. However this utopian society is held from experiencing true emotions.

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Analytical Essay On The Giver

771 Words | 4 Pages

In Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver that is the reality. The catch? The catch is freedom. There is no room for being different, no room for spontaneity, no room for experimentation and breaking the rules.

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Examples Of The Perfect Society In The Giver

754 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine living in a perfect society. No pain, everyone is equal, and perfect laws that every person follows. Now imagine being exactly like every other person with all your daily choices being made by someone else for you. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry, this is exactly how they are living. The author writes about how Jonas’ perfect society is not so perfect after all.

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The Importance Of Freedom In The Giver

1073 Words | 5 Pages

Would you give up love and true happiness for a life without pain? In the dystopian novel The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, strong emotion is sacrificed for a peaceful environment. The depicted community at first appears to be a utopia, where hate and discrimination are abolished, but the emotionless society is quickly revealed to be dystopian as the story continues. They live in a world of sameness; there is no hunger, suffering, or war, but also no color, diversity, or sensuality. The protagonist, a twelve-year-old boy named Jonas, uncovers the truth about his community when he is assigned to be the Receiver of Memory, and acquires the memories from the past from an elder called the Giver.

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Similarities Between The Giver And Our Society

459 Words | 2 Pages

Finally, they get rid of many different activities they don 't like. But in our world, we have all these things, and they will never be taken away from us. This was my final example of our differences between The Giver and our society. There are some similarities between The Giver and our society, but there are many more differences, like families, rules, and personal freedoms. I think that our societies will never be the same because we are two different societies we always change.

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