ipl-logo

The Giver By Lois Lowry: The Tyrants Of The Colorless Community

1498 Words6 Pages

Kirsi Williams Period Three February 8, 2023 The Tyrants of the Colorless Community Though we all dream of a perfect world, achieving such a utopia would require the sacrifice of free will and individuality. Freedom can be dangerous because people make mistakes. When humans are allowed liberty, violence ensues. Even those with the best intentions make errors and hurt others. However, freedom makes life worth living. Choices free us from oppression and give meaning to life. Humans depend upon the freedom to express themselves and to grow. If given no choices, everyone would be lifeless clones programmed to obey every order set forth by their superiors. Lois Lowry set The Giver in a community where no citizen has ever tasted the joy of freedom …show more content…

In the Giver’s quarters, Jonas watches a replay of his father unknowingly murdering an innocent newborn. Jonas witnessed as “...the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and legs in a jerking motion. Then he went limp. His head fell to the side, his eyes half open. Then he went still…He killed it! My father killed it!” (Lowry 187-188). Though the Elders claim to have eliminated murder, they have instead woven it into the very basis of their society. The Elders are brutally murdering innocents, and nobody knows it. Release, as shown in the quote above, is how the Elders euphemize murder to justify the deaths of countless innocents. Some may counter this, saying that the Elders have just reasons for Release. However, the Elders’ reasons are truly weak and preposterous. The Elders’ justification of newborns’ murder includes reasons beyond any newborn’s control; sadness, fussiness, and restlessness. Newchildren are expected to never cry, fall asleep instantly, and be the perfect infant, lest they face execution. The Elders also exterminate those who have broken over two of the Community’s strict laws. From a young age, tiny mistakes are punished with the beating of a discipline wand; but once a citizen commits a more serious crime, even accidentally, they are punished more severely. If that citizen messes up two more times, their life is sucked away without a second thought. Furthermore, the Elders steal the lives of …show more content…

For example, North Koreans suffer under the oppression of strict and harsh laws set forth by a dictator. In North Korea, free will and expression are outlawed and punishable by death or imprisonment: “...North Korea, where free speech is outlawed and the state tightly controls all forms of media. Citizens of North Korea have virtually no freedom of speech: internet is only accessible by a select number of powerful individuals in Pyongyang, television and radios can only access North Korean-operated stations, and accessing foreign media is illegal and punishable by death or by imprisonment in political prison camps” (https://www.theworldmind.org/home/2019/4/26/fake-news-in-north-korea-censorship-propaganda-and-the-rewriting-of-history). Censorship and stringent laws restrict freedom, and in doing so, restrict the meaning of life. Many of the wars over the decades have been fought for freedom. If freedom was not absolutely necessary, then a risk as great as war would never have been taken. However, some may argue that the loss of liberty is for the people’s safety. This is inaccurate: Kim Jong-un doesn’t restrict North Korea’s freedom because he believes it is for their good, he restricts it because it secures his power. Kim Jong-un fears that if he is to give his citizens freedom, they will exercise it against the tyrannical government system that oppresses them. Jong-un knows

Show More
Related
450 Words | 2 Pages

Freedoms in the Community I recently have read The Giver by Lois Lowry. The citizens of the community are missing several freedoms that are crucial to society today. The freedoms of speech, choice, and voting are all important to the way society functions today. In the book, the community members do as they are told and cannot speak out against any unjust actions they see occur. There would be upsides though.

Read More
1001 Words | 5 Pages

“I ain’t ever been parted with her for two days before,” she said,” (O’Connor 11). The old lady knows that her daughter is not going to come back; she is going to die, and she will never see her again. Even though she knows that by Mr.Shiflet taking her away her daughter is going to get killed, she is still willing to send her off because she knows it will grant her freedom. In order to gain her freedom, she is willing to do something she knows is extremely morally wrong and will likely cause her great pain in the future. In society, the population tends to do a lot of things that they know they shouldn’t be doing and are wrong in order to gain something that they want - such as

Read More
680 Words | 3 Pages

“.to be released. was a final decision, a terrible decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure” (Lowry 4.) In modern-day society, if you break the law, you just go to jail, and if the law is more important, that is how long you go to jail for. In The Giver, the families are vastly different compared to modern-day society. In The Giver, all kids of the same age are born on the same day.

Read More
708 Words | 3 Pages

The Line Between Euthanasia and Murder Have you ever had to put down an animal? Did you have to think to make sure it was the right decision? Well, in The Giver, the Committee of Elders, who is the governing body in the community, make the laws and the jobs for children who turn twelve. They use euthanasia or as they say, “release” on humans. when a citizen is old, has committed a crime, or even if they are born underweight or with a twin.

Read More
1059 Words | 5 Pages

The horror becomes true to Jonas as seen by a release done by his father in this statement: “He killed it! My father killed it!” (Lowry 150). This treatment is very similar to that of torture and pain people in North Koreans face. Much like if you commit a crime in a society, you have the chance to be killed either by execution or overtime.

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

Pow. You’re hit again. [...] In his mind, Jonas saw the face of the boy who had lain dying on the field and had begged him

Read More
747 Words | 3 Pages

A boy named Jonas discovers his society is awful and very cruel, with the help of his mentor, The Giver, he realizes that people of the community are being killed for no reason, that they call release. Release is when the people in Jonas’s society end somebody’s life, even if they are not suffering. This novel promotes and accepts the practice of euthanasia. They perform release on newborns, on elderly people,

Read More
680 Words | 3 Pages

The Giver Essay “An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.” - George Soros. In The Giver, the idea that a sled symbolizes freedom is illustrated through the main character, Jonas, when he gets his job as The Receiver where he will receive memories from the past even the bad ones. As he starts receiving memories from the past, he learns what the world is actually like and how his community´s older members shade everything away.

Read More
464 Words | 2 Pages

In the Giver, they control population by “releasing” people to “Elsewhere.” The government is actually injecting a fluid into their veins to kill them. In normal cases, it is the older people in society that are released or

Read More
846 Words | 4 Pages

Jonas felt anger for his father and the pain he feels for the baby twin. On page 168 in the giver,Jonas realized that they been playing a game of war ( Lowry). Jonas feel sad and misunderstood for the boy in war. Jonas sadly understood that no one know what he is feeling. These are like real life because some careless people don 't think about others and think that everything is just a joke.

Read More
515 Words | 3 Pages

Thinking for yourself often leads to the questioning of authority, which scares parents into banning the book. In the controlled society, elderly people who are no longer useful and babies who are different are sometimes released. This is an accepted practice within the community because it has been performed for the entirety of the citizens lives. Jonah discovers being released is the same as being put to death, although the government makes it seem like a peaceful tradition. The citizens never question tradition or think for themselves about what is actually happening to people once they are released.

Read More
704 Words | 3 Pages

Despite the fact that we endeavor for a utopia, the inability to do so results in our dystopian society. Envision a utopia where famine and war does not exist. This expectation costs multiple inflexible sacrifices to maintain such an infallible society. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the community is synchronized to sameness daily to maintain humbleness or peace. In spite of that, society's ignorance of the truth keeps them from experiencing life itself.

Read More
822 Words | 4 Pages

Madeleine L’Engle once said“Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.” In Lois Lowry’s The Giver a dystopian community, a futuristic reality in which oppressive societal control and illusion of a perfect society is maintained by the government, is stripped of its right to freedom of choice and there is only two people strong enough to take action. The Giver features a so-called perfect community in which poverty, war, and hunger are eliminated. Everyone is content with their lives and when a boy named Jonas receives the honor of becoming the Receiver of Memory he gains wisdom and knowledge through the memories of the past given to him by the Giver. Gradually, Jonas realizes the the false ideals of happiness and goodness throughout the story and in return learns the importance of freedom, choice, and love.

Read More
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.

Read More
1139 Words | 5 Pages

(Saxonberg 331) According to, Mc EachErn, North Korea uses particularly cruel repression as a check on ideological decline to keep its hold on power, but it has not shifted to a simple, personalistic rule where repression is the cornerstone of regime

Read More

More about The Giver By Lois Lowry: The Tyrants Of The Colorless Community

Related Topics

Open Document