The Giver Hero's Journey Essay

The Giver Hero’s Journey

"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." Joseph Campbell. Jonas from Lois Lowry’s The Giver makes that example true by making the choice to fight against the community. While his journey might differ slightly from what is considered an orthodox Hero’s Journey, he still has a journey consisting of steps and goals.

After giving some backstory of the community and the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas gets chosen as the Receiver of Memories, one reason this could be considered the call to adventure because this is what defines him for the rest of the story, as him being difference from others. The refusal of the call would be when he looks at the rules and discovers that he can lie,

While escaping he hints towards the fact that if he were to return to the community that he would be released as soon as he got there, not even with a trial. This pushes him to fight for his own life, as well as Gabriel's. The magic flight of the book, could be the entire adventure after escaping. He goes through the adventure of travelling through the outer communities as well as meeting wildlife, experiencing hills, and streams with crystal waters, then as it becomes colder in other parts, it becomes very snowy and hilly so he has trouble rummaging through the thick snow with his bike. He then becomes scared for his life and Gabriel’s as they have run out of food and were freezing in the cold environment. The rescue from without should be when he makes it to the sled and rides down the hill, he knows what this is and he feels the comfort of the sled from when the Giver first gave him the memory of it. While this doesn’t return him to normal life it does return him to what his comfort zone is, when he was in the Annex room alone with the Giver. The crossing or return threshold would be considered as when he makes it to the top of the hill and sleds down, because he's returning home with the memories. He learns throughout the entire text that he needs to be different to succeed in