Jack Guerin
Mrs. Dale
Literature 7th Grade
04 January 2023
Theme of The Giver by Lois Lowry
Everybody wants to live in a utopia, right? The Giver is a novel written by Lois Lowry, that asks the question of what “utopia” really is or might be. The book follows Jonas, a twelve year old boy who lives in a, and I quote, “utopian community.” The Giver, however, uses its story to show that, sometimes, looks can be deceiving. What might seem like a utopian community to one person, might be an unbearable community to someone else.
One of the main themes in this volume is illusion. An illusion is a false representation, misleading impression, or false belief of something. Illusions are literally false and untrue. In Jonas’ community, there is no war, prejudice, or sickness. The government wants the people to believe this is a utopian community, because there is no pain, and everyone has a job waiting for them, and everyone will know they have a husband or wife in the future. There are no hard decisions, but there
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As the author phrased it, “The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. Life without color, pain, or past.” At one point in The Giver it shows one of Jonas’ first times feeling emotions: “He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt.” Everyone in the community where the main character, Jonas, lives, is led to believe that their society is perfect and utopian, while really, it is a dystopia, which leads into a second minor theme, manipulation. The government, in a way, creates families by assigning spouses and children to citizens. If people do anything “wrong” according to the government, they are… “released from the community” , which is actually just lethal injection. These are just a few examples of the things that happen in Jonas’ fraudulent