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The Giver

Book Review:The Giver by Lois Lowry

October 17, 2021 by Essay Writer

Veronica Martinez

02/01/2018

The Giver by Lois Lowry

In the book the giver the people in this world do not see color. They don’t know music. They do not know about death. They are told that the people that are release go to a different community. People believe that they spend their lives in that community forever. Everybody seems happy. They also spend a lot of time sharing their feelings within the family group and trying to make each other feel better. One of the games that the children play is a war-like game. They are pretending to have guns and shoot at each other. They don’t think it is something bad because they don’t know what war is.

The main character in this book is Jonas. In the book the main character’s age begins at the age of 11 and the book ends when he is 13. The Ceremony of the Twelves is special for him because he finds out that instead of being assigned a job, he is “chosen”. He is to be trained to be the new Receiver. The Receiver is a sort of historian. He is more than just a historian. The Receiver bears the memories of wind, war, sunshine, savoring, music, and color. This is done to be sure that the people do not experience the pain that can come with having strong emotions.

The old Receiver, who tells Jonas to call him The Giver, transfers the memories to Jonas by a unique method that sounds a bit like how people can read other people’s minds. Jonas then finds out about war, colors, music, snow, sunshine and about pain and joy and all kinds of other intense emotions. He becomes confused and doesn’t understand. In the end he decides that he can no longer live in these communities, with the help of the Giver he runs away but by running away he will help his people because the memories will leave him and will return to the people. This is the only way in which the people will realize that there is more to life.

What I liked about this book is that some ideas are related to some things that happen in real life. The theme of the book is that somewhere in the past somebody tried to create a life with no pain, no war, basically no insecurities. But along the way that life also become a life without much color, a life with few individual choices. The ending of the book is kind of ambiguous because it is unclear if he lives and reaches a kind of world like in his memories, or if he dies. At the end of the book, the author describes a scene in which Jonas sees an image of Christmas, with singing and color. He also sees a sled and uses it to slide down a hill.

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