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Essay about Comparing In Our World and the World of The Giver

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Parallels In Our World and the World of The Giver

The story in The Giver by Lois Lowry takes place in a community that is not normal. People cannot see color, it is an offense for somebody to touch others, and the community assigns people jobs and children. This unnamed community shown through Jonas’ eye, the main character in this novel, is a perfect society. There is no war, crime, and hunger. Most readers might take it for granted that the community in The Giver differs from the real society. However, there are several affinities between the society in present day and that in this fiction: estrangement of elderly people, suffering of surrogate mothers, and wanting of euthanasia.

The first similarity is that elderly …show more content…

That job has very little honor in this community. “Three years, Three births and that’s all. After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old… The Birthmothers never even get to see new children” (p. 22). Today, some women decide to become surrogate mothers of other women’s babies because of several reasons, such as sympathy for the couples who cannot have children of their own or financial reason. However, to carry other women’s children gives surrogate moms great senses of responsibility. They writhe in not only soreness of body, but also agony of mentality. The psychological pain by giving their babies to other women is greater than that of body. Thus, some surrogate mothers refuse to give up their babies sometimes.

The third similarity is that some people want to embrace euthanasia in any society. Here is the ‘release’ in the community. The release is not a natural death, but the end of life by human being. Nevertheless, some people want to be released from the community. “He made a lovely good-bye speech… He was thrilled. You should have seen the look on his face when they let him go… through the special door in the Releasing Room. But you should have seen his look. Pure happiness, I’d call it” (p. 32). Roberto does not fear his release, but waits for it. Of course, some people might say that he probably does not know actual release. He obviously knows the

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