Symbolism In The Giver

Truman, a middle aged man living in a TV show he doesn’t know about. Jonas, a young boy who lives in a community where everyone is the same. Truman is from “The Truman show” and Jonas is from “The Giver.” Both Movie and book have a lot in common, but also a lot different. Both of them have symbols and biblical allusions to see throughout as you read or watch.

In the novel The Giver, the people in the community believe that precision of language is a vital component of life. In fact, language is often distorted and twisted. They distort language as a way to discretely and cleverly control the community. The community proposes different terms to conceal the real meaning and what is actually happening. Through the use of language, the elders make disturbing and mournful situations seem less meaningful in order to make life seem more normal.

In The Giver, Jonas’ world is turned upside down when he is chosen to be the next receiver of his community. The ceremony of twelves is the last ceremony of the day. Jonas waited anxiously for his name to be called; he never hears it. The chief elder has made a mistake. Jonas now has to learn that everything he has been taught was not always the same and it ages him years.

The novel The Giver by Lois Lowry illustrates a dystopian society hi lighting the limitations of individuality and suppression of cultural memory in order to prevent any potential destruction that warrants deviation from the totalitarian state of mind with the society depends on. The dependence on the elaborately regulate system however causes the burden of beneficial and detrimental knowledge to the rest on one person's shoulders. Through sociological analysis I will analyze the effects of this reliance on the Giver’s ability to retain such crucial information on a singular causes the detrimental affect triggered not by the inability of the Giver but rather by the society’s unwillingness to change. It can be observed that dystopian societies are ambivalent in nature, situated in utopian text; however, in Lowry's novel the world is engineered where the utopia goes wrong due to its extinction of the aesthetic and personal choices. In “The Utopian the Function of memory in Lois Lowry’s the giver, the author analyzes the ambiguity between the dystopian aspect and the utopian aspect of the society created in the novel (Hanson).

In The Giver, the apple symbolizes change. For example, the apple appears in the novel when Asher and Jonas are playing catch and the apple changes. Lowery writes,“But suddenly Jonas has noticed…the apple had changed”(30). The Giver then explains to him that he has the power to see beyond, enabling him to see colors. When the apple flickered/changed, he saw it turn to the color red.

In the novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, the topic of life occurs throughout the story. Jonas lives in a community based on conformity and sameness. Jonas is chosen as the receiver of memory. As he is trained he learns that change is needed in the community. At the end of the book, Jonas tries to go elsewhere to return the memories back to the community. In The Giver, the author uses the characters, plot, and conflict to develop the theme that life can not be taken for granted.

He describes, “back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color.” (Lowery 94) Jonas cannot understand why he is beginning to see the color of red, although the Giver says there are a lot of colors. The Giver tells Jonas, “When you mentioned Fiona’s hair, it was the clue that told me you were probably beginning to see the red.” (Lowery 94) “Jonas looked at her. She was so lovely. For a fleeting instant he thought he would like nothing better than to ride peacefully along the river path, laughing and talking with his gentle female friend.” (Lowery 135) Jonas secretly likes Fiona. Jonas’s special emotion that he didn’t understand makes Jonas see red that represents love. So, the color of red symbolizes love. Now that he sees colors, he can experience all kinds of emotions.

In the book, ¨The Giver¨, Jonas lives in a utopian society where there are no realistic characteristics of the everyday life. In his utopian society, there is no warfare, choices, differentiation, memories, or color. Yet, before being given his important assignment of ¨Receiver of Memory¨, Jonas sees an apple change color when tossing it back and forth with Asher. Flashing forward to after he is given his assignment, the Giver explains to Jonas the concept of color, along with the memory of it. This separates Jonas from the rest of his perfect society because he is the only one that can visualize color in his everyday life.

In The Giver, the apple symbolizes a change for improvement in an unexciting and lackluster society. For instance, Jonas and Asher were playing catch with the apple when “suddenly Jonas noticed… the apple had changed” (30). The apple showed the color red, proving Jonas is different from all the other kids in his community who cannot recognize colors. Jonas, however, is different since he can distinguish colors and is able to receive memories from the Giver. Afterwards, the shocking truth from the memories led him to rebel against his community by escaping.

Hook: Imagine living in a perfect society and hearing all of the jobs that the people would get, but if someone got the Receiver of Memory, they would receive a lot of the pain from the memories. Jonas’s assignment as the next Receiver of Memory is a punishment. The job as a Receiver of Memory caused a lot of pain. Jonas feels separate and different from his fellow peers when he became the Receiver of Memory. When The Giver became a little older, age showed a lot more when The Giver became the Receiver of Memory than if he had a regular job.

Imagine a world without love or color. Jonas the protagonist in The Giver he ran away and left comparing his community to our society. In our society we aloud to love whoever we want and we free to love. In jonas society love is a word that is prohibited no longer said for example abandoned no longer mentioned because they don't know what it means.

“Color.” It’s all around us, we see it every day of our lives, everything has color, but the people in Jonas’ community didn’t know this. They had no clue what color was or that it even existed. Their society was hue less, hopeless, and everything was the same until the new receiver of memory changed that for everyone. In our world choice is a big part of our everyday lives we make many choices a day, do I want this or that, green or blue, this shirt or that shirt? But in The Giver choices were made for them, what they wear, how they act, what they say, what they eat, and what they do for a living. Imagine all that stuff being chosen for you. Everyone would be dressed the same, act the same,

We a learning that, due to all the eliminations of senses, feelings and creation of equality between every individual in the society, it's creating a new and harder way for the inhabitants to accept and open up to new memories and emotions that they have been faced with. In the Givers community, this is one aspect that

Although there are many colors of the rainbow, red is an important color in the book The Giver. In Jonas’ community, everyone is color blind except for the Giver and later Jonas. When the Giver first introduces color to Jonas, he gave him the ability to see the color red. The first object he sees that is red is an apple. There are other significant things in this book that are red, like Fiona’s hair and the sled.

In The Giver, Gabriel symbolize love. Jonas reveals this when he takes Gabriel with him to release the memories into the community. “ And he had taken Gabriel, too” (208). This is Jonas experiencing love for Gabriel. He wants Gabe to grow as a person and in a society that will except him. Jonas didn't want Gabriel to grow up in a world where everyone is the same. Jonas knew the world Gabe was to grow up in had he not taken him. A world of perfection in the people in The Giver was to take away pain and violence. Although pain and violence were gone, so is love and happiness. They created a world without emotion.