The Importance Of Color In The Giver, By Lois Lowry

In the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, the receivers are the only people who have feelings and memories. The elders are the people who choose what the best is for their people in the community and sometimes they go to the receiver for help on making the right decisions. The people from the community do not see color, or have freedom on making a decision for them. There is no love, feelings, and grandparents. Jonas is assigned to be the next receiver of the community; He was trained by the giver, who transfers memories of the pain and pleasures of life, who also shows him the truth and reality that is hidden to the community. Jonas’s community does not represent the ideal of society because there are no choices or distinctions between men

The Giver teaches Jonas about color. “ Dumbfounded, he stared at it. This time it was not a fleeting impression. This time the sled had--and continued to have, as he blinked, and stared at it again--that same mysterious quality that the apple had so

He accepts the role and begins training with The Giver. As time goes by, and he has received numerous memories, he starts to realise how cruel his society is. (SIP-A) In one of his later memories, we see The Giver pass on the memory of a rainbow. Jonas starts to learn about colors and vibrance. (STEWE-1) Jonas is first given the memory of a rainbow. “Days went by, and weeks. Jonas learned, through the memories, the names of colors; and now he began to see them all, in his ordinary life (though he knew it was ordinary no longer, and would never be again)” (Lowry 97). He felt good about what he was seeing, for a good amount of time at the least. (STEWE-2) But, Jonas starts to change his mind, and wonder why people don’t have color. He realizes that people can make choices without having the government do it for them. “‘If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?’” (Lowry 97). Yes, Jonas does agree with The Giver after the fact that decisions can be dangerous. But, Jonas still likes the thought of decisions and colors. (SIP-B) The main reason Jonas decided to flee from his society, is the way that they handled releases. His father had been lying about the process for all of Jonas’s life. (STEWE-1) Jonas asks The Giver about release because of the release his father was doing that

overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red.” Red can define various

The community has never seen color and for a long time Jonas has not either until he got his job as the receiver, and then about one year into his job he started he started see all of the colors, which brought a lot of conflict to his life, all because of sameness. For example, “ Things would change with Gabe,” Jonas went on. “ Things could be different. I don’t know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors.” and grandparents,” he added, staring through the dimness towards the ceiling of his sleeping room.” And everybody would have memories” (164).Things changed with Jonas when Gabrielle moved into his house, they have many similarities including blue eyes. The community has never celebrated holidays and did not have any other relatives other than their parents and one sibling. For example, “ After a life of sameness and predictability, he was awed the surprises that lay beyond each curve on the road ” (215). There is never any surprises in any ones life because everyone is ruled or controlled. It is so easy to predict what is going to happen each day because of sameness. There would not be so much conflict if it was not

Although colour exists in ‘The Giver’, the people can only perceive a greyscale world. The reason for this is that they have been artificially induced to see only in black and white by scientists.

Imagine living in world where there are no feelings, color, or pain, and everyone is the same besides you. Jonas realized he was living in a world without color, pain, or feelings. Without color, pain, and feeling Jonas wasn’t able to express true happiness, and he therefore left the community. “Lois Lowry’s childhood escapades inspired her books,”(Dellinger). Also Lois loved photography and it resulted in the cover of The Giver, which is a photo of a blind painter. This connects to the book because no one can see in color besides the giver and the receiver, which is Jonas. Lois Lowry uses the literary elements foreshadowing, symbolism, and imagery to express the theme that one cannot have happiness without pain, in the book The Giver.

In this novel, foreshadowing is a crucial literary element that Lois Lowry uses to give the reader hints about what is going to happen later on in the book. Foreshadowing gives the reader an idea of the main character's personality, introduces the conflicts that are yet to happen, and discreetly proposes the main theme: the importance of being an individual. Lois Lowry even chose to begin her book with foreshadowing by saying, "It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to feel frightened." (Lowry 6). For example, at the beginning of the book, Lowry introduces the one thing that makes Jonas physically different than the rest of the population in the community: his eyes. Jonas has pale looking eyes, just like the Giver. This is a way of telling the reader that he is special, and will have significant role in changing the community. Another example of this element in the book is the “seeing beyond” that Jonas starts to experience. This example foreshadows the internal changes that are going occur to Jonas later on in the story. “The apple had changed. Just for an instant. It had changed…” (Lowry, 51). Through these examples, foreshadowing easily gives the reader a better understanding of how important it is to have a unique personality.

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.

Jonas receives memories of color, something that is absent from his community. He realizes how absent his community really is. Jonas hurts inside to tell people in his community what they are missing. The only person that he can really open up to is The Giver. They grew really close, and it became like a grandfather, grandchild relationship.

Lowry reveals the theme through characters in the story. All the citizens in the community look similar to one another. The novel states, “Almost every citizen in the community had dark eyes. His parents did, and Lily did, and so did all of [Jonas’s] group members and friends”(25). This information shows the reader that individuality is discouraged. In this community, it is “... considered rude to call attention to things that [are] unsettling or different about individuals”(26). This shows that the people in this society are trained to conform, and differences are not accepted in this community.

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,

Everyone in the community can not have there own personalities because they have to be the same. There is a limit of two kids per family unit. There is nothing private in the community because they have to be the same. Sameness is bad because the receiver has to keep the pain a secret. The receiver is a person that keeps all of the memories. ¨but now you will be able to go farther back¨(Lois lowry 116) The Giver tells Jonas “being the receiver makes family life hard”(Lois Lowry 132). Sameness is bad because they have to take away color. Color is taken away because some people can not see color and then they are not the same. Why did colors disappear’ is what Jonas asked the Giver when he found out that everyone can not see color. (Lois Lowry 120)The government pick spouses and the child which results in no love. “Do you love me” asked Jonas.(Lois Lowry 159)It is clear that sameness is bad because there is no love in the community.

The dystopian novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a boy called Jonas becoming the new Receiver-of-Memories. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Jonas matures as knowledge is gained, and begins to understand the deepest, and darkest secrets of the community he lives in that is seemly 'perfect'. The author has successfully analysed a variety of social issues present in today's modern world in the novel. Some issues implied are: lack of individuality which allows for easy control, the abandonment of emotions and the importance of memories.