Saturday, June 20, 2009
I dusted this 5 year old book , flipping through the yellowed pages, at the same time smacking a silverfish that scampered through the books. 5 years ago, I did not understand the many terms in this story, did not understand why the protagonist in the story decided to run away. During that time, Lois Lowry was somewhat like J.K. Rowling, her books, Number the Stars, Gathering Blue and the Giver had won many awards. My criteria for most books was simply the existence of the Newberry Medal. There was the glittering Gold medal on the book. I picked the book up.
The main problem in the story was the existence of the utopian society, where everybody was associated a role in society when they reached the age of twelve. Every painful experience was kept by The Giver, an old man who kept all the bad memories and bad experiences, preventing those bad experiences from causing chaos. Gabe, a toddler who has been put under the care of Jonas's family, is disrupting the lives of his family by crying all might and disturbing their sleep. In the end, he is sent to be "released", meaning that he was to be injected with a lethal poison. Jonas decides to escape with Gabe.
Diary of The Giver:
December 20
I saw the boy on stage. His face was so familiar, a face of confusion and surprise. Later, I met him in my room, introducing to his task. He seemed so naive, just like all those before him. There were many things that he didn't know, but would know later on. And most important of all, he asked a lot of questions. I then introduced to him snow, but not before we switched off the speaker. I transmitted the image of snow. My image of snow became blurrer, but inside me something disappeared. I felt lighter. I knew that my memory of snow that those Givers before me had given was transmitted to Jonas. He protested against me giving him my memory, but I told him that there were many other memories out there. He wanted more, so I gave him the memory of sunshine. He then stayed in the sun for too long, and thus he got a sunburn. It hurt me that he was suffering, but he said he was a brave child, and I believed him. Anyway, as a future Giver, he must be able to endure pain.
December 21
Jonas told me about his colour experience. He talked about seeing the colour red, the colour of an apple, the colour of his friend's hair. I enlightened him by letting him see the colour of the sled that he had saw yesterday in his memories. He then knew about colours, the rainbow, why the people living in this world saw it as black and white. Slowly, he began to grasp the concept of my job and his. He reacted strongly to the ignorance of the council and the people, but there was nothing we could do.
I would describe Jonas as a very rash person. Throughout the book, he has been acting and talking without thinking. When the Chief Elder at the ceremony of the Twelves skipped him, he started to panic and began to think of nonsense. Just because the Chief Elder had skipped him, he felt very ashamed and embarrassed, when it was apparent that he had done nothing wrong.
Throughout the learning process, when he discovered that the colours that he received could not be seen in the real world, he made a big fuss, which caused the Giver to be surprised, because it was supposed to quite an apparent thing that the council wanted everything to be the same, and they did not want anything different or abstract. The Giver's job was to suffer and endure anything that was painful and different to prevent it from hurting the civilians. When Jonas transmitted the memory of the boats sailing on water, he did it unwittingly, yet he did not tell the Giver that he had given away his memory of those boats away, showing that he made rash decisions that would only protect him in the short term, which was to prevent himself from getting scolded, but that might be a fatal mistake, in the sense that he may not know how to control his new-found power. When he learned of the term "red", he tried to pass on the memory of red to Asher when looking at the red flowers. However, in the process, he held Asher's shoulders, and in the community, holding somebody who was not in the family was extremely rude. He then went home and tried to pass the memory of hunters killing an elephant,but instead in a moment of hurry, pressed too hard, causing the transition of memories to fail.After he received the painful memory of war from the Giver, Jonas stopped Asher from playing a shooting game. Although he used to play this game last time, he felt that the game was too violent, and acted on his own accord, not caring about the feelings of others. Although he was aware that only he knew of the memory of war, he still tried to change others' opinions. The most apparent action that was rash was running away from the community. Although prompted by the Giver to run away in a desperate bid to save Gabriel, he did so for the sake of Gabriel, and was rushed by a temporary rush of desperation. However, it was not beneficial to Jonas and in the end, may have killed him.
A problem that I had identified is the existence of the utopian society that was exhibited at first, the council wanted as little trouble as possible. The council thus thrusted the job of ensuring that nobody else suffered to the Giver. This book is quite effective in putting the anti-utopian message across, which comes across of ironic, because it points out that there are also problems in the "seemingly" perfect society. I woild suggest that the Giver and Jonas work together to pass all the memories to everybody. This will cause a chain reaction, resulting in more and more people experiencing pain and suffering, yet at the same time, happiness and love, which was never present in the utopian world that Jonas lived it. This may result in what might be termed "a revolution", but it is a non-violent way to live life in a different way.
I did not like the way the story ended, with Jonas escaping, and at the same time releasing all those memories that he had received to the community, because if he really wanted to escape, he should have worked with together with the Giver to release the memories and change the world. Because the world is living in a utopian way, releasing the bad memories of war and suffering may change the way people live, but at the same time happiness and love will make the world a better place.
ending
10:54 AM
