Carlos Nolasco (21541190)

Literature Final Project (Novel Essay)

Mrs. Gloria Urcina
 THE GIVER Lois Lowry (1993)

Genre

To begin I will mention that this novel belongs to a genre called dystopic
literature, which possess characteristics of science fiction and fantasy.
Dystopic fiction, Sometimes also known as apocalyptic literature refers to a
society that pretending to be happy, systematically suffers its citizens or
degrading them to irreversible oblivion.

Why is it considered a novel?

This is addressed especially to youth. In most dystopian novels of the twentieth

century, a character, who often possessed something different from the rest,
realized that the perfectly organized society in which he lives is based on lies,
as is the case with Jonas in The Giver.
The story in this novel fits perfectly within the requirements that something
must possess to be considered dystopic literature: An organized society with
great rigidity, precision and monotony, people are sacrificed for the common
good of the community, are alienated and usually do not They are happy
although they appear to be.
Components

Length:
There is information where it is said that a novel must have between: (80,000
to 100,000), (30,000 to 75,000), (45,000 to 85,000) words, but this in fact is
uncertain, there is not a certain number of words that a novel should have,
Depends on the development of the plot, this novel has 64,480 words and is
made up of 23 chapters, takes approximately 5 hours of reading.

Characters:

Primary:
- Jonas: Is the main character and the one who achieves the greatest
development in the plot, he was 11 years old and he was Sensitive and
intelligent, with strange powers of perception that he doesnt understand,
Jonas is chosen to be the new Receiver of Memory for his community when
he turns twelve.
Before beginning his training with the donor Jonas already showed
superior qualities to the others and showed worry for his family and
friends. After training her life changed completely as she discovered
everything that was being stolen from her community, emotions,
memories and the opportunity to really be happy. His new awareness of
strong emotions, beautiful colors, and great suffering makes him
extremely passionate about the world around him and the welfare of the
people he loves, though on the whole he remains level-headed and
thoughtful.

- The giver: The old man known in the community as the Receiver of
Memory. The Giver has held the communitys collective memory for many
years and uses his wisdom to help the Committee of Elders make
important decisions, even though he is racked by the pain his memories
give him and believes that perhaps those memories belong in the minds of
everyone in the community.
Secondary:
- Fiona: Is one of the best friends of childhood of Jonas, was assigned the
position of caretaker of children, had red hair that only Jonas could see.
Jonas wanted to show him everything he had discovered and it was she
who helped him to take Gabriel out of the community.

- Asher: Was also one of Jonas's best friends and was assigned as a drone
pilot, at first he disagreed with Jonas's attitude and tried to figure it out.
He was assigned the task of finding and removing it and when he found
Jonas he gave him the opportunity to fulfill his purpose.

Tertiary:
- Jonas mother: A woman with an important position in the community
justice department. Often warns Jonas about the worries and fears he
faces in his life.

- Jonas father: A man who works with children, sweet and tender, was
affectionate with his two children and had a good relationship with them.
Kept children and prepared them until the day of the ceremony arrived.

- Gabriel: A baby with whom Jonas was fond of, Gabriel had trouble sleeping
so they had decided to release him, or kill him, so Jonas decided to save
him since he saw that he had his mark and would be his successor.

- The chief elder: Was the leader of the community and the one in charge of
assigning their work to the young people, knew their lives.
 Plot

The story is told in the third person, in this case from the point of view of Jonas,
a young boy of 11 years who lives in a futurist society where the pain,
memories, war, happiness and all emotions of the inhabitants have been
eliminated. Within the community everything seems to be perfect, people
adhere to strict rules and everything is designed so that there is no envy,
hatred or anything that upsets the order. The community seeks that
resemblance reigns. There is no option to choose, at the age of 11 each child
is assigned an activity that will be the one that will carry out the rest of his life
and that will be his role within the community and is assigned according to his
interests or abilities.
Children never know their true mothers as they are conceived by a woman
assigned to give birth. The children remain for one year in the care center and
after that time they are given to their new families. In the community handled
the term RELEASE to refer to what happened to the elders who were no longer
useful to the community and children who did not meet the requirements
demanded by the community. The managers of this activity took their lives but
they did not know what it meant to kill since they had no emotions or
memories. All these were removed from them by an injection that they were
forced to take daily.

Jonas lives with his father, a Nurturer of new children, his mother, who works
at the Department of Justice, and his seven-year-old sister Lily. At the
beginning of the novel, he is apprehensive about the upcoming Ceremony of
Twelve, when he will be given his official Assignment as a new adult member
of the community. He does not have a distinct career preference, although he
enjoys volunteering at a variety of different jobs. Though he is a well-behaved
citizen and a good student, Jonas is different: he has pale eyes, while most
people in his community have dark eyes, and he has unusual powers of
perception. Sometimes objects change when he looks at them. He does not
know it yet, but he alone in his community can perceive flashes of color; for
everyone else, the world is as devoid of color as it is of pain, hunger, and
inconvenience.

The giver has been the person in charge of keeping the memories of the people
of the community and uses those memories to help the council. He trained
Jonas transmitting all these memories and took him by the hands and Jonas
began to feel emotions and to see things that only they 2 could.

The community leader discovered that Jonas was a danger to the system of his
society because he was able to break the monotony and show the inhabitants
all those they had been stealing. Jonas took many risks and was willing to do
everything to show the reality to others after he experienced the good of
emotions and feelings. One of those risks was stealing from Gabriel the baby
after he realized that they were going to kill him. With Fiona's help she
managed to get him out of the care center and save them. Fled outside the
community what was known as the limit where no one in the community could
go. His friend Asher was assigned the task of finding him and kill him with a
drone and effectively achieved it but Jonas begged him to release it to show
that he was right and Asher helped. Outside of the community Jonas passed
much pain and suffering but finally managed to break the system in which they
had lived and everything returned to be as before, the inhabitants returned to
have emotions and were able to love, feel and suffer.

Did you enjoy the novel enough as to recommend it to others? Why

or why not?

I definitely loved the novel. It shows what some

societies nowadays experience where their
governors establish their lifestyles through
rigorous rules without opportunity to be free,
seemingly happy when their reality is different.
The welfare state does not always mean
happiness.

What kept me close to the novel was that Jonas

always experienced a new feeling and always
looked for more even after experiencing the feeling of war, I was interested in
knowing how Jonas was going to break the community system in which he
lived, in the end It is a little fictional to see him cross the barrier and everything
suddenly changed but I think what this means is that he was able to infect
others with his conviction and faith and proved them challenging everyone.
Background of the author

Lois Lowry was born in March 20, 1937 in Honolulu,

Hawaii. Because her father was in the army, Lowry
moved around as a child. She lived in several different
countries, including Japan. She attended Brown
University, where she was a writing major, but left
college before graduation to get married. Lowrys
marriage did not last, but she had four children who
became a major inspiration for her work.

A shy and introverted child, Lowry loved to read. She

was around 8 or 9 years old when she decided she
wanted to be a writer. Lowry was born the middle of three children. She had
an older sister, Helen, and a younger brother Jon. Helen, three years older than
her, died in 1962 at the age of 28 of cancer. This experience influenced Lowry's
first book A Summer to die which is about a young girl who tragically loses her
older sister (which is also a subplot of Number the Stars). Lowry's Brother Jon
is six years younger and grew up to be a doctor. They continue to enjoy a close
Relationship.

For her contribution as a children's writer, she was a finalist in 2000 and U.S.
nominee again in 2004, as well as a finalist in 2016 for the biennial,
international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition
available to creators of children's books.

Lowrys willingness to take on these issues in The Giver, as well as her

insistence on treating all aspects of life in the community, has made The
Giver one of the most frequently censored books in school libraries and
curricula.
Cultural Aspects
According to the cultural aspects that exist the most outstanding in this history
is the social organization that refers to how society organizes its members.
Although the community was organized in families where each belonged to a
small group that performed some activity I draw attention that in this futurist
society did not exist social classes and lived in a culture of similarity where
nobody was more than anyone.

This could be compared to some of today's cultures where governments

impose and create a lifestyle but could not say that they are the same since
there are always social classes and does not exist completely the same, but if
we compare when we say that there are societies that live under A lie,
enslaved to a system that makes them think that happiness is only what they
know when the happiness of individuals would be in freedom that they do not
know.
How the authors context is portrayed in the writing.

She was inspired to write The Giverwhich

won the 1994 Newbery medalafter visiting
her elderly father in a nursing home. He had
lost most of his long-term memory, and it
occurred to Lowry that without memory there
is no longer any pain. She imagined a society
where the past was deliberately forgotten,
which would allow the inhabitants to live in a
kind of peaceful ignorance. The flaws inherent
in such a society, she realized, would show the
value of individual and community memory:
although a loss of memory might mean a loss
of pain, it also means a loss of lasting human
relationships and connections with the past.