Once Lois Lowry wrote in her book, “We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with differences.’... ‘We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”(Lowry 95) This quote shows that in The Giver they do not have many choices and that they had to get rid of some significant possessions. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry this was this eleven year old boy just like the others, but the society wasn’t like modern society. This child's name was Jonas and his way of living changed when he was chosen to be the receiver in-training. This job was meant for people with certain qualities; Intelligence, integrity, courage, wisdom, and finally to See Beyond. Jonas’s assignment was to receive …show more content…
As previously mentioned, each family is assigned a son and a daughter to their family unit. People in the community are not allowed to have more than the designated number of members; if they do they would be breaking the rules and could be subjected to punishment. By the same token, readers can conclude that people in Jonas’s society are also assigned a spouse. As a result, they are being ripped away from the choice to marry the people they would like. Although, this society has tried to get rid of the sense of feeling, so that they are not subjected to failure. If the members of this community are assigned their spouses they will not be able to make a mistake and cause failure for their society. Lastly, the children in The Giver are in the family unit, but the kids are not birthed by the ones in their family unit. They have been assigned and birthed by a birth mother, not by the mothers in the family unit. On the contrary, there is modern society with a notable amount of choices. In modern society, most people do not have a restricted amount of people that are to a family. This depends on the person, and where they live. Even though some countries could restrict people from the amount of kids, this is not very likely. At the beginning of the book Jonas’s mother had said to Lily,” You know the rules.’ Two children-one male, one …show more content…
Modern society does have some exceptions to this statement. Other countries do have something known as arranged marriages like the ones in Jonas’s society. These marriages are to be chosen by other people, and in modern society are mostly done by family members, for money or business. In the book, the giver was talking about him having a spouse, but also, Jonas’s parents take about it too, towards the subject the book does not go into much depth, but the author does state that the Committee of Elderly do select the spouses for you. To finish off, in modern society, most of the people are born by a mother who raises them, and takes care of them. Like stated before, there would be some exceptions depending on the thoughts of the person, for example this is why there would be adoption. In the book, the author mention a birth mother. This job is mentioned to hold little honor and that this is when you give birth to the babies. These mothers are supposed to be strong and bear about 3 babies. Then theses mothers are sent to do physical labor. Since the babies are assigned we see that their mothers aren't the ones who gave birth to them, unlike the society now. In conclusion, Jonas’s society does not encourage or allow choices, mostly shown in families, while modern society does acknowledge and encourage people to keep their options