“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared,” Lois Lowry wrote in the book The Giver (154). The characters in this book live in a futuristic community that has eliminated everything causing pain. For example, there are strict rules governing rudeness, so the community does not allow community members to ask any question that will make anyone feel different. The characters do not feel emotions, or love, so they never feel hurt or betrayed. Even little everyday maladies such as smashing a finger in a door do not cause the characters any pain, being they have a remedy called Relief of Pain accessible to them all the time. Also, they do not bear the unpleasant memories of the past.
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Initially, the memory of the elephant being killed for the tusks, teaches Jonas not to be greedy in other creatures’ expense. The author announced, “Going closer, he watched them hack the tusks from a motionless elephant on the ground and haul them away, spattered with blood. He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red” (100). This memory sickens Jonas, but what sickens him more is how another elephant comes to grieve the dead elephant. “Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it stroked the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped them over the mass of torn thick flesh,” the author expressed (100). The wisdom to be gained from this excerpt is to have compassion to others. Finally, Jonas does not know of all of the memories of pain The Giver has to give him, but from the memory of the elephant he understands how broken mankind in, wisdom given to him by the roar of the suffering elephant, a roar he is unlikely to ever forget. The author clarifies by writing, “Finally it tilted its massive head, raised its trunk, and roared into the empty landscape. Jonas had never heard such a sound. It was a sound of rage and grief and it seemed never to end” (100). Jonas is unlikely to ever make a mistake of that magnitude that takes away life, because now he knows how much pain that causes. Perhaps if the countless people in charge of releases, saw the memory of the elephant and learned how painful death really was, they would be more careful with release. All in all, Jonas learns from the memory of the elephant to be careful with life, to have compassion for others, and to not be
Initially, the memory of the elephant being killed for the tusks, teaches Jonas not to be greedy in other creatures’ expense. The author announced, “Going closer, he watched them hack the tusks from a motionless elephant on the ground and haul them away, spattered with blood. He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red” (100). This memory sickens Jonas, but what sickens him more is how another elephant comes to grieve the dead elephant. “Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it stroked the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped them over the mass of torn thick flesh,” the author expressed (100). The wisdom to be gained from this excerpt is to have compassion to others. Finally, Jonas does not know of all of the memories of pain The Giver has to give him, but from the memory of the elephant he understands how broken mankind in, wisdom given to him by the roar of the suffering elephant, a roar he is unlikely to ever forget. The author clarifies by writing, “Finally it tilted its massive head, raised its trunk, and roared into the empty landscape. Jonas had never heard such a sound. It was a sound of rage and grief and it seemed never to end” (100). Jonas is unlikely to ever make a mistake of that magnitude that takes away life, because now he knows how much pain that causes. Perhaps if the countless people in charge of releases, saw the memory of the elephant and learned how painful death really was, they would be more careful with release. All in all, Jonas learns from the memory of the elephant to be careful with life, to have compassion for others, and to not be