The Giver Song Analysis

The Giver by Lois Lowry is a fine piece of literature, and the beginning of the up-and-rising popularity of dystopian books. It turns out that many songs, no matter to genre and age, match up to many moments that happen in The Giver. These songs carry the tone and message that Lowry delivers through the story, but by using sweet melodies. The song that I think matches The Giver the best is “When the Children Cry” by White Lion, which was recorded in 1987. As strange as it seems, a song that was written six years before The Giver dives into many of the ideas that the story presents.
In the last line of the first stanza, the song says “how can I explain the fear you feel inside?”. This matches The Giver in multiple ways. The children in the society always seem to be fearing the things they don’t know, or they fear of messing up. For Jonas, this is like those moments when he finds out what the world really is. This line channels the feeling that Jonas felt when he was skipped in The Ceremony of 12, and when he sees what Releasing really is about. Another example of the Releasing is in the middle of the second stanza, it says “where man is killing man, and no one knows just why.” When Jonas finds out that the Releasing is really just killing, he can’t figure out …show more content…
Whether it is the fact they have to wear buttons or ribbons in certain places, or the fact that they have jobs placed on them at such a young age. This also hits the fact that children are at risk of being Released as an infant. In the end of the last (eighth) stanza, it says “when the children fight, let them know it ain’t right.” This taps into the idea that when children do something wrong in this society, they can receive “smacks”; It deals with the fact that people can be Released or reprimanded for their wrongs. This is why children obtain such strict order in the