The Importance Of Imagery In Lois Lowery's The Giver

Based off the 1993 novel by Lois Lowery, The Giver (2014) is a movie about a perfect utopian world, where there is no color, religion, race, and war. The utopian was put in place in order for there to be a representation of a perfect society, one where everyone is equal and there is no such thing as deceit and pain. But, although this city is supposed to be a utopia, it is everything but. The citizens see no color, have no intense feeling, have no real freedom, and also are not aware of death. While one of the most important laws the government, known as the Elders, is to tell the truth, they are keeping things from their own citizens. This so called utopian in the end turns corrupt as the movie unfolds the governments true intentions, and …show more content…
Though this movie touches on many topics, the main one is the importance of emotion. In the very beginning the movie is in black and white, but throughout the film the scenes adjust to what Jonas (Brandon Thwaites), the main character, has or has not seen, felt, or heard through the Giver (Jeff Bridges). Jonas is assigned his job at the age of eighteen, and is deemed to have all the qualities to be the next Receiver, the only person in the entire community to be able to receive memories of the past, before this utopian society was created. The giver, who is the current Receiver of Memory, is starting to train Jonas, the main character who is to become the next Receiver of Memory, by sitting down in a chair across from Jonas, and bringing their hands together, which is the giver’s way of connecting to Jonas so that he can show him the memories of the past. Since the Receiver of Memory is the only one who knows about the past, and things like emotions, colors, race and religion, he and Jonas are the only ones in the entire community …show more content…
Throughout the movie, Jonas is given memories, which come across as visions where he himself is involved, the first being one about snow and a sled. In this memory Jonas is given the feeling of being cold, which he has never experienced. These memories continue to get more intense over time, and as he discovers more and more colors and new sensations, the world around him changes in his new perspective. Then he learns about the emotion of love through a dream, one relating to a vision that the giver gave him about music, where he and another character named Fiona (Odeya Rush) were in a relationship. He told the giver about the dream, and he called the emotion love. When Jonas goes to his father, he asks him if he loves him, and his mother says to correct his language, that the word was so “antiquated” that it “no