The Power of Color
In The Giver written during the 1990’s and set in the future, Lois Lowry presents a dystopian novel on a society where everything is the same, but one kid plans to change the whole society. A young man named Jonas that has an ability to see color in a colorless society. After being selected as the new receiver of memories, he realizes how much the society is missing and plans to change it. He plans to leave the society so that everyone can receive the memories he was given. However even before becoming receiver, Jonas is shown to be different in a society where everything is the same. His society lacks the ability to see color yet when he and Asher were throwing the apple, the apple had changed Jonas looked at it for …show more content…
The lack of individuality stops the community from realizing that it is not wrong to be different. When Jonas got his first stirring he remembered when Asher’s mom told him that he forgot his pill and Jonas was going to ask Asher about it but “It was the sort of thing one didn’t ask a friend about because it might have fallen into that uncomfortable category of “being different” (Lowry 38). Susan explains in more depth that “these concerns-control, conformity, safety, abandonment, individual versus societal needs- contribute to and perpetuate underlying fears of the unknown and of difference” (Susan G. Lea 54). The whole society feared being different and feared the thought of something else being different. Being different in Jonas’s community is wrong and uncomfortable, so this makes the whole community the same and they all lack individuality. Angela went on explaining that “the novel,then,refuses to say “no to deprivation” (Bloch, The Principle of Hope,5), sighing that while it would be nice to eliminate racism, sexism, war and hunger, the cost is too high: feelings,individuality, humanity itself” (Hubler 24). She is stating that while trying to create a perfect society, Lowry destroys feelings, individuality, and all of the humanity. All of the community’s decisions are made for them they have no personal preferences. The jobs in the community are …show more content…
Colors emerge in the first memory with the red sled and catapults him into a desire to understand the world before his society. Jonas is curious to see what releases really are. The giver showed him the record of the release of the twin baby that Jonas’s dad performed. After he saw what really happened with release “Jonas realizes with cold shock that his nurturing family is a sham, held together by trained reactions, not love, and that there is only hollowness at the heart of the society’s life” (Patty Campbell 180). The giver told Jonas that “they can 't help it. They know nothing” (Lowry 153). The whole society knows nothing. The community cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, their lack of individuality causes this. When the community does not have individuality they cannot think on their own they only know what they have been told. When Jonas was given the memory of love he liked the feeling it gave him, it made him more curious to see if people had the same feeling of love toward him. Jonas went home and asked his parents if they loved him, his father laughed and his mother said “your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it 's become almost obsolete” (Lowry 127). His parents said that word is meaningless because they have no individuality and they are told that the word had no meaning. Jonas’s curiosity of
In The Giver written during the 1990’s and set in the future, Lois Lowry presents a dystopian novel on a society where everything is the same, but one kid plans to change the whole society. A young man named Jonas that has an ability to see color in a colorless society. After being selected as the new receiver of memories, he realizes how much the society is missing and plans to change it. He plans to leave the society so that everyone can receive the memories he was given. However even before becoming receiver, Jonas is shown to be different in a society where everything is the same. His society lacks the ability to see color yet when he and Asher were throwing the apple, the apple had changed Jonas looked at it for …show more content…
The lack of individuality stops the community from realizing that it is not wrong to be different. When Jonas got his first stirring he remembered when Asher’s mom told him that he forgot his pill and Jonas was going to ask Asher about it but “It was the sort of thing one didn’t ask a friend about because it might have fallen into that uncomfortable category of “being different” (Lowry 38). Susan explains in more depth that “these concerns-control, conformity, safety, abandonment, individual versus societal needs- contribute to and perpetuate underlying fears of the unknown and of difference” (Susan G. Lea 54). The whole society feared being different and feared the thought of something else being different. Being different in Jonas’s community is wrong and uncomfortable, so this makes the whole community the same and they all lack individuality. Angela went on explaining that “the novel,then,refuses to say “no to deprivation” (Bloch, The Principle of Hope,5), sighing that while it would be nice to eliminate racism, sexism, war and hunger, the cost is too high: feelings,individuality, humanity itself” (Hubler 24). She is stating that while trying to create a perfect society, Lowry destroys feelings, individuality, and all of the humanity. All of the community’s decisions are made for them they have no personal preferences. The jobs in the community are …show more content…
Colors emerge in the first memory with the red sled and catapults him into a desire to understand the world before his society. Jonas is curious to see what releases really are. The giver showed him the record of the release of the twin baby that Jonas’s dad performed. After he saw what really happened with release “Jonas realizes with cold shock that his nurturing family is a sham, held together by trained reactions, not love, and that there is only hollowness at the heart of the society’s life” (Patty Campbell 180). The giver told Jonas that “they can 't help it. They know nothing” (Lowry 153). The whole society knows nothing. The community cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, their lack of individuality causes this. When the community does not have individuality they cannot think on their own they only know what they have been told. When Jonas was given the memory of love he liked the feeling it gave him, it made him more curious to see if people had the same feeling of love toward him. Jonas went home and asked his parents if they loved him, his father laughed and his mother said “your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it 's become almost obsolete” (Lowry 127). His parents said that word is meaningless because they have no individuality and they are told that the word had no meaning. Jonas’s curiosity of