Sameness In The Giver

‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry is a utopian novel. It follows the story of Jonas, who receives the community’s most honourable job of Receiver of Memory. The Receiver of Memory gets access to memories of how the world was prior to the Sameness regime which now governs the community. After seeing how the world was previously, Jonas starts to second guess and abandon the totalitarian-like rules of Sameness. In the end Jonas leaves the community with a baby called Gabe, with whom he has a special connection. This essay will discuss Jonas, Jonas’ Father and Asher and how they are all controlled and manipulated by the rules of sameness, which are implemented by the Elders.

Before Jonas becomes the new Receiver of Memory, he is controlled and manipulated by the rules of Sameness in all aspects of his life. For example, he doesn’t see the importance of colour, love or fear. However, during with his training with the Giver, he begins to develop a deeper understanding of these concepts. The reason that he, and no-one else in the community, sees the importance of feelings and colour is because they are so …show more content…
Brainwashing of the community causes Jonas’ Father to do things that we see as wrong, or inhumane. However, he sees these things as perfectly normal because he is told that they are. He has no emotion or any understanding of the value of life. When Jonas’ Father ‘releases’ (kills) the lighter twin, he acts very blasé about killing a child because he has no feelings about what he’s doing. For him it is a regular part of his job and because of the control that the Elders have over him he does it without question. This shows how effective the rules are at controlling Jonas’ Father’s behaviour so that he can kill babies without a second thought. These manipulative rules of sameness are the reason that Jonas’ Father does the wrong thing and shows how well the Elders control