By Sage S.
The Giver is an excellent story that paints a pristine picture of a young boy and his role in a utopian society. This is a tale of a boy and the experiences brought on him as he is expected to be given a lifelong job assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve. Jonas goes through the motions of his daily life with apprehension towards what will happen, for he cannot think of any job assignments that would fit him quite yet. His good friends, Asher and Fiona seem to adjust easily on their pursuits of certain roles. Upon being selected as the Receiver of Memory at the ceremony, Jonas must attempt the grueling, yet remarkably rewarding assignment learning, remembering, reflecting, and relaying emotions and memories of experiences; those of which the people in his community chose to give up in order to attain Sameness and social order.
One of the strongest narrative modes used in this piece of literature is the exposition and the manner in which facts and knowledge about the society are laid out for the reader. It's galvanizing to assimilate the system Jonas and the rest of his society operates under. From Jonas' eyes, his community appears to be a a pretty well-operated utopia that is self-contained, isolated, and protected from Elsewhere. Disease, hunger, poverty, and war all seem to be nonexistent. There is quite an omniscient viewpoint, as only his thoughts and feelings are revealed through the third person, but no sense of mistrust is ensued from a boy who was initially at the mercy of innocent powerlessness.
The transitions are very smooth, and take us only to the places that are really important, and the dialogue is mostly the same. Mostly all of the information given through dialogue is for character personality and intent, or because it moved along the telling of what Jonas was doing and learning with The Giver of memory. The descriptions given of the Committee of Elders and the rules then implicate onto their community is pretty far out there, yet the intentions of their rules can be looked at with a relative understanding.
Some of the most gripping concepts I found were within the functions of reproduction and birth rights. Women selected to be birthmothers have the children as a mere duty to their assignment, and each family is completely random in the way that they are put together by chance, but all the same in the way that each has certain requirements and restrictions within them. Children are regulated within their age division, and are referred to as 8's, 9,s 10's, etc. Each age group must follow specific rules and partake in certain activities.
Lastly, the narrative mode that succeeds in makes this story rather captivating is the use of character voice. Although the story is told from the third person, the wise, questioning, and often dissatisfied mood given to Jonas pushes through to real the action of the story, to the realization of the wrongs a society that tried to make everything immoderately and unreasonably right through the understandings The Giver had to show him. Jonas' feelings regarding the entire situation make for an interesting read, because it's quite satisfying to hear the tale of a young boy who recognized the fault in a system that dictates far more than they should be allowed to. The Giver is a story that gives the alarming vision of a society that no longer lives for love or traditional motivations, and Jonas is the voice of a person who perceives that people shouldn't give up their freedoms to think and feel as individuals and to give up control just in order to maintain a fair, orderly world.
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