Newbery · Newbery · Newbery
Lois Lowry
The Giver
Houghton Mifflin, 1993. ISBN: 0395645662.
A utopia cannot sacrifice the spirit of giving.
Characters:
Jonas
Gabriel
The Giver
Rosemary
Father
Mother
Lily
Asher
Fiona
Caleb
Plot:
Lesson Plan
Plot Diagram
Ambiguity
(http://www.janaedwards.com/GIVERambiguity.doc)
Chapter Summaries
The traditional December Ceremony commemorates twelve years old; a traditional home ritual airs feelings, leading to a private talk with Jonas as he experiences "stirrings."
Father remembers Ceremony of Twelve; Jonas' memory extends back to Four.
Jonas and Gabriel have pale, solemn, knowing eyes, blue eyes (unusual in this society); Jonas also has unusual eyes because he can see the color red.
Benjamin has a talent for technology and has developed rehabilitation machines; Asher and Fiona favor the Household of the Old; Edna and the role of Birthmother indicate that birth does not correlate with the family unit; Ceremony of Release ends life in this society.
Father denies having dreams, but Jonas relates a dream yearning for Fiona in the bathing room, so he begins using "pills."
The Ceremony of Sevens involves a new front-buttoned jacket; Gabriel's development is "uncertain," so he is held back in the Nurturing Center; the "released" go to "Elsewhere" (43); a Murmer-of-Replacement ceremony is employed for a Replacement child.
At the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas experiences some concern about Asher, who has language difficulties, confusing such words as "snack" and "smack"; Fiona becomes a Caretaker of the Old; Jonas' assignment is delayed.
Jonas is selected to become Receiver of Memory; there was a failed transfer of memories ten years previously; the honor requires intelligence, integrity, courage, wisdom, and the capacity-to-see-beyond; the role requires significate aloneness.
The Receiver of Memory must abide by Rules: secrecy, discretionary lies, no opportunity for Release, no training-related medicine; Father is uncomfortable about what happened to the former Receiver, a female whose name is not-to-be-spoken.
Jonas goes to the Annex, where he finds a locked door, an attendant, books, an off switch for the viewer, then experiences a ride on a sled down a snowy hill; the transformation of memories involves wisdom, but the release of memories reduces a burden, a "weight."
Jonas as Receiver relates to the Giver, who introduces him to snow, sun, and sunburn.
Gabriel is fretful at night; Jonas dreams of a snowride to an obscure destination; Fiona employs a discipline rod for the Old; Jonas views Fiona's hair as similar to the apple; the Giver realizes that Jonas is noticing red in the sled of his vision and on the spine labels of the books in his office; Jonas ponders the significance of choice, in contrast with sameness.
Jonas desires the right of human choice regarding colors and choice of colored objects for Gabriel, perhaps personal choice of mates; Jonas envisions ivory hunters (101); the Giver is married, but bound to secrecy regarding his work, and his wife is not allowed to share his books; this society favors predictable, painless life; Jonas learns from the Giver that memories relate to "being" (104), that others "know nothing" (105), that the meaning of life involves honor.
Jonas experiences a broken leg occasioned by a sledding accident, but is not allowed medication, so he learns bravery (110), that suffering can lead to wisdom (111), that hunger problems, starvation, and war is related to rate of births; Jonas suggests that together he and the Giver might effect remedies for social problems (113); Jonas disagrees that Release is best for Gabriel, so he uses his memories to soothe the young child (114); when twins are born, the smaller infant is "released"; Fiona says Larissa was released.
Jonas relieves the giver by taking pain of war: cannons, cry for water, death.
Jonas rejects stirrings pill, doesn't want memories, wisdom, honor, pain; he discovers the Receiver's obligation to bear the burdens of the people; a birthday party, discovered in a vision, helps Jonas to realize the celebration of an individual; Jonas realizes the problem of the release of parents; his favorite memory is of December twinkling lights on a tree, around which grandparents convey a message of love.
During and Unscheduled Holiday, Jonas notes children's wargames; Gabriel is walking, so Father employs a discipline wand; when twins are born, Father makes a selection, waves bye-bye (136-37).
The Giver loved Rosemary, the former Receiver, but gave her loneliness.
Father is recorded as he releases a newchild twin, and the event is displayed in a video screen for Jonas; Father identifies a 5 pound 10 ounce infant "a shrimp!" and injects the syringe into the softspot in the skull of the infant; Jonas recalls a memory of a dead soldier; Father puts the infant in a carton and says "bye-bye" as he shoves the carton into a trash chute; the Giver was horrified by the recorded release of Rosemary because she told them she preferred to inject herself.
In distress over his father's release of the baby -- "He lied to me!" -- Jonas stays overnight with the Giver; Jonas discovers the meaning of "release"; the Giver has a plan; Jonas ponders hearing-beyond and music.
Father voted for Gabriel's release; Jonas runs away with Gabriel, uses memories to cool as heat-detection planes search for them.
Jonas falls and twists his ankle; he understands hunger and starvation.
Reviews:
Campbell, Patty. "The Sand in the Oyster." The Horn Book Magazine
69.6 (Nov-Dec 1993): 717-21. Expanded Academic
"The Giver is a dystopia, 'driven by plot and philosophy –
not by character and dialogue,' and the picture of the functional
family turns disturbingly awry as the story proceeds. . . .
Lowry has master[ed] the creation of a subtext by innuendo,
foreshadowing, and resonance. Take, for example, the opening
sentence: 'It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be
frightened . . . that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible
about to happen.' The name Jonas, too, is evocative – of the
biblical Jonah, he who is sent by God to cry against the wickedness
of Nineveh, an unwilling lone messenger with a mission. . . . In one
seemingly simple sentence Lowry sets the mood and direction of her
story, foreshadows its outcome, and plants an irresistible narrative
pull. . . . Lowry plays with our perceptions and our emotions, creating
tension by presenting details of this community that win our approval,
and then hinting at something terribly wrong. The family, for instance,
seems ideal: a gentle, caring father and mother . . . but then we hear
of Birthmothers and applications for children and spouses; we begin to
wonder why there are no grandparents and to suspect what lies behind
the parents' talk of 'release.' Lowry has structured the intriguing
details of this planned community with meticulous care, focusing
particularly, through Jonas's eyes, on the education system that
produces a society which functions by internalized values. At first
it seems to be an autocratic state – . . . but soon it is
revealed that the community is ruled by an elected Committee of
Elders and that the citizens long ago chose this controlled life. . . .
As the days wear on, Jonas experiences war and pain and love, and
begins to understand how his society has given up choice and freedom
for control and predictability. And then one day he asks to view a
videotape of a 'release' that his father has that morning performed on
an unwanted baby at the community nursery, and learns to his horror
that the euphemism covers engineered death – for the old, for
rule-breakers, and for surplus or difficult infants. Watching his father
sweetly wave bye-bye to the small corpse as it slides down the disposal
chute, 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. . . . Jonas's father
announces that Gabriel, the difficult toddler who has been temporarily
sharing their home and whom Jonas loves, will be 'released' the next
morning. . . . Jonas and Gabriel bicycle away. And now we come to the
inherent difficulty of every dystopia story – how to end. . . .
Jonas journeys for days and days and, finally, at the end of his strength,
comes to a place where there is snow, and a hill, and a sled. . . .
The challenge of the ambiguity is appropriate for the stature of this
intricately constructed masterwork."
Graduate Readings
Last Revised: March 7, 2005
Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938-
Junior Great Books