Auggie Li
Humanities 9
Dec 3, 2015
Essay
Assignment
It is important for any community to make some
laws. These laws make the community much more orderly. Also, these laws make
all the citizens controlled by the government. If all citizens obey the laws,
the community would become better and more peaceful. But if there are too many
laws, some of the citizens would feel limited and protest the laws,
which are limited their private life. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the life of citizens are full of
limits. Citizens have the same family units, the same style of speaking and
learn the same knowledge. All of these laws, which make citizens similar to
each other, make Jonas feel like his life in the community is not freedom.
Although The Giver shows us that
excessive control in society can make society orderly and rational, it also
demonstrates that freedom is necessary in order to give members of the
community emotions and a true purpose in life.
In The
Giver, strict rules in the community control the society and help the
society develop peace and order. In the first place, every family has the same
family units, meaning this helps to make sure the population of the community not
grow bigger. In the past, the giver told Jonas “the population had grow so big
that hunger was everywhere.” (140) The society passes population rules to
create a world with no hunger or war over food. Second, a conclusion can be
drawn from the community in The Giver
is that all the knowledge has been controlled. In fact, when the first time
that Jonas went to the giver’s house, it was the first time that he saw such
many books. The rules in the community limited the citizens to read only an
English dictionary, a book of all the rules and the map of the community. Therefore,
all the citizens don’t know what is outside of the community and nobody is
interested in exploring the things outside the community, so that, nobody will
encounter something dangerous. Specifically, without the giver and the
receiver, everybody’s memories have been limited. All the citizens do not know
the things, which have happened before they were born. So, nobody has memories
of wars and carnages of the
animals. Also the laws limit everything in the community. For example,
in The Giver all the citizens in the
community know their role. This rule gives everybody in the community a
direction in their life. Also, nobody is allowed to break the law in The Giver.
If somebody in the community breaks the rules, he/she would be released from
the community.
In The
Giver, the citizens have no emotion because they have no freedom in it. For
example, this community controls the way of speaking. In addition to being limited by rules, all the citizens have the same
style of speaking. “ I apologize to …” “We accept your apology.” (5) Second,
“It’s just the pills. You’re ready for the pills, that’s all. That’s the treatment
for stirrings.” (48) Show that taking pills prevent the citizens from feeling
the love and pain.
In The
Giver, the story shows that having no emotions makes life meaningless. When
Jonas through memories, realizes how beautiful life with freedom can be, he
know how meaningless his life was before. First, nobody in the community can
see the colors, but colors are a way to explain feelings. The first time that
Jonas knew what colors were, “It was the colors that fascinated him.” And he
asks, “Why can’t everyone see them? Why did colors disappear?” (120) Second,
nobody knows what love is. After he saw the memories of love, he felt that “I
couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was
so strong in the room.” (157) It shows no one in the community know what does
love feel like. Third, no one has memories of dancing and music in the
community. All the citizens can’t relax by listening to music or celebrate by
dancing with others. The first time that Jonas listened to the music, it
brought happiness to him. “Jonas felt the joy of it as soon as the memory
began. Some times it took a while for him to get his bearings, to find his
place. But this time he fit right in and felt the happiness that pervaded the
memory.”(154)
