Jacques, 1

Rashad Jacques

Mr. Dayton

Period 6

3/2/22

The Giver

Imagine living in a world with no emotion, no memories and no choices. In the novel The

Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character, Jonas, is assigned as “The Receiver” in the dystopian

community in which no one has emotions, ability to see color, or has any true family

relationships. People in the community were unaware of their actions, which led to unfortunate

consequences like wiping innocent people of their memories. The community was not able to

think for themselves. They did not know about Jonas carrying all of the memories and how their

memories were kept from them. It is necessary for all humans to feel emotions and have

memories because these things help us share true connections with our friends and family. Also,

an important part of building a strong relationship within a family or community is sharing

generational memories and traditions. Lastly, Jonas should not be the only one who experiences

memories and emotion because it makes him feel isolated and different from the rest of the

community.

It was a lot for Jonas when he became the receiver because he didn't know what he was

really getting into because like the others, Jonas didn't have emotions. There were no traditions,

there was no true meaning to anything they were doing, it was just assigned jobs for everyone in

the community. He was nominated to be the receiver which was the hardest job there was in the

community which made him very important. There was another receiver before Jonas but she
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started to feel emotion and seeing what the world was capable of she quickly resigned from the

position as the receiver. As Jonas became the next receiver, the giver and the person in power

didnt want Jonas to know what happened to the previous receiver after she was departed from

life. What she saw was pretty horrific, she saw babies getting snatched from their true birth

mothers and it had her in disbelief with a lot of emotion. Jonas also had to witness really horrific

things as the receiver. For example, he watched his father kill a baby and felt sadness because he

had a memory of a soldier dying, “Once again he saw the face of the light-haired bloodied

soldier as life left his eyes… My father killed it!” (188). This part of the book shows why people

should have had emotion, because without emotions, people don’t have a sense of right or

wrong. Then, the one person who does feel emotions feels distraught and hopeless, which is not

fair to that individual.

Jonas ( receiver) should not have carried everyone's memories because that made him

different from the rest which defeated the purpose of no one being different. He was different

and since he accumulated so many memories it made it very hard if not impossible to keep his

mouth shut. For example, Jonas starts breaking the rule when he tells his sister about his

memories: “Lilly,”... he asked that evening when his sister took her comfort object, the stuffed

elephant… Did you know there really were elephants? Live ones?” (127). No one believed

Jonas, his sister left him off with a sarcastic remark and his dad just kept brushing Lilly's hair

without giving him real deep thought. Then, the scene ends with Lily mentioning that Jonas was

"hurting" her which really meant nothing because she has never really experienced real pain

(127). This left Jonas feeling disappointed because he knew her words meant nothing. This part

of the book shows how emotions are important for family connections and how it is unfair for

only one person to experience emotions in a community.

The love that ran through Jonas for Fiona she couldn't understand at first because she

couldn't cause all feelings and memories were stripped away from her. Jonas couldn't really show

her the true connection they had, Fiona and Jonas had a lot of love for each other which Jonas

felt first.

Jonas was capable as the receiver to see different traditions and culture and people of all

colors and also was able to see his friends in different cultures. When living in a world with no

emotions or feelings they were killing babies not knowing and willingly because the majority of

the people except Jonas had no feelings. Everyone should be able to express love,

emotions,physical touch, memories, ethnicity and most of all know who and where they come

from. A lot of words that Jonas learned weren't able to be said because it was against the rules to

know certain words or for even the little things like thinking a hippo is an elephant because that's

the only animal they can mention with the children being that it's part of a game.

In summation, everyone must have feelings and emotions when it comes to being

human, because living in a world in which one does not know where they come from and the

traditions that come with their culture is missing the joy of life. A receiver shouldn't exist in the

community because any person who comes to be the next receiver is going to feel the same way

as Jonas from knowing the truth. Everyone should have the privilege to have their own minds

and be able to know who loves them and who conceived them. People shouldn't be injected with

any type of substance that they're not aware of or willingly giving permission to do so. Emotions

play a big part in people's lives and not being able to grieve or feel pain to protect people is not

the right way to build a foundation in a potentially beautiful and unpredictable world.