“Do you love me?”

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle.

“Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"

“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s almost become obsolete.”

Love, as well as all other emotions, are insignificant and meaningless to most of the characters in Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver. The passage above struck me because it demonstrates the lack of emotion and honest communication in the world Lowry depicts. Centered around what seems to be a perfect utopian society, The Giver describes a boy’s discovery of the liberated life he’s been denied.

Jonas is assigned the highly respected job of Receiver of Memory. There is only one person in the community who holds memories, as it is a most painful and burdensome task. Jonas meets his trainer, called The Giver, who carries all the memories of the past, filled with both pleasure and pain. The Receiver of Memory keeps all the troubles of the past within himself, preventing the rest of the community being hampered by these memories. As Jonas is introduced to new concepts, such as pain, fear, despair, and love, he realizes that his life without them isn’t a life at all. He becomes frustrated with the world he lives in and wants to change it.

When I finished reading The Giver, I found myself comparing the book’s ideas to current society. The strict rules and orders in the book’s utopia lead to blind obedience of authority. (SPOILER ALERT!) For example, elderly people and babies with deformities are “released,” an act that would equate to murder in our present society. However, it does not seem like an unusual event to the characters in the book. They do not question anything in their world; they are ignorant about any other reality. Today, people sometimes ignore events around them and don’t see how they can change or benefit society.

The concept of Sameness bothered me while reading the book. Preventing people from experiencing pain clearly limits the growth of unique human features. Humans learn from their mistakes and gain knowledge from their experiences. Jonas’s ancestors try to create a perfect society by preempting all citizens’ independent decisions, thereby preventing people from making right or wrong choices. Over time this ideal changes, and an overly protective society is created that focuses on constraining language and emotion. For example, the concept of “love” is meaningless to Jonas’s parents. They are unable to comprehend the word or the emotion. Jonas, on the other hand, feels love very strongly, because he and The Giver are the only ones who can express or think about any strong emotions. When Jonas is first introduced to love, he realizes what his friends and family are missing and becomes motivated to bring these emotions back to his society.

Most characters in the book seem to be one-dimensional robots. Everyone is happy and has the same lifestyle. Anything that threatens Sameness is quickly removed. For example, a non-cooperating pair of twins are quickly released, so that there will be no different or unique baby growing up in that society. I find a frightening similarity between that mindset and that of ISIS, the terrorist organization based in the Middle East. ISIS and the Elders in The Giver believe that if anyone threatens their ideals they should be killed. In part of the book, Jonas says that little children who say something that defies the Sameness principles are spanked. This is ironic because the Sameness concept is supposed to prevent bad decisions, which would prevent violence.

The Giver makes us realize how thankful we should be to live in society without these limits and restrictions. We can all relate to going to a family friend’s house for the first time and having to be polite and sometimes fake gratitude and happiness. This is what the people in The Giver must feel, because they are constantly under watch. This severely limits their capability to truly enjoy anything in life, because they are unable to do anything they want or feel any way they wish.

Overall, The Giver is a well-written, simple, and deep science fiction novel that I would recommend to anyone ages 12 and above. Although the language is simple, the complex themes within the book suit a more mature audience. The book has many layers to be enjoyed by readers on different levels. Taking into account the well-constructed plot and the interesting concepts, I give the book a rating of 4.5 stars.

However, the ending of the book is ambiguous and leaves the reader unsure whether to feel optimistic or pessimistic. I encounter this in many books, where the ending leaves the reader yearning to know more. In The Giver, I wanted to know what the future of Jonas’s society would be, after all the analysis of what it was lacking. Also, the time it took me to grasp the concept of Sameness made it hard to understand the beginning of the book. However, once I understood the setting and background, it was very interesting.

The Giver reminds us that people need uniqueness in their lives and can learn from their successes and failures. Sameness inhibits growth. Ironically, by trying to prevent the feeling of sadness, Jonas’s society inadvertently ended joy. The Giver shows readers that they should never be afraid to strive to be unique, because wins and losses in life make them who they are.