The Giver by Lois Lowry is a tale of an orderly society which is free of pain and chaos caused by humans but is also devoid of emotions and feelings. Therefore, there is no place for love, joy, guilt or remorse or any other human emotion in this society. Freedom of choice and individuality are unknown concepts. Only two people know and understand feelings – The Giver and a 12-year old boy Jonas.
The two main characters are Jonas – a young boy who is apprenticed to The Giver and The Giver himself, a kind old man who transmits emotions and feelings to Jonas. The Giver is the 'human memory bank' – the only person who carries memories of all forgotten human emotions within himself. His job is to transmit them all to Jonas who is his successor.
I liked the book very much because it made me think how important it is to have freedom of choice and not have your life set out for you. In this book, Birthmothers give birth to children but they do not nurture them or bring them up their own way. The babies are taken away from the Birthmothers as soon as they are born, and are brought up by a different family, never again to be seen by the Birthmother. They give birth three times and are then dismissed to work as labourers for the rest of their lives.
And it is not just the Birthmothers whose lives are unfair. Every family has 'one son and one daughter' and all families eat the same food which is cooked in a central location and delivered to them every evening. In their pursuit for 'sameness' and absolute equality, the community has lost the ability to feel any emotion. Everyone's life is pre-determined and the lives are more robotic than human.
The crisis comes when Jonas experiences feelings for the first time – the first tingle of snowflakes, the first time he sees colour, the first time he sees a family celebrate Christmas, the first time he feels love.
Overall, this is a great book. It shows how important it is for us as humans to 'feel'. Humans do cause wars and chaos but the book gives an idea of a society where no one 'feels anything' and how that can only makes us like robots, it is not the right solution to the problems of chaos and destruction that we face in our world today. That is what makes this book such a powerful read for me.
I will give it 4.5 out of 5.
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