Sam Giver Essay                                                                                               10/26/16

Experiences That Change Jonas

What if you lived a world that was all set up and every move you make is watched and judged by someone? In a world where everyone is the same created by Lois Lowry’s The Giver you have no say in what’s right and wrong. A twelve year old boy, named Jonas lives in a utopia where change is prevented by the Elders of the community. When Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memory, this shifts in the community. Jonas faces many different experiences as the Receiver of Memory and that changes him in many different ways. Change can be very dangerous in a utopia, and Jonas has to handle the experiences that change him. The Elders try to prevent change in the society, to prevent chaos. Jonas’s experiences and memories change him which creates dystopia in the community.

The Elders try to prevent chaos by giving pills to the people of the community. The pills prevent feelings for one another which the people call Stirrings. If these pills were not in the utopia it would create chaos, and that is what the Elders try to prevent. Having feelings for another person could change someone in ways that could be dangerous in a utopia. For example, when Jonas has feelings for Fiona, he changes and thinks differently. “Stirrings. He had heard the word before. He remembered that there was a reference to the Stirrings in the book of rules, though he didn’t remember what it said,” (Lowry, p.37). The reason why the Elders created the pills is for the people not to have feelings for one another, because that could change them and create chaos. This shows that the Elders need to take action to stop chaos. Sometimes the elders can’t control how one changes. The elders can’t control how the experiences Jonas faces changes him.

The Elders try to prevent chaos and dystopia. Sometimes they can not control how someone changes, for example, Jonas. The memories Jonas goes through change him and that is something the elders can not control. If someone changed too much, it would create chaos and dystopia. So by having Jonas changing as he faces different experiences must scare them. “Jonas did not want to go back. He didn’t want the memories, didn’t want the honor, didn’t want the wisdom, didn’t want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden,” (Lowry, p.102). Based off the memories that Jonas faced, he changes in different ways. The memoires make him go through hard and easy experiences. For example the quote above shows how the memories can affect him, and how they change the way he feels about his childhood, and his community. The Elders try to prevent the people to change in the community. That is something they can not control. Also based off the different experiences the other people have, it changes them too.

Although the Elders in Jonas’s community try to prevent chaos by keeping everyone’s experiences the same, Jonas’s different experience lead him to change his thinking about his world. He experiences a lot of pressure and pain when he is the Receiver of Memory. This pain makes him think about whether or not his world is a perfect utopia and if it can improve to be better. If you experienced what Jonas had gone through how would the change affect you? What would you do to the world you live in? The experiences make Jonas wonder whether he lives in a utopia or a dystopia.

This is my essay about the book The Giver. In my essay I wrote about a theme was experience and change in the main characters (Jonas) world. I am proud of it because I think it is very good and explains my theme in a good way. When I started the book I did not really go into detail but as I progressed I got better at going into detail.