Name: Gus Dotson                                            Humanities

7th Grade                                                                  The Giver

You Think You Know… But Do You? Knowledge And Ignorance In The Giver

Imagine a world with no color, no freedom, and no knowledge. This is The Giver by Lois Lowry. 12 year-old Jonas is turned into an outcast after he is assigned to be the new Receiver of Memory for his Community, the Receiver must contain these memories of the past so that he can be used to help with decisions in the future, and must decide what to do with the knowledge he has been given. For it is Jonas and only Jonas that must bear the knowledge of the past now that he is the Receiver. Jonas’ society is a dystopia because there is no freedom to know and understand the world and no true feeling.

In The Giver the characters are kept ignorant. In Jonas’s Community the Elders, who are the rulers of Jonas’s world, keep up the “utopia” by not letting the people know about the past or anything that might encourage them to come up with rebellious ideas. For example, Jonas didn’t know what color was until he had his sessions with the Giver, the past Receiver. Then when he tries to tell his friend, Asher, about color the kid just stares at him. “‘Asher,” Jonas said one morning, “look at those flowers very carefully.’… trying to transmit the color red to his friend, ‘What’s the matter’… ‘is something wrong’” (The Giver, 85). This shows that the people in Jonas’ community are kept so blind that they can’t even see color. This really shows that the elders want control over everything. Although the average community member is ignorant to many things, Jonas and the Giver are very knowledgeable because they hold all the memories for their community

The Giver and Jonas are the only non ignorant people in the community. This is because all the people except the Giver and Receiver don’t have the knowledge of memories. The Giver and Receiver must hold all these memories, both good and bad. While explaining to jonas about a receiver that died and lost all of the memories she had received the Giver says, “‘But it certainly made them aware of how they need a Receiver to contain all that pain. And knowledge,’” (The Giver, 89). This represents that while common people are ignorant and the Giver and the Receiver are very knowledgeable and needed because they know about the past which contains pain that others can not handle and their history. The theme of knowledge vs. ignorance is very important to the book because that is what creates the conflict between Jonas and the Elders because he the decisions that have been made by them.

Jonas’s society is a dystopia because ignorance and knowledge can’t just coexist without causing conflict. A society that has only one or two people with knowledge is weak because knowledge is power. To only give a few people power is creating a dictatorship, which is not a utopia. Life is like a giant web and if you take away the bad you will also end up taking away the good at the same time. To make a perfect world you need differences. Choice is what makes us humans and without it we would be more like robots and less like people. Would you want to live in a world where you couldn’t see color or feel emotion? Is being the same truly perfect or is it more important to have diversity? Could you possibly live without knowledge?