Order in the Community

In the book, “The Giver,” written by Lois Lowry, describes a society where the rules have been implemented in the community in order to ensure that everything runs smoothly and everyone behaves and acts in a respectful manner, which is ultimately beneficial to the community. In this society Jonas, the main protagonist, encounters no problems in his early years, since everyone had no individuality or choices to make, thus making everything simple. Therefore, there were no problems to overcome. Jonas later then becomes the new “Receiver of Memories” during the Ceremony of Twelve and then realizes that all is managed by this concept of ‘sameness’.

This society manages to run smoothly because they have implemented many techniques at the cost of individuality and freedom.

As aforementioned the community controls people through the removal of “choices” by taking them away in their entirety as the Community of Elders makes their choices for them. The Community of Elders is a group of members in the society that acts as a city council, governing the community, creating rules, and enforcing them. On page 122 Lowry writes how the community has no colors, for long ago the ‘council’ decided to eliminate colors from the community so that the community members would not have to deal with having to make choices on selecting from a variety of colors. This example demonstrates how enforcing ‘sameness’ via the removal of options in the community kept everyone in check, creating no disruptions or differences amongst its members. The concepts of ‘lack of choices’, ‘sameness’, and ‘maintaining order’ can be found throughout various moments in the book.

One of the many strict rules the members of this community had to abide by is the sharing of dreams. The sharing of dreams was very essential to the strict rules the Community of Elders had established. In this event, the person who had the dream would then share and describe what the dream was about to their family. Now, in a particular section of the book, Jonas’ family is sharing their dreams and Jonas mentions how he had a dream last night when he rarely had any (Lowry 34). In this dream, Jonas describes how he was affectionate with Fiona,a girl that he liked, and desired lust. This allowed Jonas to start to intake a daily pill to stop his “stirrings” which was his desire for lust (Lowry 35). However, there are other practices that are exclusive to the society.

From ages one to twelve each child reaches a milestone in which they receive a gift. In these ceremonies you receive new things, for example, at the ceremony of nine you get your bike but the most exclusive ceremony is the Ceremony of Twelve which is the ceremony that you are assigned a job for the rest of your life by the Community of Elders. The notion of these ceremonies not only helps maintain order in society by taking away choices but also fosters in the concept of sameness by giving each child the same materials.

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