Community in The Giver by Lois Lowry Essay Example

“The world of great opportunity is available now, as it has always been, only for those with great vision.” This quote from Andrew Carnegie expresses the idea that a world of great opportunity is possible with a great vision. The community presented in Lois Lowry’s The Giver has a great vision, protecting the community from poverty, hunger, disease, and violence. However, the community has several rules and restrictions such as getting rid of emotions. The main character, Jonas is chosen to become a Receiver of Memory which is where he discovers his ability to “see beyond”. Jonas receives memories that give him wisdom. He begins to learn that protecting the community causes them to have a lack of options, feelings, and privacy. The world that we live in today does not have the same level of safety as the community in The Giver. However, the emotions, choice, and privacy that we are given in our world today outweigh the security the community provides.  A good open

The dwellers of the community are deprived of the ability to choose. For example, the citizens of the community are not allowed to choose their profession, or their “assignments”. When Jonas and Asher are talking about receiving assignments, Asher shares a story about someone who received a job that he didn’t like. “I heard about a guy who was absolutely certain he was going to be assigned Engineer,” Asher muttered as they ate, “and instead they gave him Sanitation Laborer” (Lowry 60). In the community, people are assigned their jobs instead of choosing their own. The choices that citizens of the community can make are rather limited. In addition, the dwellers of the community are not allowed to choose their spouses. Instead, people must apply for one. “Even the Matching of Spouses was given such weighty consideration that sometimes an adult who applied to receive a spouse waited months or even years before a Match was approved and announced” (Lowry 61-62). The people in this society cannot make these important decisions such as their job or spouse.  In the world that we live in, the ability to choose is an important element of our lives. As opposed to Lois Lowry’s depiction of a utopian society, in our world, we are able to choose our careers. Managing and choosing our own careers is an important element of our lives. “When an employee doesn’t know what the path is for a promotion, or perhaps what is needed to get other roles within the company, they become frustrated. A lack of defined career paths can result in frustration and feelings of not being valued by the company” (Jenkins 1). In the community, the careers of citizens are not well defined. Without the ability to choose and understand your career path, it can be frustrating and difficult to get a job that you don’t like. Without the freedom to make choices, people can lack emotions such as happiness.  A great paragraph

The community also lacks inner emotions, including love, and happiness. When Jonas learns that love once existed exists, he asks his parents about it. “Do you love me?”... “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”... “Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become almost obsolete, his mother explained carefully” (Lowry 159-160). The community creates a life where emotions are obsolete. Love is a meaningless word that exists in the community. Additionally, the community gets rid of emotions by using things such as pills to restrict pleasurable feelings. “He had not taken the pills, now, for four weeks. The Stirrings had returned, and he felt a little guilty and embarrassed about the pleasurable dreams that came to him as he slept. But he knew he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings that he had lived in so long ago” (Lowry 164). Towards the beginning of the story, Jonas experiences pleasurable dreams, but he is required to take pills to stop the dreams. The community’s regulations towards emotions are clear, and affect the citizens, as Jonas says “he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings” (Lowry 164). In our world today, emotions are important in our lives. We are able to make more decisions with emotions. “Theorists such as Thayer, Newman and McClain explained that emotion is related to motivation in such a way that human beings tend to execute things that we hope would lead to happiness, satisfaction and any other positive emotion at some degree” (Sincero 1). We are motivated to execute more things if they involve emotions. Emotions are an important element of our lives, however the people of the community lack much more.

The community presented in The Giver gets rid of privacy, the right to be let alone. The people of the community are required to share their dreams no matter how embarrassing they are. “Good,” Father said. “Tell us.”... He paused, He knew he had to tell it all, that it was not only all right but necessary to tell all of a dream. So he forced himself to relate the part that made him uneasy” (Lowry 44-45). The dream was rather embarrassing and made him uneasy, but he has to share the full dream, and he is given no privacy. In the community, dreams are to be fully shared no matter how private they are. When Jonas wants to see release, he learns that all private ceremonies are recorded.“The Giver told him, then, something he had not known. “All private ceremonies are recorded. They’re in the Hall of Closed Records. Do you want to see this morning’s release” (Lowry 183)? All private ceremonies are recorded no matter what. The people of the community are given no privacy since everything is constantly being recorded. However, in our world, we are given rights to have our own privacy, and not be monitored constantly by our leaders and government. “The balancing act between national security, freedom of expression, surveillance, and privacy rights is tricky. It’s generally agreed upon that if the government doesn’t have a reason to spy on someone, it shouldn’t” (Soken-Huberty 1). Unless the government has a reason to spy on people, such as if it is going to create safety by stopping a crime, citizens should not be constantly monitored.

A world where everything is already decided, has no prejudice, and no privacy lacks motivation. Motivation allows a society to evolve and develop because people can create the next biggest invention. Whether one wants to admit it or not, many of the great things in our world come from the motivation and competition for power, prestige, recognition, and money. Some may argue that the dwellers of the community in The Giver don’t have to worry about their money. However, in a capitalist society, money motivates companies to make more profits which prompts companies to become more innovative. “In a capitalist system, the driving force behind economic activity is to make a profit. Capitalists see amassing profits as a way to provide a powerful incentive to work harder, innovate more, and produce things more efficiently than if the government had sole control over citizens' net worth” (Hayes 1). In a capitalist society, businesses are more motivated to compete for more profits and money against other businesses. This system allows new inventions to be created. It also is true that the community in The Giver gets rid of prejudice, however, a capitalist society can partially provide the same effect. “The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another” (Milton Friedman). When it comes to trade and producing products, the system of money is valued more than the color, or religion of a person. As a result, money can be used to get rid of prejudice in a capitalist society. The community in The Giver possesses more security and safety, however, the option, feelings, and privacy that we are given in the world we live in today prove superior.