Ending The Giver

Jonas decides he is going to leave the community, so that all the memories that he has will return to the people living in there. He made a plan with the Giver to have a succesfull escape, but when everything was already planned, something unexpected happened.

Jonas' father told him that Gabe was going to be released, and that changed their plan. Jonas had to act that night, without any anticipation, without the help of the Giver, without any plan. But he did escape, he rode his bike for weeks escaping from the Community, even though he was being chased by planes and he was carrying something big. He took Gabe with him!! Thats insane!

And when Jonas was already was giving up.... he found something. He saw, in the middle of snow, the house of the memory of Christmas the giver gave him. He grabs a sled that was on the snow..... And the book ends.

He had hesitated for a moment, standing beside the bikeport in the darkness, not wanting anything of his father's and uncertain, as welll, whether he could comfortably ride the large bike when he was so accustomed to his own. 

But it was necessary because it had th child seat attached to the back. And he had taken Gabriel, too.

Jonas was so brave, he took Gabe with him the instant he new Gabe was going to be released. He sacrificed his plans, saying good bye to the Giver and to the people he cared, he put in jeopardy everything he had done, just to save Gabe. This shows that Jonas is different from the rest of the community, because he feels love.

Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.

Jonas changed the Community. Even though it doesnt says so, it does say that he heard music from the place he had left. That means that the Community was starting to be like the world was earlier, and just because of Jonas' choise. 

We have finished the book, at last. Lois Lowry left an open ending for us to make our choise. The only thing that we know for certainty, is that Jonas accomplished his mission. Yeah well, we dont know if he got to Elsewhere or he died as soon as he got there or something else, but Jonas' true objective was to change his community. And as we can see on the earlier quote, he heard music, which means he did change the Community. 

It was a great distopian book, hope you enjoyed it.

Love

One day, Jonas goes into the Annex to meet the Giver. But once there, the Giver tells Jonas that he is really in a lot of pain. But this time, Jonas offers to help him. Then the Giver shares with him the memory of war, which changes Jonas. But not only that, to compensate what he has done, the Giver shares the memory of Christmas with him. 
Thats when Jonas learns what love really is. But also, Jonas realizes that the Community he lives in is totally fake. The "feelings" they share are too shallow to be really called as emotions. 
When he returns to his dwelling his asks his mom and dad if they love him. Their answer is that they should use better presicion of language and that love isnt a good word for describing their feelings. Jonas refuses to take his daily pill, and now he starts to see colors more often and also he begins to have stirrings again. Then his father comments that he is going to release an identical twin, and Jonas starts to be intrigued about it.

Two phrases brought my attention in these few chapters:

"I certainly liked the memory, though. I can see why its your favorite. I couldnt quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was so strong in the room." 
"Love," the giver told him.
Jonas didnt knew what love was. It was a totally new feeling for him. This prooves how the community isnt perfect, even though many problems start to dissapear, great things start to fade away too.
"Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
Say whaaaaat? Jonas' fathers arent even able to tell him that they love him? That is absurd, they dont have any feelings! The community doesnt have any feelings, and families doesnt work as they should. There isnt any love in the community, thats terrible.


Jonas is starting to realize how wrong the community is. I believe that he is now going to do something that will change it. The next chapters are going to be about the ending of the book and we are going to be able to see how this ends. Maybe Jonas gets to change the community, maybe he doesnt, anyway we will get to the ending.

Not So Ordinary

New Knowledge

Jonas was willing to discover new things that implied risk. He had been wandering what
had happened with the apple, with the other city in the ceremony, and with Fiona.... All those things had changed in something when he saw them. When he asked the giver he told him something very weird..... People on the community couldnt see colors.
Jonas didnt even knew what colors were, and he discovered them on his memories.  But thats not the only thing he learns from his memories, he also discover pain. The Giver gives him a memory on which he breacks his leg riding on a sled, and it is the first tie Jonas really experiences phisycall pain. With all this new knowledge Jonas starts seeing his community in a different way. He knows he isnt "ordinary" anymore. He cant even discuss all this with anybody because he has to keep it a secret.


In this chapters, there are two moments which grabbed my attention: 
"But now I can see colors, at least sometimes, I was just thinking: what if we could hold up things that were bright red, or bright yellow, and he could choose? Instead of sameness."
So this is why they took away colors. The elders dont want the people in community taking choises because that implies having a risk. Is that really bad?
"The memories that she had received were released. They didnt come back to me. They went..."
He paused and semeed to be strugling with the concept. "I dont know, exactly. They went to the place where memories once existed before Receivers."
So the Receivers before Jonas could get released, and if they were released the memories would go to the place were they really belonged. So that place may be in the community, where all people can get them. It can create a real chaos.


I think that maybe the elders intentions arent bad. I mean... It is because of choises that the community fell into chaos. But not only one person should be needed to carry all the memories by himself, there should be more receivers. I think that what the previous receiver made, wasnt really that bad, at least people know some of the past.

Meeting The Giver

Giving Memories

After Jonas has received his assignment as a Receivers Successor, he goes meet the Receiver. But first, he recieves the rules for his assignments... and they are not ordinary. The most shocking rule he has is that... he CAN lie. After he reads all the rules, he goes to the Annex, the place in which is were the Receiver waits for him. Once there, he realizes some things are different.  First of all, there were thousand of books in that "dwelling" (is their way of calling houses).  Also, the Receivers door has a lock, which none of the other dwellings have (because there can be no privacy in the community). Once there, the Receiver shares a memory with him, actually, he transfer 3 memories into Jonas. One is snow, another is sunshine, and sunburn. Then, the Receiver explains that every time he shares a memory, he actually forgets that memory, and it is one less burden. After explaining that, he tells Jonas that he will now be the Receiver, and that now Jonas should call him "The Giver".

Shocking Moments

"Finally he steeled himself to read the final rule again. He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie."

Jonas has never lied, and he had never felt the need to. But now, with these new rules, he can. This specific rule will change his whole way of living... Now he can skip his dreamtelling ritual in the morning (because he can lie about it), he can lie at his night ritual, he can hide things from his family, and also he doesnt have to always say the truth when he talks to other people. Even though this gives him freedom, I think that on a certain point of this story, this rule will cause conflict.

"But the old man laughed "All I gave you was one ride, on one sled, in one snow, on one hill. I have a whole world of them in my memory. I could give them to you one by one a thousand times, and there would still be more. '"

The Giver actually has the memories from all times.... The good ones AND the bad ones. If Jonas has suffered because of just a sunburn, the Giver should be like on intense pain, he has the memory of all problems humanity has passed through. And the worst part is that Jonas will have to receive all of those memories too.

Final thoughts...

I predict that Jonas will aquire a lot of wisdom, but also pain. He will see things from the past and he will have the need to talk about them with ordinary people, and that will cause trouble as the previous Receivers successor caused. Also I think that he will start feeling different than the rest of his Community, and that is going to lead to internal conflict.