The Giver

Journal Blog

The Giver

When I first started reading The Giver, I wasn’t sure what to expect since the title doesn’t give much information.  As I began to read the first paragraph I thought it was going to be about a war or a battle since Jonas described how he saw the “unidentified aircraft had flown the community twice” (pg 1).  I have to be honest, I have to say that I wasn’t liking it because I don’t like books where people are being killed in wars and from the start I thought it was going to be like that.  Regardless if I wanted to read it or not, I had too because it was assigned to us.  But to my surprise it turned out to be different that what I had thought to be.  The story turns out to be very interesting overall.  The story starts out by a community of people, in which they all live under the same rules.  Each family is allowed to apply to have up to two kids (a male and a female child).  The mother is not the actual birthmother, they community has what they call “Birthmothers” that have the babies and then the baby get handed to a family unit.  All the children all labeled by a number when they are born the same year and they aren’t named until they see how the baby reacts and is about to be handed to the family unit.  Jonas was number nineteenth the year he was born.  Each year the community held a ceremony, basically it was like the celebration of a birthday without the party.  In that ceremony every child is increased one number up, in other words they are a year older, and with every number increase you would obtain something new with new duty in some cases.  When Jonas was a Number 11 about to be a Number 12, he would be assigned an assignment, which he would do until the time came to get released.  When the kids reach to be Number Eight, they start their volunteer hours in the community and at the moments the Community Elders start observing the children to decide their assignments once they become Number Twelves.  The assignment of a “Birthmother” was considered the one with the least prestige.  At one moment Lily, Jonas sister, mentioned she wanted to be a “Birthmother”, but her mother responded that “Birthmothers “have the little honor (pg 21).  Now, why would that be?  We honor our mothers, but not in the community of the story.  The “Birthmothers” would have three children in a row and after that they would be put to work on hard labor until they reached an old age and they were released.  How cruel is that?  Very much I would say.  Jonas after receiving his assignment of Receiver, he was able to see many things that impacted his life.  Jonas felt some feeling that we feel when we get angry at someone whether it’s a crucial reason or unimportant reason.  Sometimes our anger can even make us cry.  Jonas had that feeling and same reaction, when he found out the meaning of the term “release”.  The day the Giver showed him the ceremony video of the twin baby being released by his father.  The real meaning to the term release was being killed.  Jonas saw when his dad baby talked to the baby twin that weighed the lease and inject him on the forehead and then the baby was gone (pg 150).  You might ask why would they “release” a baby.  In the community, that they couldn’t have two identical humans; therefore the baby that weighed the least would be released.  Jonas that night was so horrified that he didn’t want to go home and see his father (pg 152).  Jonas father was a Nurturer at the hospital and the family had been caring for baby Gabriel since he wasn’t growing like he was supposed and his father thought maybe if he was nurtured more in a family unit he would get up to his normality but that didn’t happen.  Therefore, he would have to be released.  At the end, I felt sad because I don’t know what outcome Jonas had since he escaped the community.  I saddened to not be able to know if Jonas was able to get to a safe place for him and Gabriel.  I were directing this story into film, I would start of in black and white, since the community was color blind and towards the end when Jonas starts to recognize that he is starting to see color, then color should be introduced.  I would also include an ending, whether they made it to a safe place or not.  I feel that the story could do without Asher since his character to the story didn’t have a great fundamental to it.  At one point, I thought that change of the cover should be different but now I that I gave it more thought; I figured that it makes perfect sense to have that cover of the Giver on it.  Even though, I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy the book, I have to say I did and a lot.  I couldn’t stop reading it and hated when I had to stop.