Kathryn J WhitehouseBook talk assignment

Fall 2010LIB 264/Fall 2010

Dr. Doug Achterman

Book Talk ScriptComposed for LIB 264 classmates

Approximate read time: 8 minutes

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Released in 1993.

Winner of the Newbery Medal.

Jonas is an eleven year old boy who lives with his parents and younger sister.

Jonas is much like every other boy in that he enjoys school, his friends, and his family.

Jonas is a well liked kid, too. He participates agreeably with the community based instruction all boys and girls experience. The community Elders are involved in every facet of child rearing, education, and civic life. No detail is overlooked, and everyone participates in community life from birth.

Children don’t celebrate birthdays. Instead, children’s rites of passage are celebrated once a year in a public forum simply called the Ceremony.

Children advance a year leaving behind old markers of their childhood and enthusiastically embracing new privileges.

Jonas remembers when his younger sister came home.

Like all children, Lily was born and raised for one year at the Nurturing Center and assigned by the Elders to Jonas’ parents.

Lily completes the desired family make up of two parents with a boy and girl child.

As Jonas watches the younger ages advance while waiting for his ceremony to begin, he reflects on his own progression

Jonas remembers “comfort objects” – plush toys intended to soothe young children. They came in strange shapes and had nonsense names like “giraffe” and “hippo.”

Comfort objects are confiscated from children at an age set by the Elders and recycled to younger children.

Jonas remembers “precision of language” taught at three years of age. Asking caregivers for a snack will produce juice and crackers, but asking mistakenly for a smack will deliver painful whips

Jonas remembers his first haircut at ten. It was uneven and needed trimming later.

When females turn ten, they are shorn of their braids, covering the ceremony stage with mounds of hair.

Twelve is

different

 

The Ceremony of Twelve, saved for last, is most important because a child ceases to be a child. The Elders look at the child’s aptitude and make a binding determination where the child’s future is headed.

Some jobs, like pilot, are glamorous. Some jobs, like lawyer, are prestigious. Some jobs are important to community well being, such as infant nurturer and care giver to the old. And some jobs have little honor such as laborer, and, worst of all, birth mother.

So all the elevens are understandably apprehensive as they wait to hear what the Elders have decided to make of their futures.

Saving Jonas for last, the Chief Elder called Jonas to face the audience and hear his future. With dramatic flourish the Chief Elder announced that Jonas was not assigned, but selected to join the elders as the Community Receiver of Memory.

Shock and awe can be felt from the audience. Even amongst elders, this job is special. The Receiver works in isolation and reports to no one. The community has only one Receiver and one successor in training.

Scarcely knowing what this all means and embarrassed by the attention, Jonas returns home with his flabbergasted parents.

Jonas wonders what it means to have the necessary ability to “see beyond.”

The job description was also puzzling. The Receiver was a job of high honor, but was also supposed to be physically painful.

The nature of the job became clearer as

Jonas spent every day after school with the

Receiver, a man appearing older than

he was.

“Simply stated,” he said, “my job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me. It’s the memories of the whole world.”

“Before you, before me, before the previous Receiver, and generations before him. There’s much more. There’s all that goes beyond – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected.”

“And in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future. And I am so weighted with them.”

The Receiver, now referred to as the Giver,

is able to transmit memories by placing his

hand on Jonas’ back. As the Giver slowly

unburdens himself of these memories, Jonas

would receive vivid memories of the pains and joys experienced

generations back,

… and use the wisdom to council the Elders to avoid decisions that might cause pain or discomfort or danger to the community.

The job and the memories are even more painful than Jonas could have predicted.

Why can’t everyone in the community share this painful burden?

As Jonas receives memories, he learns how the community is managed by the Elders.

Jonas learns a policy of Sameness was enacted generations back to shape every facet of community life. Anything dirty, disagreeable, or dangerous could be manipulated and

engineered out of existence.

Communities can be master planned so that not only jobs but mates are assigned each other by the Elders after careful consideration.

The distasteful process of conception and pregnancy can be outsourced to birthmothers.

With Elders retaining total control over procreation, the birth rate can remain sustainable and the babies can be matched with the best parents.

With mandatory medication for all adolescents and adults, confusing extreme emotions – known mysteriously as stirrings – can be subdued. Parents can now co-exist in perfect cordiality.

Instead of burdening adult children with the care of their aged parents, the Elders mandate special facilities for seniors. The old can be given comfort and respect until it is determined to be their time for release.

By integrating Sameness with the judiciary, a system is in place to council people into complying with the law. But since the system is merciful, law breakers can be released.  

As Jonas receives memories and wisdom, he can see and feel more than his friends, but is lonely because he can’t share

these feelings with his friends

Jonas ponders the wisdom of the Elders and the policy of Sameness. If people chose their own jobs or mates or birthed their own children, they might choose wrong or make a mistake.

But Jonas also sees how Sameness dulls the senses

Emotions, like words, are so carefully parsed, they seldom go deeper than a veneer of courtesy. When Jonas first glimpses the color red, he sadly realizes that even the ability to see color has been bred out of the community

Sameness guarantees order and stability. The Elders wish only to ensure the community stays safe.

Jonas realizes that Sameness has no tolerance for life that inconveniences the community.

Even precision of language, held in high esteem by Sameness, is revealed as not only imprecise, but dishonest.

A newborn in the nurturing center is not thriving. This baby boy has been spending time with Jonas’ family for extra nurturing to help the baby get ready for parental assignment, but the baby is fretful and slow to grow

Jonas has been surreptitiously transferring happy memories to the baby and he thrives while with Jacob.

But the Elders grow impatient and want the baby released. Even Jonas’ father, a professional nurturer, has grown tired of the baby and thinks release is easier.

Jonas knows better, and needs to make a hasty decision to ensure the survival of the baby.

The Giver may be able to help, but getting the baby to safety may be the biggest, most dangerous, most painful act Jonas may have to do.

Read The Giver and be immersed in a future world where technology is advanced, no one suffers pain, and everyone feels safe…

Kathryn J WhitehouseBook talk assignment

Fall 2010LIB 264/Fall 2010

Dr. Doug Achterman

The Giver by Lois LowryWinner of the 1993 Newbery

Medal.

Images by Creative Commons