A Book Report
The Giver
By Lois Lowry
A Summary of the book
The Giver is one of the books that provide a real image of the contradicted life people
live. The pleasant life that citizens lead meant nothing without experiencing pain or
horror. Lowry tried to present a special boy with superpowers who is assigned to be
the future Giver to his society, but after experiencing the real life and after passing
through the memories of normal humans, he turned to go out of his society to rescue
his social brother.
The eleven-year boy lived in a society of no pain, fear, terror or war. All people are
almost the same and behave politely with minor exceptions. They are assigned
specific carriers from the community committee where newborn children are raised
in the nursery center while the elderly people are kept in the old center. Every year
a generation of fifty children is produced and the other members from the age of
twelve onward are assigned to serve the society in specific professions assigned by
the committee.
Lowry introduced the supposed Utopia as a big prison where prisoners believe that
they are happy. People who are old or don’t obey the rules are “released” which
means death at some stages during the novel. To avoid releasing Gabriel, the Giver
and Jonas set a plan to rescue Gabriel but in fact, Jonas has rescued himself to
reach the outside community where he can see the real animals, and colors and
reach a normal village where someone’s waiting for him there.
Characterization
There were several characters involved in the plot of the story but Jonas and the
Giver might be the most effective characters and they were the center of attention
for the audience. The giver was presented as the character that is expected to be an
old man due to the wisdom, he acquired during his work through being exposed to
the citizens’ pain and bad memories. The atmosphere in which the giver lives in was
designed by Lowry to direct the readers to the voice of truth which comes from a
man who spent most of his life between the shelves of people’s memories and pain.
The giver was the inspiration to Jonas and at the same time, he represented the guide
who directed Jonas to give up his life in the society and to leave in search for the
outside.
The second character is the character of Jonas who was the narrator of the story.
Lowry managed to develop the Jonas’ character to be the symbol of revolution
against everything that limits people’s freedom of choice. Inspired by the strong
emotions absorbed from the Giver’s experience, Jonas was brave enough to leave
the pleasant life in his society to experience the outside world of colors, animals and
different seasons.
I believe that Lowry was successful in creating a close relationship between the two
characters which was impacted on preparing the audience to expect that mutual
efforts will generate desired procedures to break the routine the Jonas lived in.
Recommendation
I would recommend the book to anyone I know due to several reasons. One of them
is due to the fact that this book has a great impact on spotting the light on various
aspects of our life we believe that they are useless while they are not. For example,
we used to consider pain as one of the annoying experiences we may experience
during our life. However, this book shows that such suffering activities are part of
happiness or the joy that people may feel in their ordinary life.
Moreover, the Giver has a significant impact where the reader develops a kind of
feeling of sympathy with the victims of this kind of societies. The audience, as well
as Jonas, have felt the same way as the giver has as the procedures of saving Gabriel
from being released. Similarly, the word release has directed the readers that all the
citizens in society live in a big prison where they have to give their lives and try to
find a real life outside.
I recommend this book for all the people who believe that their life is catastrophic
or miserable because they experience hunger or poverty. Reading the book from the
cover to the end will motivate them to endure the pain they suffer in their life in
order to appreciate that pain is one of the main components of happiness and joy.
