The Giver: The Imagery And The Dystopian Society

The Giver by Llois Llowry is about a utopian society. This society and our modern society have some similaritiessimalarities and many differences. A utopian societysoceity is meant to be perfect - everyone is fine and everything is the same for everyone. A modern society, such as ours, is not built on the idea of perfection and is build on the idea that everyone has freedoms and everyone is unique.

The society lowery depicts in the world is a utopian society a perfect world as envisioned by its creators, it has eliminated fear, pain, hunger, illness, conflict, and hatred. These are all things that most of us would like to eliminate in our society but we have not. In our society we freeling feel human emotion. In The Giver, in chapter one, we learn about the “sharing of feelings” that happens each night. Families sit down and share how they are feeling aboutabou the day. This seems like a good idea, but we quickly learn that though they talk about how they feel they are siffled emotions and not allowed to use certain words to express how they are trully feeling. In our society people are free to talk about exactly how they’re feeling, you see it on their faces when they laugh, smile, cry, etc.. We value feelings and the ability to express them.

In The Giver Society, we learn that a family starts with one man and one woman, they must apply to have children, and can only have two - one girl and one boy. The child is not carried or born from the mom. The couple who wants a child has to apply for them and the committee of elders desides if they are ready. In our society anyone can have children - they family unit is not always one man and one woman, families consist of two woman, two men, etc… Also in our society you do not have to apply to have children, you have them when you are ready to do so. Also in our society we do not limited the number of children someone can have - you can have none or as many as you want.

In The Giver society there are many rules determined by age. Reading the first few chapters we learn that at age one children are given a name and a family, at age four they recieve jackets with buttons on the back, at age seven they recivee jackets wtih buttons in teh front, at eight they get clothes with pockets, at nine they get bikes, at ten they get new haricuts, at eleven they get gender specific clothes, and at twelbe they are given their commjunity assignment, or job. In our society children are given names usually at birth, they get clothes with buttons whenever the family decides, same with pockets in their clothes, bikes, haircuts, etc.. there is not a committee of elders that determines these things, they are done by the parent(s).

In The Giver, chapters 7-9, we learn about the ceremony of 12. Jonas’s is lining up with his friends to hear what their community role will be. This role is basically the job of the person until their are released. In this community a 12 year old is given their job! In our society twelve year olds are playing, going to school, and being a kid. We go to school until we graduate high school and then are given the opportunity to go into a work field, or recieve more training in college.

In the utopian society and our society has some similarities and differences the utopian society has to be perfect. our modern society it doesn’t have to be perfect you can pretty much do want you want. But in the givers society everything is the same and you cant really do what you want