The Mood Of The Giver: The Struggle Of The Youngster

In the book The Giver, it all starts when an average innocent young boy named Jonas, the protagonist, receives his assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, he discovers that his perfect community is not what it seems. Within the novel, rituals tend to border the moments in which community members can communicate limited emotions, such as dreams, aging, and death. These rituals almost always work to expel the emotions involved. For example, Jonas’s family holds an “evening telling of feelings,” a time after their supper in which they each share an emotion they experienced that day. After Lily tells of her anger toward the children visiting her school, Jonas’s parents quickly work to explain the feeling away so that her initial discomfort seems foolish. Other rituals, like the Ceremony of Loss or the morning dream-telling, also work to erase uncomfortable emotions, such as the grief of losing a community member or the confusing sexual longing in an erotic dream like the one Jonas has. Community members even ritualize the process of apologizing, requiring that after an apology, the wronged party must accept the apology and erase any feeling of wrongdoing. He is forced to decide whether he will let the community continue on its traditional path or confront it with its own choices. In The Giver, Jonas has many struggles and conflicts that are hard to face and overcome. Jonas learns a lot about the real world in such a small time period. Jonas's internal conflict intensifies when he realizes just how sheltered and narrow-minded his society has become. But he struggles to make sense of his new role as the receiver of memories in a dystopian community and can’t even talk to anyone about it. The elderly Receiver of Memory also known as the giver acts as a reservoir for all the community's memories of the past around the world. These memories are for only Jonas to have and hold and once the giver makes that clear he then begins transferring his memories to Jonas, showing him seasons, emotions, and color. At his first day of training, the current Receiver tells Jonas that he is going to receive all the memories of the world. He transmits the memories to Jonas by placing his hands on Jonas’s bare back. Jonas’s first memory is of sledding downhill in the snow. The internal conflict centers on Jonas's revelations after he is tasked with receiving all memories for his community.

By becoming the receiver of memory Jonas sees the world in color, experiences fear, enjoys tasting snow, and understands war, sorrow and death. Even though many of the imparted memories are painful, Jonas is torn between the security his current community provides and the expression of free will. After receiving these memories it has changed his view on life, and he was speechless no one had a clue, what they were missing out on, “They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.' (Lowry 99). A major conflict that jonas has is that he thinks everyone deserves all these memories, and to have emotions and see color but the Chief Elder and Council of Elders will not allow such a thing. The outcome of this will create violence and make the community disorderly and that will not be accepted in this dystopian society.

Another battling conflict that's in Jonas’s mind surpases closing off the communities emotions and experiences is the euthanization of babies by the Nurtures. When Jonas finds out what they really do with unwanted babies, “He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing.' (Lowry 150). He wanted to just run away from it all, and never look back, he is disappointed with what his world has turned into and is in total disbelief. Before Jonas was given the memory-receiving job, his community-appointed adoptive parents taught him that babies and elderly people were 'released' to a better place. So when he finds out the truth, then he thinks about how Gabriel (his baby brother) has had nightmares and won't sleep through the night, and if he doesn’t take action to save his brother that he adores, then he will die like the rest of the babies who don’t meet predetermined development stages enforced by the council. Even though Jonas knows the alternative will cost him his family and friends, he's unwilling to accept Gabriel's fate.

The main struggle of Jonas in The Giver is that he has received emotions and feelings especially for his baby brother Gabriel and now that he knows Gabriel will be killed for his problems, Jonas has to sacrifice something. The conflict in this book centers on Jonas's revelations after he is tasked with receiving all memories for his community. When Jonas fully understands emotions they do nothing but make things worse for his given circumstance. He is alone on this adventure with little help from the giver himself. With what he learns about euthanizing babies and elders and how narrow minded his community really is, it just exacerbates Jonas’s whole situation, that he can't control. Finally we take our freedom and humanity for granted these days and we don’t second guess the importance of these things in our lives.