The Giver

This original, adolescent classic by Lois Lowry is interesting just as much for its message as it is for its story. Set in an unnamed and fictional community that has known nothing but order and routine, the story centers on a twelve year-old boy named Jonas, whose perceptions of the world broaden as he is exposed to what life was like before the community reached perfection. It is an old, wise man-- known only as "The Giver"-- who introduced this knowledge to Jonas and who is charged with preparing Jonas to become the new "Giver" and so take on all the memories of the past, so that the rest of society does not have to. By unwillingly taking on this responsibility-- he was chosen for the role-- Jonas thus becomes somewhat of a messiah to the community, saving them from remembering the true extent of human depravity and suffering that has been locked away in history. In fact, Lowry uses her work as commentary on topics as broad as the utopian ideal, human feelings, rebellion, history and knowledge, population control, and the meaning of heroism. In the process, she communicates the notion that choice-- with pain-- is superior to a life of pain without it. Here, I demonstrate why Lois Lowry's style and the spiritual implications she weaves into her story make the book a meaningful one to read.

Lowry begins her book with a scene in which a member of the community mistakenly flies his jet over the town of which Jonas is apart, and is summarily "released" for his mistake. This notion of release, a euphemism for death, is used to protect the community from knowing that their leaders kill those who grow old, fail to adapt to social norms, request death, or who happen to be born as the lighter of a pair of twins. It is this notion, more than the others, that moves the story toward its unexpected climax, when Jonas flees the community with a "newchild" named Gabriel to save him from being released. By doing so, Jonas knows that all the memories he holds, of human joy and human suffering, will return to the community, who must then face the full spectrum of human emotions tied to those memories. The Giver, Jonas knows, will guide them through this turmoil, so that they will eventually know what it truly means to be human.

Part of Lowry's skill is in her style. Her narration from Jonas's perspective communicates the very limited perception of life that those in the community all share. More accurately, Lowry shows that those in this utopian town think in terms that express their blindness to pain and wrongdoing. All "family units," for instance, are required to hold an evening ritual in which all members communicate their feelings from the day. On one occasion, Jonas's mother, a minister of justice, is grieved that she was forced to punish a citizen for a second offense. The mother begins,

"'I feel frightened, too, for him,' she confessed. 'You know that there's no third chance. The rules say that if there's a third transgression, he simply has to be released.' Jonas shivered. He knew it happened. There was even a boy in his group of Elevens whose father had been released years before. No one ever mentioned it; the disgrace was unspeakable. It was hard to imagine."

Lowry's style here very clearly demonstrates-- through Jonas's limited knowledge of "release"-- how insulated the community is from difficulty and even wrongdoing.

Still, as Jonas becomes increasingly aware of the world through the memories he receives from The Giver, Lowry's narration style changes to become more realistic, more "worldly." At the story's end, while Jonas flees with Gabriel to save his life and the community, Lowry writes,

"Jonas reached the opposite side of the river, stopped briefly, and looked back. The community where his entire life had been lived lay behind him now, sleeping. At dawn, the orderly, disciplined life he had always known would continue again, without him. The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past."

It is with passages like this that Lowry expresses Jonas's growing understanding of his world, an understanding that the reader has learned alongside him.

Equally interesting, if less obvious, is the spiritual nature which Lowry embeds in her story. Even the names of Lowry's characters-- and the personalities they represent-- express this spirituality. Jonas was a prophet who fled from God when charged with preaching repentance to the rebellious Ninevites, only to be swallowed by a large fish until he humbled himself before God. He then traveled to Ninevah, preached God's message, and sat in anger at God's mercy on them after they repented, believing God should not have spared them. Like the biblical Jonas, Lowry's Jonas became an instrument for renewal, for change; but much more than the biblical Jonas, Lowry's Jonas fled to save the community from their ignorance, to return to them their ability to choose. In such a role, Jonas is much more like Jesus than the biblical Jonas. Nonetheless, the spiritual implications are there.

In addition, Jonas's best friend is named "Asher," a man in the biblical book of Genesis who founded the tribe of Asher. The name "Asher" means "happy" or "blessing," a description that fits Asher's personality in The Giver accurately. Similarly, an important baby in the story is named "Gabriel," an angel in Scripture whom God sends to foretell the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus; and the title of "Chief Elder" for the leader of the community sounds very much like the elders found in the biblical New Testament. Most spiritual to the story, however, is Jonas's role in it. By leaving the community to save them and the baby Gabriel, Jonas sacrifices his livelihood and eventually his life, as he dies on a snow-filled hill trying to get the baby to safety. As he travels, and as their lives come under increasing danger, Lowry gives the Jonas character a sense of selflessness seen in Jesus. She states at one point, for instance,

Gabriel had not cried during the long frightening journey. Now he did. He cried because he was hungry and cold and terribly weak. Jonas cried, too, for the same reasons, and another reason as well. He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself.

Shortly afterward, Jonas presses the baby to his chest, wraps a blanket around them both, and gives the remaining memories of warmth he has to the child in the form of sunshine. Only a short time later, Jonas dies at the peak of the hill with Jonas in his arms, remembering his most cherished memories: a sled ride down a hill and a memory of Christmas with family. Jonas's actions, and his end, are reminiscent of Christ's sacrifice on the cross; and in this vein, Gabriel and the community would represent humanity and their helplessness without their savior. If this were true, then The Giver would represent God, who gave us the knowledge of the gospel though Jesus by sending him-- as The Giver sent Jonas-- to save us. Although Lowry may not have intended these symbolic references-- especially when considering her characters' names-- it certainly seems she did.

While Lowry's book is entertaining, it is also full of meaning. One could gather-- depending on his or her perspective-- that she intended it as a commentary on the dangers of protecting oneself or children from the suffering of the world; that she intended to show the worthlessness of efforts to realize a utopian society; or that it was meant as a Scriptural allegory, of sorts. Whatever her message, Lowry gives the reader much to think about with her story and characters. By leading the reader through her varied lessons, Lowry thus becomes her own kind of "Giver," giving the reader the "memories" of her own life lessons and teaching them the things she herself knows. It is, perhaps, this facet of the book that gives it its greatest value.