Fear, even from the most honorable...

Jonas in front of all of his society was selected as the receiver of memories. For many people this job is an HONOR, but for Jonas it is more than that. Being the receiver of memories does not only mean receiving memories form back generations, but gaining wisdom out of them. He is realizing that his society is not really how he thought it was, everything is always the same, people do the same things every day. They have the same routine for every single day, it is like their lives are written down.  Jonas has been receiving memories from The Giver throughout his training and as time goes on, the Giver is giving him more painful memories like the memory of poaching were there’s this beautiful elephant and they kill it. Another really painful memory that the Giver gave Jonas was the memory of war, the Giver was suffering so much with this memory that he asked Jonas to take it away from him, now the Giver does not have this memory any more. Jonas now has it, and he will suffer as much as the Giver did, that’s why the giver was so sorry for him. Like always, after the painful memories come the pleasurable ones. The Giver decided that after that awful memory he had given to Jonas he would only give him pleasurable ones for some time.  He gave him his best and happiest memory, FAMILY. With the memory of family Jonas felt LOVE, love is one of the words he and the citizens of his community are not allowed to say or feel. With baby Gabe things have been different, since he is sleeping with Jonas he is getting better every day, but what they don't know is that he is sleeping better because of the memories Jonas gives him every night. With time, Jonas is getting better at his ability of seeing beyond and we can see that he doesn't only want to be the receiver of memories, he wants to change the world. Jonas no longer sees his world like he used to, he wants to live in a world where there are COLORS, grandparents, where everybody have memories of their past and most important of all, a world where there is love. 

 Just imagine....

 

Throughout reading The Giver I have read a lot of things that include fear on them. In Jonas society even though we can’t see it, under all of those happy and perfect society, people live in fear. They live under the fear of being released. When the Giver is training Jonas he told him this quote………..

“When you become the official Receiver, when we´re finished here, you´ll be given a whole new set of rules. Those are the rules that I obey. And it won’t surprise you that I am forbidden to talk about my work to anyone except the new Receiver. That’s you, of course” (103).

This quote made me realize that as time passes by and we start seeing that people are scared of being released. That’s one of the main reasons why the community is so organized and perfect, because everyone is afraid to stand up for themselves and say what they think is right. The only ones permitted to do this are the elders and by that we can also infer that they are selfish because they lead a simple community because if they let everyone suffer with memories it will be harder to control them.  The Giver is the most honorable person in his community and even by having such honor, this quote tells us that he is scared of talking about his work. By seeing that even the most honorable person in their community is afraid to talk, I came up that the world they live in is not as perfect as it stems and we can see that there is DISTOPIA. While reading it I thought that the community in which they live in is so strict with every citizen that they are afraid to have freedom of speech.  

Jonas for the first time did not take his pills, something about the memories told him to throw the pills away. I think that he not only threw the pill away because his memories told him, I think he threw them away because he wants to feel something, he wants to feel how it is living in a world with love. I also think that Jonas is a very brave boy and although he knows all the risks form doing bad things, he is going to rebel. He will not only start to make things for himself, like not talking the pills, he will make a CHANGE in his society. But is he ready to take this risk? Sure, because everybody is capable to do good things and make the world a better place!