You will never know someone until you know their feelings

From what I have recently read in chapter 1 through chapter 4 in the previous week, The Giver has made me question about many things in Jonas society and in the way he lives. In this few chapters Jonas lives in a society where every year there is a ceremony in which, as every kid grows a year older, they have more freedom to do more things. At the ceremony of the twelve, the community of elders choose your assignment. Jonas family is made of his father, mother, younger sister and him, because in his society the families can only have one girl and one boy. Jonas is feeling apprehensive because this year it's his turn to be assigned for a job and this means his volunteering hours are ending and he wants to spend the last hours volunteering with his best friend Asher, so they do it in the House of the Old helping the elder bathe. Also in these chapters the author talks a lot about releasing people, this is basically throwing people out of the community for a certain reason. Jonas father is a Nurturer and he takes care of the babies until they are one year old and are received in a family. But there is this baby that Jonas father nurtures, his name is Gabriel, he might not pass the ceremony of the ones because he is not growing fast enough and maybe he will be released.

When I was reading these chapters I read a quote that said “The Elders know Asher,” his mother said. “They’ll find exactly the right assignment for him” (Lowry 17). This quote made me think more about the relationship between Jonas society and the Truman Show that we watched, because in both societies there is someone that knows you very well and knows what’s best for you. In this case the Elders have so much control of society, that they know exactly what assignment goes to every twelve year old. In the Truman Show Christof has known Truman since he was a baby and he knew what was the perfect job for him just like the Elders did with Asher. Even though this made me connect to the Truman Show, I also think that maybe this statement is wrong because you can’t know someone just by watching them all day. In my opinion Cristof and the Elders really don’t know the feelings of the characters to know what’s right or wrong to them.

Click here to watch Christof talking with Truman!

Finally, from what I have read so far from The Giver, it has been a very interesting book to read because it has made me question a lot about Jonas society and the way they live. Also because I could feel Jonas feelings while I read and The Giver is one of the first books that has caught my attention, I can see that there is a lot of dystopia in Jonas society because they have all these types of rules and they are always being controlled by the Elders. If you want to see what happens in the next chapters keep reading this blog!