The Receiver of Memories

As you all know from my previous blogs, I am reading The Giver. From now on I’m going to blog all my thoughts and new discoveries from the book. In the chapters that I have recently read, a lot of things had happened. As it commonly happens with all kids in the community, Jonas had his first stirrings for Fiona, to prevent them, his mother started giving him pills to eliminate his feelings. The days of the ceremony had started and Jonas was very nervous about his ceremony, like other years, the first day was form the ceremony of the ones until the ceremony of the eights, luckily Gabe didn’t have enough weight to be given to a family unit, so he is going to stay one more year in the nurturing center with Jonas father. The next day the ceremony of the nines, tens, elevens and twelve’s took place. The Chief Elder gave the twelve’s their assignment but when it was Jonas turn she skipped him, at the end of the ceremony she called Jonas to the stage and apologize to him and everybody for her actions.  She told everybody that Jonas wasn't assigned, he was selected to be the receiver of memories because he had all 5 things a receiver must have and most of all, he had the capacity to see beyond. The Chief Elder also told him that his training will include a lot of physical pain, Jonas was not sure he was the right person to be the next receiver.

 

"I think it's true," he told the Chief Elder and the community. "I don't understand it yet. I don't know what it is. But sometimes I see something. And maybe it's beyond."

(Lowris 64)
Before reading this quote the Chief Elder had told Jonas that he was selected as the receiver of memories because he had the capacity to see beyond, Jonas didn't understand this, he thought he didn't have this capacity. But when he looked to the crowd to see their faces and reactions they changed, just like the apple did. When Jonas said this quote I think Jonas finally knew what it meant to see beyond. He might still don’t know how to use it but he knows that in some way he is different than the other citizens in his community and that maybe he was given this capacity because he would be the next receiver of memories.

The last chapters I have read form The Giver, where the most important because I could see that the committee of Elders and the receiver of memories saw Jonas as a special boy and because of that, they selected him to be the new receiver of memories. After reading this chapters I came up with a prediction, if the receiver of memory is one of the most important in the committee of Elders, then Jonas will soon know all the true secrets about his community, and by saying this he would not only know each of the secrets of the citizens of his community, he would also know all of community’s dark secrets.