THE GIVER by Lois Lowry
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Wolran Kim
Mar. 2012


I could not predict what the title, ‘The Giver,’ and the strange picture on the cover, a grandfather, meant at all when I first saw this book. This book is a total fiction that one of the communist countries might have tried before, and depicts the world of the future. I might have imagined this kind of a dream world in new slavery, material civilization, and the invisible ranks of our society in the 21st century. I had wanted to stay away from all stresses of endless competition in modern society once. That dream world has no meaning of great or retarded, normal or abnormal, racism, prejudice, and inferiority complexes.

In the story, all children are upgraded for their age in the New Year ceremony where all citizens gathered each year. When kids are seven years old, they receive the jackets which have front buttons, and this means that they can wear them on their own as the beginning of independence. They can decide their volunteer place at the age of eight, and can move when they receive their own bike at the age of nine. They receive their job based on the records of their four years of volunteer activities at the age of twelve, and this job will be their job for a lifetime after training for several years. The adults decide the children’s jobs, such as a birth mother who gives birth, a manual worker who works labor, and a foster that raises kids.

All family members talk about their dreams before eating breakfast, and talk about their feelings of the day before eating dinner with each other. These conversations act as a ceremony, and are all collected and censored to know about happenings and any changes. Love is a nonsense word here and all daily lives are controlled by strict rules. Everyone has the same family type. They adopt children under navigation of the leaders, and physical needs are also suppressed with drugs to minimize conflict between members of the community and to maximize efficiency. People with disabilities and elderly people are put to death under the title,
‘off duty.’ A protagonist, Jonas, received old memories under the honorable title, ‘The Receiver.’ This society is just like a communist community because they are living with injected rules of behavior and thought.

Jonas escapes from this ‘Sameness’ society after realizing how flat, deserted, and absurd of a human society this community is. How will this society be with no unexpected way and uncomfortable or strange issues after missing ‘The Receiver?’ Jonas came to the real world where we live today, out of the uniformed and non-human world in the book. The perfect world is not created from uniformed individuals and society. A society where there is no conflict and trouble is not a human world, but a world filled with robots.

Their world is an ideal land because there is no pain, regret, anger, hatred, jealousy, feeling, or even color in their clothes and weather. However, they returned their happiness when they returned their pains. The community is always predictable, with an exact order, and all troubles are removed or controlled. Who is this community for? Our modern society where we live today is a place of desire and competition. There is the gap between rich and poor, racial and religious conflicts, invisible labeling and ranking, disabilities, and even war and starvation everywhere. Thus, are we dreaming of a world like this?

‘The Giver’ has a fresh impact. I realized that all matters of course are great blessings through this community full of sameness and Jonas’ upcoming changes. How can I feel joy without sadness, and how can I laugh without tears? The background of this book is black and white and has never had a rainbow. Happiness is detected due to the unfortunate and natural coexistence of normal and abnormal, and superiority and inferiority. That is the real diversity which makes humans human. We are all like the hero, Jonas, as ‘Receivers’ in our own world. All our pains, sadness, disabilities and frustrations are the process of the way to happiness, joy, and accomplishments.