The Story 'The Giver' by Lois Lowry

The story by Lois Lowry takes place in a community that is not normal. People cannot see color, it is an offense for somebody to touch others, and the community assigns people jobs and children. This community shows through Jonas’ eyes, the main character in this novel, is a perfect society. There is no war, crime, or hunger. Most readers might take it for granted that the community in The Giver differs from the real society in present day and that in this fiction: estrangement of elderly people, suffering for surrogate mothers, and wanting of euthanasia.

The first similarity is that the elderly people are left out of the society. In the novel, the elderly cannot have family. They live in the House of the Old because they are seperated from the society. All the people are getting older and weaker without exception, so it is hard for them to live without a family. Nonetheless, the society isolates the elderly. “The Old were sitting quietly, some visiting and talking with one another, others doing handwork and simple crafts. A few were asleep”(p.28). In the modern society, elderly people are lonely. Some avoid taking care of their parents suffering from diseases like Alzheimer. The elderly are apt to be easily

depressed, and this depression can be triggered by the deaths of their spouses, relatives, and friends or by financial worries. Therefore, old people need constant care and their family’s affection. However, due to hectic ifestyles of current society, many elderly people live alone or in carecenter without their family.

There are many differences in The Giver like how there are no genetic engineering and all the babies are made from various DNA’s, or how People can only see black and white besides the giver and Jonas. Then there are a few that really stuck out to me. Everyone has brown hair and brown eyes except Jonas, his adoptive brother Gabe and Fiona. All kids are given assigned names, jobs and families. The government controls everything and even listens in on your conversations.

The giver is a utopian society and gradually appears to become dystopian.The society has eliminated pain and strive by converting to sameness. The receiver of memory is the person who stores all the memories. When Jonas meets the receiver, he is confused. The United States is a western culture and has been developing since long before we became a country. Today the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country. The US has been thought of as the melting pot due to the extent of American culture. There are many integrated but unique social structures within the US.

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