How does Lowry evoke the reader's senses of smell, hearing, and sight in chapter 15 of The Giver?

In chapter 15, Lois Lowry evokes the reader’s sense of smell, hearing, and sight through diction and imagery.

To draw attention to smell, Lowry uses words that are unpleasant and that don’t sound so great. For example, early in the short chapter, Lowry says Jonas is in a “confused, noisy, foul-smelling place.” The word foul evokes the reader’s sense of smell, since a foul smell is not a good smell. The sound of the word foul might also evoke the reader’s sense of smell because the word produces a harsh sound and not a mellifluous, sweet sound. The images of yellow and brown smoke add to the sense of smell because such colors can be associated with things that don’t smell wonderful, like pollution or excrement.

Imagery evokes the reader’s sense of hearing and sight as Lowry provides detailed descriptions of “wounded men” crying and begging for their mothers, water, and death. Thus, the reader can see and hear the sounds. Of course, diction also helps Lowry tap into the reader’s sense of hearing. “From the distance, Jonas could hear the thud of cannons,” writes Lowry. The word thud plays a similar role that the word foul does in that they both sound like the image that Lowry aims to evoke.

How does Lois Lowry evoke the reader's sense of hearing in Chapter 15 of The Giver?

In Chapter 15 of The Giver, Jonas enters the memory of a battlefield strewn with the dead and dying. Although the battle is over, the sounds of such a scene are a powerful element in conveying the horror of what has occurred, and Lowry engages the reader's sense of hearing to emphasize this horror.

Jonas tries to give water to a dying boy of his own age, but the boy dies anyway. Immediately after his death, the author describes the sounds that surround Jonas and the dead boy:

But the noise continued all around: the cries of the wounded men, the cries begging for water and for Mother and for death. Horses lying on the ground shrieked, raised their heads, and stabbed randomly toward the sky with their hooves.

People who have never been in a war zone have often had little contact with death. When they have, it was probably in an atmosphere of silence and respect, at a funeral or in the office of an undertaker. On the battlefield, there is no time or space to mourn the dead boy. Everyone is crying out for attention, and Jonas is surrounded by the shrieks of men and horses. This noise powerfully evokes the chaos and terror of the battlefield.