Discussion Topic

Interpretation and significance of Jonas's dream in The Giver

Summary:

Jonas's dream in The Giver signifies the beginning of his sexual awakening and the stirrings of desire, which the community suppresses with medication. This dream is crucial as it marks Jonas's first step towards questioning the society's control over natural human emotions and desires, leading to his eventual rebellion against the community's strict regulations.

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What does Jonas dream about in Chapter 10 of The Giver?

Chapter 10 is where Jonas first meets the Giver and begins his training as the Receiver of Memories. He does not dream in this chapter, however, the dream you may be referring to is the sexual dream Jonas has about Fiona in Chapter 5. He dreams that he is trying to convince Fiona to get undressed and get in the tub at the house of the old so he could bathe her. When he reports this dream to his family, as everyone in the community must do after they dream, his parents tell him that he had "the Stirrings" and they give him a pill so that he would no longer have any sexual feelings. No one in the community has sexual relations, procreation is controlled and there are assigned women who have the role of "Birthmother." 

The other dream Jonas has is in Chapter 12 , where he...

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replays the memory of sledding in the snow. This dream is aforeshadowing of the end of the book -- he dreams he is heading towards a destination in the snow, and he needs to reach that place, that it is a significant place.

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What are Jonas's feelings about his dream in Chapter 12 of The Giver?

Jonas dreams that he is on a sled trying to get somewhere.

Jonas does not often dream, so he usually does not describe his dreams during the morning dream telling.  However, after helping Fiona volunteer at the House of the Old, Jonas has a dream about Fiona in a bath tub.  He wants her to take off her clothes.  He remembers the wanting more than anything else about the dream.  When he tells his parents, they understand.

"I knew that she wouldn't. And I think I knew that she shouldn't. But I wanted it so terribly. I could feel the wanting all through me." (Ch. 5, p. 36)

His parents give him pills for Stirrings, or the beginnings of sexual feelings.  Jonas rarely dreams after that.  However, one day he does dream.  He lies when his parents ask him about it, because it is related to his training. 

Again and again, as he slept, he had slid down that snow-covered hill. Always, in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something—he could not grasp what—that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop. (Ch. 12, p. 88)

Jonas is aware that the dream is related to the memory he received about the sled.  He also knows that as disturbing as the dream was, it meant something.  He describes the place he wanted to go in the distance as “welcoming.”

This dream foreshadows Jonas’s eventual escape.  The ending of the book actually involves a sled.   Jonas uses the sled to get to Elsewhere, where the world exists without Sameness.

Lowry, Lois (1993-04-26). The Giver (Newbery Medal Book). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

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What was Jonas's dream in Chapter 12 of The Giver?

Shame on your local library for not having this wonderful book!  In Chapter 12, Jonas dreams of a recent memory the Giver gave him in Chapter 11, which is of sledding down a snowy hill. This was Jonas' first experience of coldness, of snow, of going downhill, or of a sled, none of these being experiences that the community could provide him with because in the interests of efficiency and sameness, the climate control of the community allowed no extreme temperatures, hills had been done away with because they made movement difficult, and of course, given no snow or hills, sleds would have been pointless. The memory has made a vivid impression on him, making him feel emotions such as exhilaration,"a breathless glee" (p. 82). In the dream, Jonas has the sense that his sled on a hill is meant to be part of a journey to a particular place, "as if there were a destination" (p. 88).  And he feels that this is a good thing, that wherever he was meant to journey, it was "welcoming" (88) and "significant" (88). I do not want to spoil for you the pleasure of reading what is to follow in this story, but remember this dream because it is important, some foreshadowing of what is to follow.        

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What is the importance of Jonas's dream in chapter 12 of The Giver?

The dream which Jonas experiences acts as foreshadowing of his eventual actions. 

Always, in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination:  a something...that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop.

Awakened in Jonas are many feelings, especially that there is a place where there is more, more than he has felt, more than he has seen. Now that Jonas has had experiences of snow and sunshine and pleasure and pain, he realizes that he can no longer relate to the other Twelves. Therefore, he yearns for another place where he can be with others who sense what he has sensed. He also desires to get away from the bland world of no color and sameness--a world where little occurs. In, Jonas feelings and sensations have been awakened that crave fulfillment. For, he is now changed and cannot return to what he once was.

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What is the interpretation of Jonas' dream in The Giver, Chapter 12?

In the dream recounted in Chapter 12 of The Giver, Jonas relives his sledding experience, the first memory the Giver has given him.  In this dream, he has been sliding down the hill, and it feels as though he is meant to be headed somewhere in particular, "as if there were a destination" (88).  He wants and even needs to reach whatever it is that awaits him in the distance, with a "feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant" (88). What the dream does not help him with is how to get to this destination.  

This dream is foreshadowing for Jonas and for the reader the journey he will embark upon at the book's end, as he leaves for Elsewhere.  He has the vague idea that he has an important mission to fulfill and that the sled is going to be his means of setting forth on the mission.  However, the dream also tells him that he does not have the requisite knowledge to start his journey, since he has too few memories yet to be able to negotiate this journey well. The dream also suggests that he is not psychologically ready to leave the community.  His deeper understanding of the community and its dysfunction has not yet come to him yet through the memories and wisdom of the Giver. When he does come to understand the horrors of the society in which he lives, that provides him with the motivation and strength he needs to leave.

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