happen to the community if Jonas succeeded in getting away.

"If you get away, if you get beyond, if you get to Elsewhere, it will mean that the community has to bear the burden themselves, of the memories you had been holding for them….”  (Ch. 20)

Jonas too has to be prepared.  The Giver transmits to him memories of courage, warmth, and strength to prepare him for his journey.  He cannot go, because he will need to help the people when Jonas is gone and the memories return to them.  They will have no idea how to handle it, and will need his guidance. 

Jonas is hunted by search planes, which use heat sensors to try to find him.  He uses the memories to cool his and Gabe’s temperatures.  He falls on his bike, twisting an ankle.

Jonas moves from a landscape of Sameness close to the community to one that is at first beautiful and then harsh.  He has to deal with streams and hills, and then snow and cold.  He has never seen wildflowers and birds before, and the beauty of it awes him.  Yet as things get more and more treacherous, it gets harder to be sustained by the memories.

The ending of the book is somewhat ambiguous, meaning that it is not clear exactly what happens.  It seems that Jonas and Gabriel either die or escape at a house where there is singing.  What seems suspicious about this is that several things about incident appear to be out of Jonas’s memories.  He encounters snow, a sled, and a house he seems to recognize.  However, it never says that he recognizes the house specifically from an earlier memory, only that he recognizes houses.

[He] could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were the red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. (Ch. 23)

This could mean that they are rescued, or that Jonas has slipped into a coma.  If this was the only book, and there were no sequels, we would have no other information.  Jonas himself seems to be passing out at the end of the book, interpreting the music as “it was only an echo” (Ch. 23).  Ended that, he seems to have died.  However, he also could have been rescued.  Just at there, there is no way to know.

Jonas makes a harrowing journey to save young Gabe's life, and out of the commitment to save his people from a life of Sameness.  Whether you believe Jonas lived or not (sequels aside), one thing is clear.  Jonas certainly reached Elsewhere, no matter how you define it: place or death.

Jonas’s understanding of Elsewhere changes over the course of The Giver, and author Lois Lowry is not explicit as to which version of Elsewhere Jonas reaches in the end. He may have made it to a place he’s experienced only in memories, or he may have died trying to get there.

Elsewhere is initially unknowable to Jonas, whose entire concept of the world is limited to his community and the few he’s visited on field trips. He knows the journey to Elsewhere begins with a Ceremony of Release. He assumes Elsewhere befits the individual, that newchildren go to live in communities that are similar to his, and that the old go somewhere serene. As he progresses in his training, however, Jonas’s understanding of Elsewhere begins to take two distinct forms. The first is death, a state of being he comes to comprehend through the memories he receives of disease, war, and trauma. He knows that this form of Elsewhere is associated with the Ceremony of Release. The vulnerable members of his community are not being sent anywhere, they are being killed.

Jonas receives memories that create a different form of Elsewhere, too. Here, Elsewhere is the human experience beyond the community’s control. It is a place where emotions and individuality are tolerated, and a diversity of relationships, activities, and interests are encouraged. It is also a place where personal freedoms can lead to terrible events, from heartbreak to crime, pain, and loss. It becomes possible that Jonas’s world, his community, is only a small part of the real world. When he leaves his community, this is the Elsewhere he hopes to find.

Do you think he does? Although there are sequels that answer the question for you, they are not important to your interpretation of The Giver. In the final chapters, hope is running out for Jonas. He’s transmitted the last of his warmth to Gabriel, and they are both starving. As his body begins to fail, he’s soothed by memories of his parents, sister, and friends. Is his life flashing before his eyes, or is he relying on his own memories to sustain him? Suddenly, the happiest memory he was given is right in front of him: a sled, a family, and a Christmas tree. He hears music, “[b]ut perhaps it was only an echo” (133). Has the memory become a reality, or is it fading (like an echo) as it leaves him?

As you look over the book’s final page, consider how Lowry blurs the past and present. Why do you think she chose to leave the ending ambiguous? Consider what Jonas's departure for Elsewhere means to his community. If he is gone and the memories are released, does it matter which Elsewhere he reaches?

At the end of the book, it is safe to assume he reaches Elsewhere. We are never told what Elsewhere looks like, so we have to make this assumption based on other details we do know.

It has taken Jonas days to travel from his community, the search planes are no longer flying overhead, he and Gabriel have passed through several types of landscapes and weather that do not appear within their community, and the house they finally are headed towards has Christmas lights (his community doesn't have these). All of these details lead us to believe he has reached a place different than his own community and not like the surrounding (yet similar) communities in his area - so we think he has reached Elsewhere.

Jonas is able to get the infant Gabriel and himself to the safety of a village outside the community where Sameness is the creed through the powers of his inner strength and, ironically, with the memories provided him by the Giver, and, most importantly, a memory that is his own.

At first, he must hide with Gabriel from the planes that fly so low he can almost see the pilots' faces; fortunately, these pilots are color-blind, too, so hiding from them is easier than if they could perceive color. Amidst his fears, Jonas delights in the wondrous sights he experiences:  birds soaring overhead, deer, wildflowers, wind shifting through the trees. Against Jonas's terror that he and Gabriel will starve,

[H]e tries to use the flagging power of his memory to recreate meals, and does manage brief tantalizing fragments...

But, he is still left with gnawing hunger, and riding his bicycle becomes a veritable struggle.Finally, as they both suffer from starvation, Jonas feels that Elsewhere is close to them. To prevent Gabriel from freezing to death, he places the child inside his tunic and wraps the meager blanket around them both. As they grow colder, Johans conjures the memory of sunshine and sends warmth through both his body and that of Gabriel who touches him.  However, the memory fades and they are again cold. Still, Jonas perseveres even though he stumbles in the snow. Then, he finds the "sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill." There is a sense of deja vu in Jonas; he has "a memory of his own" about this place called Elsewhere. He recognizes the Elsewhere that will be "part of their future and their past."

I assume that you are talking about where Jonas takes Gabe at the end of the book.  Basically, he takes Gabe away from the community where they have lived all their lives.  He sneaks him very far (we do not know how far) away, until they get to the point where, it is implied, they have come to the border between the community and "elsewhere."

When they get there, Jonas finds the sled from his "memory" and starts down the hill with Gabe.  We do not know what they will find down there, but they are definitely headed for "elsewhere."

A person can go to “Elsewhere” through dying, which is called Release, or while still alive by traveling outside the Community’s vicinity. When The Giver, begins, Jonas does not know that Release means. Through the course of the novel, he learns that a person’s Release means they are killed and that Elsewhere is a euphemism for death. He ultimately decides to renounce his role as Receiver of Memory and to leave the Community, taking Gabriel with him. Because he does not know of any specific locations far beyond his hometown, he considers that he is embarking on a journey to Elsewhere.

Jonas begins to learn the truth about these two terms—and about the negative aspects of his society—when he becomes the Receiver. Part of his responsibility in this role is to become familiar with the social customs. By watching a film of his father releasing the smaller of two twin babies, he understands that Release as euthanasia, which is considered to help safeguard society as a whole. People say that those who are released go to Elsewhere. While there are a few other nearby communities that people from Jonas’s town can visit, the rest of the world has become strange to them. Realizing that he and little Gabriel would not be safe in towns that have the same customs as his own, Jonas decides they must go much farther into the unknown lands called Elsewhere. It remains unclear, however, if they will arrive or if they perish along the way.

When Jonas found out that Gabe was to be "released" (killed) because he did not sleep through the night, he decided to leave the Community with Gabe, in order to save him. Jonas thought that he could get to Elsewhere, which is never really defined, but seems to be where things were not controlled as they were where Jonas and his family lived. Jonas had planned on obtaining more memories from the Giver in order to help him leave with Gabe, but then had to rely on what he had already. The ending is unclear...Jonas and Gabe either reached Elsewhere, or they froze to death. I have read interviews with Lois Lowry, the author, who said she had no intention of implying the two froze to death. I guess everyone takes what they believe from the book.