Discussion Topic
Problems and Solutions in The Giver
Summary:
In Lois Lowry's The Giver, the main conflict revolves around Jonas, who is exposed to the truth about his society's lack of emotions, choices, and individuality. As the Receiver of Memory, Jonas learns about genuine feelings and the dark reality of "release," prompting him to rebel against societal conformity. The solution involves Jonas escaping the community to release the memories back to the people, with the Giver staying to help them cope. This act challenges the community's enforced sameness and aims to restore individuality.
How does Jonas attempt to solve the problem in chapters 16-20 of The Giver?
After experiencing memories involving family and love, Jonas begins to resent his community more than ever and lies to his parents for the first time after they refuse to say they love him. Jonas begins imagining a world without Sameness and rebels against his community's laws by refusing to take his pills for the Stirrings. In chapter 19, the Giver makes Jonas watch a recording of an infant's release, and Jonas is appalled and horrified when he witnesses his father lethally inject an innocent newborn with a syringe. In chapter 20 , Jonas spends the night at the Annex with the Giver, and the two come up with a plan for Jonas to escape from the community without being caught. Their plan is for Jonas to hide in a vehicle heading towards Elsewhere and make it seem like he accidentally drowned in the river. By escaping the community, Jonas...
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and the Giver plan to permanently alter their society by exposing them to the traumatic memories of the past. After Jonas leaves the community, the Giver will help the citizens cope with the memories and eventually put an end to Sameness.
During Chapters 16-20 Jonas is receiving more and more painful and wonderful memories and trying to grasp his increasing alienation and understanding of the reality of a world that does not feel these emotions. Through the memories, Jonas experiences colors, art, love, and joyful emotions. He also experiences pain, hunger, and the horrors of war. As he learns these things, he realizes what his world is lacking by not knowing love and having choices in life. When he learns that "release" is a nice way of saying "murder," he is completely disenchanted with his community. In order to try to solve his problem of being alone in his experience, he tries to share the memories with family and friends, but only succeeds in doing so with Gabe. He does not come up with a way to solve his problem, but the memories plant the seed for the actions Jonas takes in the next part of the book.
What is the major problem and solution in The Giver by Lois Lowry?
The main problem that is presented in the The Giver is that no one in the community questions anything, nor do they really understand the reason for anything. Individuals have given up their own critical and individual abilities to make decisions in favor of the community Elders making those decisions for them. Individuals do not have memories of their societal history, so they really are kept in the dark about why they do what they do. Even the community members’ feelings have been dulled over time, as Jonas begins to notice once he has felt deeper feelings through the memories. As a result, the community lives a very regulated life that is dictated by carefully crafted rules. The community faces no major problems or inconveniences and everything is routine. Life is easy.
The solution, toward the end of the novel, is that when Jonas leaves, the memories he has been given will be transferred back to the community. This will be hard for the community members because they have never been uncomfortable, let alone felt the type of emotional or physical pain that Jonas and the Giver have. The Giver thinks that this will help the community in the long run:
"I think they can [bear this burden], and they will acquire some wisdom. But it will be desperately hard for them. When we lost Rosemary ten years ago, and her memories returned to the people, they panicked" (Ch.20).
The Giver says they will need help in dealing with those memories that they get from Jonas, and that the Giver will be the one to help them with that burden. So, the solution is to help the community members begin to start remembering their past so they can have a true context for the life they currently live. Only then can they perhaps begin to question if this is a way of life they want to continue versus it being a life they were born into and never thought to question.
In The Giver, what is the main character's problem and its solution?
Jonas, the main character in The Giver, actually faces a few problems in the book. That being said, the primary problem he encounters, and then actually runs from, is that the elders of the community he lives in have made collective decisions to keep information from the majority of the citizens. The information they keep from them is information that we, in our own society now, consider to be integral to a healthy way of living, not just for individuals, but also for communities as a whole. In his new position as receiver, Jonas must learn information that the community is not allowed to have, and the emotional weight and burden of this knowledge becomes more than he can stand. He realizes he no longer wants to be part of a community run in this way and his solution is to leave.
One piece of information that the elders have decided to keep from everyone is how death occurs. It is a very sanitized and secretive process in the book, so much so that very few people know what happens at the end of life. The community calls this "release" and a small celebration of life is given, but then the person simply leaves the community. Doctors, and elders, know what "release" really is, but the majority of citizens are unaware of the process of death. This one example is just one piece of information that is keep from the average person.
So, the problem Jonas faces is that he becomes aware of information that the majority of his community does not have and never will be allowed to have. The information is also very burdensome for Jonas emotionally and he only has the Giver to share his feelings with, so this isolates Jonas from his community. Eventually, this burden becomes too much for him to bear and he leaves his community rather than stays and tries to live in isolation. Leaving is a great risk, as he has no idea what lies outside of the community's borders, but this "solution" is seen as the lesser evil than staying.
In The Giver by Lois Lowry the main character is twelve year old Jonas. The major problem that he faces is that he is given a prestigious apprenticeship where he learns secret information about his society, and then he realizes that his people are doing terrible things in order to keep everyone comfortable.
When Jonas is chosen Receiver of Memory, he is just as ignorant and ambivalent as the rest of the people in his community. He begins to learn the truth about mankind and the past when he receives memories of war, hunger, pain and suffering from The Giver.
When Jonas comes upon Asher playing a war game, he simply cannot look at the game the same way after experiencing a memory of real war.
In his mind, Jonas saw again the face of the boy who had lain dying on a field and had begged him for water. He had a sudden choking feeling, as if it were difficult to breathe. (p. 134)
So Jonas’s new problem becomes that he knows more than everyone else, and no longer seems to fit in. When Jonas asks to see the release of the newchild it is out of curiosity, but it changes him forever as “he saw the face of the lighthaired, bloodied soldier as life left his eye” (p. 150).
The memory came back. He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. He continued to stare at the screen numbly. (p. 150)
From that point on, Jonas has to both save Gabriel, who is scheduled to be released, and to return the community to sanity by releasing the memories back to them.
Lowry, Lois (1993-04-26). The Giver (Newbery Medal Book). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
What is the main conflict type in The Giver?
There are many themes and conflicts in Lois Lowry's The Giver, but the most predominant one would be the conflict between individualism and social conformity--in other words, man versus society.
In the community in which Jonas dwells, nothing is left up to chance. All elements of human life are strictly controlled and ritualized, creating a highly insular environment in which men and women are assigned spouses, jobs, rest days, and even non-biological children. Residents are not allowed to experience "stirrings" (or sexual feelings), do not marry for love, do not produce their own offspring, and are "released" (euthanized) when they reach old age. They also are incapable of feeling emotions and are unable to see color. In other words, their lives are highly compressed, regulated versions of a normal human life. They have forfeited individualism for "sameness."
After Jonas is named as the next Receiver, he is given the banished memories of the community--their joy, sadness, pain, love, etc. Realizing the truly dimensional human experience that his fellow residents are missing, Jonas decides that he must escape the community in order to release these memories back to their rightful owners. So, while the focus here is on man versus society, there is also an element of man for society; Jonas must defeat these rules by abandoning the community that has restricted people for so long, therein saving that community.
To me, the main conflict in this book is man vs. society. In this case, the "man" is Jonas. Most of the conflict in the book comes as he tries to come to grips with what his society is like. He eventually resolves the conflict by leaving the society.
I think that the main theme of the book ties in with this. The theme, to me, is that people need to be allowed to be human. They have to be allowed to have real feelings and make decisions for themselves. The author is saying that it is really bad for people to always be protected and told what to do.
What conflict does the main character face in The Giver?
Another possible answer is that the novel deals with being the same vs. being different. There's no doubt that Jonas is different from everyone else, and he is treated special, and different, and he's uncomfortable with that; lying is the thing he has the most problem with, but when he finds out that everyone lies, it devastates him. The fact that Jonas, or anyone, is different, causes problems with the society; Gabriel is nearly killed as a result of not fitting into the sameness.
It's important to consider, though, some of the things that this society is no doubt attempting to do by making everyone the same. People are to be healthy, intelligent, and everyone has a role in this society. The biggest problem with the society in The Giver, of course, is what happens to you if you're different, and most people would agree that it's not OK what this society does.
Dave Becker
Generally, the conflict is the individual vs. society. Specifically, Jonas is struggling against his community that has made everyone the same, taking away individuality. The communitiy has also taken away choice, emotions, and emotional relationships. Gabriel is scheduled to be "Released" because he isn't progressing as he should for his age. This is the event that causes Jonas to take Gabriel and leave the community.
On the other side of the conflict, the people have a community where there's no war, no conflict, and no problems. Everyone is given a role at the age of twelve to become a productive member of the community. The community runs smoothly as long as there is no outside interference, such as the plane that flies overhead.
What was Jonas's solution to his problem in The Giver?
Jonas’s problem is that his community is overly restrictive and after he begins his training as Receiver of Memory he realizes this and wants to do something about it, so he runs away.
The situation in Jonas’s community is not something that he is aware of until he begins his training as Receiver of Memory. Like everyone else in his community, he thinks that his community is perfect. Once he becomes the new Receiver and begins training, he realizes that his community has made a lot of compromises and trade-offs for this perfection.
Jonas’s community wants everyone to be happy. In the pursuit of this goal, the community has instituted a policy of Sameness. This means that there are strict rules for every aspect of life, and most decisions are made for the citizens. They have common property and relationships are created for people.
Jonas's training gives him, and only him, access to memories of how things used to be. As Jonas continues his training, he feels more and more isolated from people. He starts to understand that they are living a life that is outside of what humans are meant to experience. They do not live a full life.
They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely, and he rubbed his throbbing leg. He eventually slept. Again and again he dreamed of the anguish and the isolation on the forsaken hill. (Ch. 14)
Jonas’s community does not know pain, but they also do not know love. There is no romance, because the population is controlled and people take special pills to prevent puberty. Because of this, there are also no families in the sense that we know them. No one knows affection. Jonas realizes that people are missing out on a large part of the human experience.
When Jonas realizes that his community has an even darker side, he decides to take action. This comes when he sees his father give a lethal injection to a newborn baby. His community calls this release, and it is fairly common.
He killed it! My father killed it! Jonassaid to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. He continued to stare at the screen numbly.
… Then he picked up a small carton that lay waiting on the floor, set it on the bed, and lifted the limp body into it. He placed the lid on tightly. (Ch. 19)
Jonas decides to address this problem by running away. He has the help of his mentor, The Giver. When Jonas runs away, the community's memories will return to them, and they will no longer be able to maintain the Sameness than they have been trapped in.
In The Giver, what is The Giver's main problem and how does he solve it?
To me, the main problem for the The Giver is to figure out how to get revenge on his society for what it had done to his daughter Rosemary.
As you will remember Rosemary was selected to be the apprentice Receiver but could not handle it. She then asked to be released. The Giver knows that that means she was killed. Ever since then, I think, he has understood that something is deeply flawed about his society.
In this book, The Giver figures out that he can take revenge on society (or maybe try to fix it) by helping Jonas to escape. He knows that Jonas will release the Memories if he escapes. Having those memories will totally change (or destory) society. This gives The Giver a way to have his revenge.
What initial problem does the main character face in The Giver?
If you are really asking what the first problem that Jonas faces is, I would say the problem is how he will fit in to his society. He is specifically worried about what job he will be assigned to at his Ceremony of Twelve. At this point in the story, all he is really worried about is being a good member of the community.
But after he is selected as the new Receiver of Memory, his conflict soon changes. Now the conflict is between him and the society as he finds out that he does not like the contrast between the things he sees in his memories and what he sees in his actual life.