Discussion Topic
Rosemary's Role, Symbolism, and Significance in The Giver
Summary:
In Lois Lowry's The Giver, Rosemary is a pivotal character, symbolizing remembrance and the emotional burden of memory. She was the Giver's daughter and a previous Receiver-in-Training who could not endure the painful memories of loneliness and loss, leading to her tragic suicide. Her story reveals the dangers of isolating pain and the necessity of communal memory. Rosemary's name, reminiscent of remembrance, underscores her symbolic role in highlighting the community's failings and the need for shared emotional experiences.
What do we learn about Rosemary in chapter 20 of The Giver?
At the end of chapter 20 of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, we learn that Rosemary is actually the Giver’s daughter. This comes as a surprise to Jonas and to readers, for before this, we have only known Rosemary as the previous Receiver.
Rosemary was like Jonas, special, someone who was capable of receiving and holding the community’s memories. But Rosemary could not handle the job. After receiving memories for only a few weeks, she applied for release. She could not bear the memories of pain and loss that were part of the package of being the Receiver.
Rosemary actually injected herself with the drug that killed her, and when she did, the Giver learned something very important. When Rosemary died, the memories that she had received flowed back into the community. Community members struggled with that experience, for they were not used to handling anything in the way...
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of pain or negativity or even emotion. They made a rule that Receivers and those in training for the position could not be released.
Now the Giver has an idea. If Jonas leaves the community, truly gets free of it, then the memories will fall upon the community, and they will have to bear them. Change will come. Jonas wants the Giver to go with him, but the Giver says that he must stay and help the community cope. Then it will be time for him to die, and he will go to be with his daughter, Rosemary.
In The Giver, who is the character Rosemary?
The Giver is a young adult novel about a community in which everyone has a specific job that they are chosen for. There is no color or climate in the community, and no one has any memories. The purpose of this is to create a structured, ordered society without pain and with a true sense or equality among its members. The Giver's role in the community is to hold all the memories to aid the community when decisions must be made. However the Giver, in his old age, must choose a new person to pass his memories to. This person is Jonas, the main character in the novel.
As Jonas begins his training, he is told about Rosemary, The Giver's daughter, who was previously chosen to receive her father's memories. She was in training for only five weeks when she was unable to handle the dark memories and asked to be released from the community. Upon her release, the memories that she had already received were given back to the community, which devastated the community. In present day, no one speaks of Rosemary or what happened to her, but it is later revealed that there is not another place those who are released are sent. Instead of being released, they are killed, and Rosemary willfully committed suicide by asking for release.
Rosemary was a Receiver-in-Training, the daughter of the Giver, who imparts his knowledge to Jonas, his new trainee.
In Chapter 18 Jonas asks the Giver about the concept of release. The Giver tells Jonas that he cannot be released until the new Receiver is named. The Giver tells Jonas,
"I know that. They hammered out those rules after the failure ten years ago."
This rule on no release came about after a Receiver-in-training named Rosemary abruptly asked for release after having been given memories of pain. The Giver tells Jonas that he loved Rosemary, but he had to impart such memories as loneliness to her. "She appeared stunned at its end." Then, one afternoon, Rosemary kissed the Giver on the cheek and left the room, and he never saw her again.
When Rosemary was released, her memories were also released into the community and the people were traumatized by the sensations of pain because they were unequipped to handle them. As he listens, it becomes clear to Jonas that the Giver has been greatly affected, but Jonas still does not fully understand release until he watches a video that shows his father releasing an infant. This new knowledge greatly affects Jonas, causing the Giver, who has been deliberating upon the ills of his community, to decide that memories must come back to the community because there are terrible flaws to their lives, one of them being euthanasia. It is then that the Giver reveals to Jonas that Rosemary injected herself, committing suicide, and that she was his daughter.
What is the symbolism of Rosemary in The Giver?
Rosemary, the former trainee for the role of Receiver of Memories, had a significant place in The Giver's heart, as she was his daughter. The Giver tells Jonas that he treated her with as much tenderness as he could, giving her lots of happy memories to attempt to balance out the difficult ones. However, as the weeks progressed, The Giver found that he had to transmit pain to her, as she would one day have to carry the weight of all the pain of society—just as he had done for many years. He couldn't bring himself to transmit physical pain, though, and thought he would be kinder if he showed her the emotional cruelty of the world instead:
I didn't give her physical pain. But I gave her loneliness. And I gave her loss. I transferred a memory of a child taken from its parents. That was the first one. She appeared stunned at its end.
The emotional pain became too much for Rosemary, and she requested her own release, essentially asking for an assisted suicide (the meaning of which is lost on other members of their society).
Traditionally, the herb rosemary carries symbolic significance. It is carried by mourners at some funerals as a symbol of remembrance and is also carried by some brides as a symbol of love and fidelity.
Rosemary embodies these qualities in her choices. She exemplifies that the remembrance of both love and pain is essential to living a fulfilling life and that this pain is too much for just one person to bear. Symbolically, she shows that sharing pain is a human experience that provides greater insight to the human experience and that no one should be left to shoulder great pain alone. She also shows great love in her relationship with The Giver. The relationship that she and The Giver (and Jonas and The Giver) share is not even seen in family units in their community. They engage on a much deeper level than the superficial one that is so common in their society, sharing joy and pain as they forge a relationship built on love (another idea which their community has lost). Her tragic ending shows the necessity of a world where memories are shared by everyone, painful though they may be.
I think it likely that Rosemary's name was chosen deliberately, an allusion to a famous line from Hamlet, in Act 4, Scene 5, where Ophelia says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember...." Since, in The Giver, Rosemary was a Receiver, she was intended to hold all the memories that the Giver passed on to her, so this is a perfect choice of name. Rosemary seems to be more a symbol of death in Hamlet, but of course that works well, too, in The Giver, because Rosemary is released at her own request, the memories she has received having devastated and depressed her to the point at which she no longer wished to live. In Shakespeare's day, herbs were often thought to have healing properties, but they were also symbolic. This is still true today, where there exists a language of flowers and herbs, although very few people seem to know this. I've included a little "guide" for this below.
References
I believe that Rosemary is symbolic of hope, failure, and danger.
She is not symbolic of hope for very long. In fact, she would be a hopeful character long before Jonas is even chosen to the be receiver of memory. That's because Rosemary was the previous receiver of memory. The society looks hopefully at the receiver, because they know that it is an important role in their society. That's why everybody is so in awe of Jonas when he is selected to be the new receiver. They see him as the hopeful continuation of a tradition of theirs.
Rosemary is also symbolic of danger and failure. When Jonas learns that he is not the first receiver to be trained by this particular giver, he asks what happened to the first. Jonas learns some important lessons from that question. He learns that what he will experience can be so painful and emotionally disturbing that he might not be able to do it. He might fail. Worse yet, his position as receiver might be so awful that he may actually request to be released (killed).
What is Rosemary's story in The Giver?
It is in Chapter 18 that the Receiver tells Jonas the story of what happened to the previous person selected to be the new Receiver. Up until now, her story has been a big mystery. All we know is that it ended very badly. The Giver tells Jonas that her name was Rosemary. When he began to transmit bad memories to her she was not able to take the pain and realisation of these strange emotions and sights. She insisted, however, that the Giver continued to transmit bad memories to her until, one day, after a particularly difficult session, Rosemary got up and went directly to the Chief Elder to demand that she be released. The Receiver goes on to tell Jonas later that she asked to inject herself when she was released. She was not able to accept the existence of emotions and pain, fear and loneliness, which had been eradicated by the Community.
Why was the previous receiver in The Giver named Rosemary?
In The Giver, the receiver of memories is the most important person in the community because they allow the community to keep up its facade of utopia. The receiver takes on all the memories for the community as a whole, and in doing so, they take on the emotions those memories give to a person like hatred, loneliness, fear, and pain. The community lives in bliss, almost under anesthesia, without having to face the hardships of life and negative feelings.
Rosemary, the name of the former receiver, is symbolic because of the herb she is named after. Her name is fitting because rosemary is a symbol of remembrance, usually remembrance of war, but also memory in general. Throughout the world, rosemary is worn or used in remembrance celebrations. The Australian War Memorial explains the significance:
Since ancient times this aromatic herb has been believed to have properties to improve the memory. Perhaps because of this, rosemary became an emblem of both fidelity and remembrance in literature and folklore. Traditionally, sprigs of rosemary are worn on ANZAC Day and sometimes on Remembrance Day, and are usually handed out by Legacy and the RSL. Rosemary has particular significance for Australians, as it is found growing wild on the Gallipoli peninsula.
It makes sense then that the person who is meant to bear the memories of the living and the dead would be named Rosemary. The only problem is Rosemary cannot carry the memories—she chooses instead to be released.
References
What happened to Rosemary and her memories in The Giver?
Rosemary finds herself unwilling or unable to deal with the burden of the memories she receives during the period of time when she is in training to become the next Receiver of Memories. Even though the Giver is selective about the types of memories he gives her, he cannot avoid giving her any type of pain.
And I didn't give her physical pain. But I gave her loneliness. And I gave her loss. I transferred a memory of a child taken from its parents. That was the first one. She appeared stunned at its end.
Rosemary goes to the Council of Elders and asks to be released from her assignment. She injects herself, as the "release" process is described, much to the pain of her father, the Giver. Since memories cannot disappear, they return to the entire community's awareness when Rosemary dies, causing members of the community great pain in the short term since they have no experience in dealing with pain.