http://thebookbugbooksfortweensandteens.blogspot.com/2010/05/review-giver-by-lois-lowry.html
Dear Mother and Father,
My life has been a constant roller-coaster ride filled with surprises and the learning of important knowledge ever since I became the Receiver. I never knew so much could change just by being appointed my job, just like all the other children. Then again, I never knew I would be given the job of Receiver, a most unusual and distinct occupation. I feel like I have been isolated for the last few weeks and I have not been apart of your lives as much as I used to be. But today marks the starting point of my permanent isolation from you, Mother and Father. You will not see me again and I am writing this letter as to clear up the confusion I may cause you once you find me gone.
First, let me explain to you why I had to leave. My job of the Receiver is a very complicated one, as the Chief Elder told you that fateful day that transpired mere days ago, even though I feel like it has been ages. As a Receiver you are to receive, hence the name, memories from the Giver. And now I must elaborate the complex reasons that drove me to leave the community. These memories are much like experiences that the Giver has gotten from the previous Giver and are of times long ago, before the community transitioned into Sameness. How glorious some of these memories are! One was of a day where elder people, called "grandparents", were sitting with their family, no not a family unit, but a family that was able to share pleasurable moments together and they were all by a fire and there was this tree that was shining with lights of different colors of red and green and yellow and underneath it children were unwrapping boxes to discover toys (Page 122-123 of The Giver by Lois Lowry). But, you do not know what colors are, do you? They add variety to the world and they are… It is very hard to explain, but everything in that memory was so warm and calming and it introduced me to love! Love is definitely a word that should be used more often and is such a nice word for it describes that feeling... It is not enjoying someone else's presence, but a sense that you care for them deeply. The memory, in fact, was the Giver's favorite memory. The kind of pleasure and love I felt had a stronger depth then what happiness you, Mother and Father, feel. This was more powerful and more… How do I explain it? It felt good, to say in but simple words.
Although, not all memories were delightful as that one. Another memory, the Giver was pained to watch me receive it, was of a distressing event of a kind of grief and pain that you have never even breached the surface of. In the memory, the air of the land was blanketed with smoke and smog. There were injured men groaning around the expanse of land and a creature called a horse, similar to the elephant toy Lily has except leaner, muscular and it has a shorter snout and a mane of hair, was running around in panic. A boy asked for water. He was about my age and he was streaked with blood and dirt. In the memory I experienced, my arm was coated with blood and I felt pain. Not like how I crushed my finger in a door last year, but more immense and there was no medication to ease it. When I handed the boy water, he drank, eagerly. But then he closed his eyes and did not open them again (Page 118-120 of The Giver by Lois Lowry). I know you, Father, will know what happened to the boy. He died. In our community we would call it release to kill someone and therefore cause their death. You had to release that twin baby and that is another thing I need to get out of the way (Page 149-151 of The Giver by Lois Lowry). I do not like the idea of release and how you released that poor innocent baby. But, that is part of the community life and is needed in order to have organization, normality, and regularity in the community and is one of the multiple roles that you, Father, must carry out as you are a Nurturer.
And this leads me to the reason of why I have to leave. The memories I have described to you express both pleasure and comfort, but also pain and sadness. The community, in which you live, has never had exposure to feelings like that, other than the occasional surge of weak feeling that powers our discussions at dinner. These powerless approaches to feeling, is what empowers Lily to shake her fist in the air, because of the boy from the other community and how he did not follow the rules (Page 5 of The Giver by Lois Lowry). This anger that Lily had towards to boy was insignificant and could be dealt with easily, for she could discuss it and it would soon fade, because it was not true emotion that influences your actions and is purely uncontrollable. The people of the community have only infrequent and short encounters with emotion. Nothing like how I have felt in the past few days. I have learned so much from the Giver as his Receiver, including the fact that our community has an absence of these intense emotions, which can be a con or a pro, depending on what you think. There is also a lack of freedom, color, expression, music, all these beautiful things! No choice is available in our community, our ideas are influenced by the Committee, and we have no ability to choose what we want in life and how we should live! Like I once told the Giver, I want to be able to decide what color tunic I wear (Page 97). Even if I make the wrong decision, I will learn from my mistakes. My experiences and my mistakes and my choices will form my identity and create the person that I am. I do not mind being different, because I want to be the person that my choices mold me into. I want to run my own life, not a life that the Committee has generated for me and I want to call the life I live my life! I know that if I want pleasure, I will have to have misery, because I cannot appreciate happiness without grief, but the joy is, certainly, worth the sorrow. I want to create my own memories to share with my own family and grandparents. I want to have a tree with colorful lights and a day where I feel warm and happy inside! But, I also want you, Mother and Father, and Lily, Asher, and Fiona to enjoy these things also. I want the whole community to change for the better. To have freedom, color, weather, expression, grandparents, and emotion. And this is why I had to leave the community I lived all my life in and walk away from the family and friends I have come to love. Once I do leave, all the memories that I have acquired will be bestowed upon the people of the community, including you, my dear parents. And then you will gain the knowledge of everything I have come to know and the community will advance into a brighter and more free future and in the course I will be saving Gabriel from the dismal death that been set for him, because he has been unlike the others and held back the order of the community.
A better future for the community and the protection Gabriel from his death that I wish will be fulfilled comes with only one sacrifice: I must leave. I have to be out of the boundaries of the community, in order for you to obtain my memories. As you are reading this letter, I will be well on my way to my destination that is a different community, where they hopefully have everything I yearn for, freedom, expression, emotion, weather, and color. And there Gabriel and I will begin anew and become accustomed to a brand new way of living, and probably we will like this new life. But, I promise that I will forever remember you and love you. With the memories that you will soon be given, you will need the Giver's help. It will be a horrifying and exciting experience, trust me I know. These memories will cease the dishonor you might have labelled me with and will open your eyes to a whole, diverse world that you have never even noticed before. I think that if I was just a normal boy, not the Receiver, then you would not receive the memories if I were to die or leave the community, therefore you would just chant my name repeatedly and eventually forget about me completely like the boy who died in the river sometime ago. I would only be a vague image in your brain, terminated from the community and possibly even looked upon as a disgrace. But since I am indeed the Receiver, it is an entirely different line of events. This way I would make a very prominent imprint in the history of the community and I hope you, Mother and Father, and Lily, Asher and Fiona, and the rest of the community do not remember me as solely Jonas. No. I believe I am much more than that. I want to be recalled as someone who led the development and improvement of the society in which I used to live and where you currently reside. Will you please remember me as a…a… hero? Yes, that is the word! A hero! Jonas the hero of the community, the boy who gave up his familiar life in his only home for the rescue of a special and pure baby and for the enhancement of the future of the community. Jonas the Hero…
I must be going now. I will miss you, Mother and Father. Please tell the Giver that I love and thank him for what he has done for me. Tell Lily, Asher, and Fiona I love them and miss them, too! I really have to go now. Best of luck.
Love,
Jonas the Hero ;)
