The Giver is a 1993 American young adultdystopian novel written by Lois Lowry, set in a society which at first appears to be utopian but is revealed to be dystopian as the story progresses.
In the novel, the society has taken away pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. In an effort to preserve order, the society has a true sense of equality and lacks any color, climate, or terrain. The protagonist of the story, a 12-year-old boy named Jonas, is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness. Jonas struggles with concepts of the new emotions and things introduced to him, and whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is possible to have one without the other.[1]
The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.[2] A 2012 survey by School Library Journal designated it as the fourth-best children's novel of all time.[3] It has been the subject of a large body of scholarly analysis, with academics considering themes of memory, religion, color, eugenics and utopia within the novel. In Australia, Canada, and the United States, it is required on many core curriculum reading lists in middle school,[4] but it is also frequently challenged. It ranked #11 on the American Library Association list of the most challenged books of the 1990s,[5] ranked #23 in the 2000s,[6] and ranked #61 in the 2010s.[7]
Jonas, a 12-year-old boy, lives in a Community isolated from all except a few similar towns, where everyone has an assigned role. With the annual Ceremony of Twelve upcoming, he is nervous, for there he will be assigned his life's work. He seeks reassurance from his father, a Nurturer (who cares for the infants in the Community) and his mother, an official in the Department of Justice. He is told that the Elders, who assign the children their careers, are always right.
The day finally arrives, and Jonas is assembled with his classmates in order of birth. The Chief Elder, who presides, initially passes over Jonas's turn and at the ceremony's conclusion explains that Jonas has not been given a normal assignment, but instead has been selected as the next Receiver of Memory. The position of Receiver has high status and responsibility, and Jonas quickly finds himself growing distant from his classmates. The rules Jonas receives further separate him, as they allow him no time to play with his friends and require him to keep his training secret. They also allow him to lie and withhold his feelings from his family, things generally not allowed in the regimented Community.
Once he begins it, Jonas's training makes clear his uniqueness, for the Receiver of Memory is just that—a person who bears the burden of the memories from all of history, and who is the only one allowed access to books beyond schoolbooks and the rulebook issued to every household. The current Receiver, who asks Jonas to call him the Giver, begins the process of transferring those memories to Jonas, for the ordinary person in the Community knows nothing of the past. These memories, and being the only Community member allowed access to books about the past, give the Receiver perspective to advise the Council of Elders. The first memory is of sliding down a snow-covered hill on a sled, pleasantness made shocking by the fact that Jonas has never seen a sled, or snow, or a hill—for the memories of even these things have been given up to assure security and conformity (called Sameness). Even color has been surrendered, and the Giver shows Jonas a rainbow. Less pleasantly, he gives Jonas memories of hunger and war, things alien to the boy. Hanging over Jonas's training is the fact that the Giver once before had an apprentice, named Rosemary, but the boy finds his parents and the Giver reluctant to discuss what happened to her.
Jonas's father is concerned about an infant at the Nurturing Center who is failing to thrive and has received special permission to bring him home at night. The baby's name will be Gabriel if he grows strong enough to be assigned to a family. He has pale eyes, like Jonas and the Giver. Jonas grows attached to him, especially when Jonas finds that he can receive memories. If Gabriel does not increase in strength, he will be "released from the Community"—in common speech, taken Elsewhere. This has happened to an off-course air pilot, to chronic rule breakers, to elderly people, and to the apprentice Rosemary. After Jonas speculates about life in Elsewhere, the Giver educates him by showing the boy hidden-camera video of Jonas's father doing his job: releasing the smaller of two identical twin newborns through lethal injection before putting it in a trash chute, since identical community members are forbidden. There is no Elsewhere for those not wanted by the Community—those said to have been "released" have been killed.
Since he now considers his father a murderer, Jonas initially refuses to return home, but the Giver convinces him that without the memories, the people of the Community cannot know that what they have been trained to do is wrong. Rosemary was unable to endure the darker memories of the past and instead killed herself with the poison. Jonas and the Giver devise a plan to return the community's memories so they may know where they have gone wrong. Both agree that Jonas will leave the community thereby returning the memories to them, while the Giver will stay to help them learn to live with their memories before joining his daughter, Rosemary, in death. They plan to fake Jonas's drowning to limit the search for him, but he instead must escape in a rush with Gabriel, upon learning of the child's imminent release. The two are near death from cold and starvation when they reach the border of what Jonas believes must be Elsewhere. Using his ability to "see beyond", a gift that he does not quite understand, he finds a sled waiting for him at the top of a snowy hill. He and Gabriel ride the sled down towards a house filled with colored lights and warmth and love and a Christmas tree, and for the first time he hears something he believes must be music. The ending is ambiguous, with Jonas depicted as experiencing symptoms of hypothermia. This leaves his and Gabriel's future unresolved. However, their fate is revealed in Messenger and Son, companion novels written years later.[10]
In 2009, at the National Book Festival, the author joked during a Q&A: "Jonas is alive, by the way. You don't need to ask that question."[11]
Background
Lowry has stated that her books all explore "the importance of human connection… the vital need for humans to be aware of their interdependence, not only with each other, but with the world and its environment."[12] Like Lowry's other books, The Giver shows changes in the characters' lives, reflecting this fascination in the multifaceted dimensions of growing up.[13]
The Giver was initially inspired by Lowry's interaction with her father, who, in his senility, kept forgetting about the long-ago death of her sister;[14] she imagined "a novel in which people are deprived of the memories of suffering, grief, and pain."[15] She based the novel's setting in part on the closely guarded army bases in which she had grown up, her father having been an army dentist.[14] She has stated, of the characters in The Giver, they have lived in a sterile world for so long that they are in danger of losing the real emotions that make them human.[16]
Analysis of themes
Memory
Bradford et al. argue that The Giver represents a community where the lack of cultural memory leads to an inability to avoid societal mistakes, preventing the community from becoming a true Utopia, thus conferring transformational potential on human memory.[17] Hanson interprets the restriction of memory as totalitarian and argues that Lowry demonstrates the emancipatory potential of memory in The Giver.[18] Triplett and Han suggest that Jonas's role as receiver of memory, allowing him a deeper understanding of his societal and cultural context, demonstrates the validity of suspicious methods of reading that attempt to obtain deeper rather than surface meanings.[19]
Religion
Bradford et al. suggest The Giver's depiction of Christmas at the novel's end implies that an ideal community is in part represented by a family Christmas, therefore situating the novel as conservative.[20] Graeme Wend-Walker, an academic, analyzed the then-trilogy in 2013 through a post-secular lens and suggested that removing religion entirely from human society and lives could diminish humanity's capacity for accepting differences rather than providing for human liberation as some may assume.[21] Countering Bradford's claim, which would suggest that the novel is conservative rather than transformative due to its religious imagery and undertones, Wend-Walker's post-secular reading suggests that the novel explores the ambiguity between the secular and religious binary which provides it progressive potential by allowing for the transformative potential of the spiritual.[22]
Color
Susan G. Lea has emphasized that sameness is crucial to the world of The Giver, and furthermore that their monochromatic vision creates a color blindness within the community that cannot be aware of the effects of the absence of color.[23] She likens the lack of difference and literal color blindness of The Giver's community with color blind attitudes that act as if racial difference does not exist, and suggests that the book shows the way that colorblindness erases people of color and their experiences through their lack of visibility.[24] Kyoungmin and Lee examine Jonas's growing ability to see color rather than the lack of color in his community and argue that his selfhood grows as his memory and perception of color grow.[25] They suggest that Jonas's full perception of color at the end is what allows him to choose to travel elsewhere as an autonomous agent in comparison to others in his community.[26]
Eugenics and gene editing
Elizabeth Bridges reads an implication of gene editing in the development of the homogenous community, based on euphemistic language throughout the novel.[27] She suggests that the release of those who do not fit societal conventions represents the ways that eugenics were employed by the society of The Giver.[27] Robert Gadowski suggests that government control of bodies inhibits the society's freedoms.[28] He argues that through bio-technical planning, people's bodies become vehicles of state control rather than the locus of their autonomy.[29]
Literary significance and reception
In the United States, The Giver has become frequently assigned as reading in schools, as well as library-sponsored reading clubs and "City Reads" programs.[30][31]
However, reviewers have commented that the story lacks originality and is not likely to stand up to the sort of probing literary criticism used in "serious" circles. Others argue that the book's appeal to a young-adult audience is critical for building a developing reader's appetite for reading.[32] Karen Ray, writing in The New York Times, detects "occasional logical lapses", but adds that the book "is sure to keep older children reading".[33] Young adult fiction author Debra Doyle was more critical, stating that "Personal taste aside, The Giver fails the [science fiction] Plausibility Test," and that "Things are the way they are [in the novel] because The Author is Making A Point; things work out the way they do because The Author's Point Requires It."[34]
Children's author Natalie Babbitt, writing in The Washington Post called the novel "a warning in narrative form," saying: "The story has been told before in a variety of forms—Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind—but not, to my knowledge, for children. It's well worth telling, especially by a writer of Lowry's great skill. If it is exceedingly fragile—if, in other words, some situations do not survive that well-known suspension of disbelief—well, so be it. The Giver has things to say that cannot be said too often, and I hope there will be many, many young people who will be willing to listen.[35] A review in The Horn Book Magazine stated, "In a departure from her well-known and favorably regarded realistic works, Lois Lowry has written a fascinating, thoughtful science-fiction novel... The story is skillfully written; the air of disquiet is delicately insinuated. And the theme of balancing the virtues of freedom and security is beautifully presented."[36]
Censorship in the United States
The Giver has been a frequent subject of bans, or attempted bans, in school libraries, due to its dark themes and violence.[37] In a 2020 question-and-session, Lowry stated that the calls for banning have usually come from parents and others who have not read the book, but only seen descriptions or out-of-context quotes; and that those who have called for its banning have usually changed their mind after reading it.[14] Lowry has stated that she is against any censorship, and that no literature should be considered off-limits.[14] Some[who?] have noted the irony of wanting to censor a novel that warns about societal control of children.[38][39]
Awards, nominations, and recognition
Lowry won many awards for her work on The Giver, including the following:
A 2004 study found that The Giver was a common read-aloud book for sixth-graders in schools in San Diego County, California.[43] Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed it as one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".[44] In 2012 it was ranked number four among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.[45]
Adaptations
Oregon Children's Theatre (Portland, Oregon) premiered a stage adaptation of The Giver by Eric Coble in March 2006. Subsequent productions of Coble's one-hour script have been presented in several American theatres.
Another stage adaptation, written by Diana Basmajian, was produced by Prime Stage Theatre in 2006.[46]
The Lyric Opera of Kansas City and the Minnesota Opera co-commissioned and premiered an opera by Susan Kander based on the novel.[47] It was presented in Kansas City in January and Minneapolis on April 27–29, 2012, and was webcast on May 18, 2012.[48]
In 2017, a stage musical adaptation was in the development stages, with a book by Martin Zimmerman and music and lyrics by Jonah Platt and Andrew Resnick.[49]
In the fall of 1994, actor Bill Cosby and his ASIS Productions film company established an agreement with Lancit Media Productions to adapt The Giver to film. In the years following, members of the partnership changed and the production team grew in size, but little motion was seen toward making the film. At one point, screenwriter Ed Neumeier was signed to create the screenplay. Later, Neumeier was replaced by Todd Alcott[51] and Walden Media became the central production company.[52][53]
Lois Ann Lowry is an American writer. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, including The Giver Quartet, Number the Stars, and Rabble Starkey. She is known for writing about difficult subject matters, dystopias, and complex themes in works for young audiences.
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is an American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia. For four different books published 1975–1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Children's Literature Legacy Award from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.
Young adult literature (YA) is typically written for readers aged 12 to 18 and includes most of the themes found in adult fiction, such as friendship, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. It is characterized by simpler world building than adult literature as it seeks to highlight the experiences of adolescents in a variety of ways. There are various genres within young adult literature.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a 1971 children's science fiction/fantasy book by Robert C. O'Brien, with illustrations by Zena Bernstein. The novel was published by the Los Angeles publishing house Atheneum Books.
Gathering Blue is a young adult-dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry and was published on September 25, 2000. A companion book to The Giver (1993), it is set in the same future time period and universe, treats some of the same themes, and is followed by Messenger (2004) and Son (2012) in The Giver Quartet.
Messenger is a 2004 young adult dystopian novel by American author Lois Lowry, as is the third installment of The Giver Quartet, which began with the 1993 Newbery Medal-winning novel The Giver. The story takes place about six years after the events of The Giver, and the events of Gathering Blue, the preceding novel in the series. Characters from both of the previous books reappear in Messenger and give the novels a stronger continuity.
Number the Stars is a work of historical fiction by the American author Lois Lowry about the escape of a family of Jews from Copenhagen, Denmark, during World War II.
Christopher Paul Curtis is an American children's book author. His first novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, was published in 1995 and brought him immediate national recognition, receiving the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award and the Newbery Honor Book Award, in addition to numerous other awards. In 2000, he became the first person to win both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award—prizes received for his second novel Bud, Not Buddy—and the first African-American man to win the Newbery Medal. His novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 was made into a television film in 2013.
Joseph Quincy Krumgold was an American writer of books and screenplays. He was the first person to win two annual Newbery Medals for the most distinguished new American children's book.
Walter Dean Myers was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Harlem, New York City. A tough childhood led him to writing and his school teachers would encourage him in this habit as a way to express himself. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.
Gossamer (2006) is a novel with elements of both fantasy and realism for young adults by Lois Lowry.
All About Sam (1988) is a children's novel by Lois Lowry. It is the first in a series of four novels about the character Sam Krupnik; a character Lowry had developed earlier in her books on Sam's older sister, Anastasia Krupnik. The novel is known for its humor, and was included in the 2003 reference publication Something Funny Happened At the Library published by the American Library Association. A 1997 assessment of the novel by Joel Chaston stated that the work had wide appeal to young readers, and whereas the related Anastasia series books had appealed more to girls, the Sam Krupnik series expanded readership to audience of all genders.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Alice Dalgliesh was a naturalized American writer and publisher who wrote more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books, mainly for children. She has been called "a pioneer in the field of children's historical fiction". Three of her books were runners-up for the annual Newbery Medal, the partly autobiographical The Silver Pencil, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, and The Courage of Sarah Noble, which was also named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list.
Enchantress from the Stars is a young adult science fiction novel by Sylvia Engdahl published by Atheneum Books in 1970. It was her first book and is set in the Anthropology Service universe. Its sequel The Far Side of Evil (1971) features the same heroine, Elana, and the two are sometimes called the Elana series, although the sequel is quite different in tone.
Dear Mr. Henshaw is a juvenile epistolary novel by Beverly Cleary and illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky that was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1984. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".
Anita Silvey is an American author, editor, and literary critic in the genre of children’s literature. Born in 1947 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Silvey has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book Magazine and as vice-president at Houghton Mifflin where she oversaw children’s and young adult book publishing. She has also authored a number of critical books about children's literature, including 500 Great Books for Teens and The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators. In October 2010, she began publishing the Children's Book-A-Day Almanac online, a daily essay on classic and contemporary children's books.
Son is a 2012 young adult dystopian novel by American author Lois Lowry. The fourth and final book in The Giver Quartet, the story takes place during and after the first book in the series, The Giver. The story follows Claire, the Birthmother of Gabriel, who was marked for "release" in The Giver before being taken out of the community by Jonas. Claire, obsessed with finding her son, embarks on a journey out of the community in an attempt to follow and find him. The novel explores themes of love, obligation, sacrifice, and loss. Son received mostly positive reviews from critics.
The Giver is a 2014 American dystopian drama film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Cameron Monaghan, Taylor Swift, and Emma Tremblay. The film is based on the 1993 young adult novel of the same name by Lois Lowry. The Giver premiered on August 11, 2014, and was released theatrically in the United States on August 15, 2014. It grossed $67 million on a $25 million budget and received a People's Choice Award nomination for "Favorite Dramatic Movie".
The Giver Quartet is a series of four books about a dystopian world by Lois Lowry. The quartet consists of The Giver (1993), Gathering Blue (2000), Messenger (2004), and Son (2012). The first book won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 10 million copies. The story takes place in the world of The Giver. Each book has a different protagonist, but is set in the same futuristic era.
↑ Lois Lowry (1937--). (2020). In D. G. Felder, The American women's almanac: 500 years of making history. Visible Ink Press. Credo Reference.
↑ Zaidman, Laura M. "Lois Lowry: Overview." Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, edited by Laura Standley Berger, St. James Press, 1994. Twentieth-Century Writers Series. Gale Literature Resource Center.
↑ Lowry, Lois. "Newbery Medal Acceptance." Children's Literature Review, edited by Linda R. Andres, vol. 46, Gale, 1998. Gale Literature Resource Center.
↑ "Why did Lois Lowry write the book The Giver?" eNotes Editorial, 6 Feb. 2018.
↑ Bradford, Clare, et al. "'Radiant with Possibility': Communities and Utopianism." New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, pp. 109-110.
↑ Hanson, Carter F. "The Utopian Function of Memory in Lois Lowry's the Giver." Extrapolation, vol. 50, 2009, pp. 45+. Gale Literature Resource Center; Gale.
↑ Triplett, C. C., and John J. Han. "Unmasking the Deception: The Hermeneutic of Suspicion in Lois Lowry's the Giver." Edited by John J. Han, C. C. Triplett, and Ashley G. Anthony. McFarland & Company Publishing, Jefferson, NC, 2018, pp. 120-121.
↑ Bradford, Clare, et al. "'Radiant with Possibility': Communities and Utopianism." New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 110.
↑ Wend-Walker, Graeme. "On the Possibility of Elsewhere: A Postsecular Reading of Lois Lowry's Giver Trilogy." Children's Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, p. 139.
↑ Wend-Walker, Graeme. "On the Possibility of Elsewhere: A Postsecular Reading of Lois Lowry's Giver Trilogy." Children's Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, p. p. 141.
↑ Lea, Susan G. "Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using the Giver to Challenge Colorblind Ideology." Children's Literature in Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2006, pp. 51-67, p. 57.
↑ Lea, Susan G. "Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using the Giver to Challenge Colorblind Ideology." Children's Literature in Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2006, pp. 60-61.
↑ Kyoung-Min, Han, and Yonghwa Lee. "The Philosophical and Ethical Significance of Color in Lois Lowry's the Giver." The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 42, no. 3, 2018. Literature Online, ProQuest Central, Research Library, doi:10.1353/uni.2018.0031. pp. 338-339.
↑ Kyoung-Min, Han, and Yonghwa Lee. "The Philosophical and Ethical Significance of Color in Lois Lowry's the Giver." The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 42, no. 3, 2018. Literature Online, ProQuest Central, Research Library, doi:10.1353/uni.2018.0031. pp. 340-341.
1 2 Bridges, Elizabeth. "Nasty Nazis and Extreme Americans: Cloning, Eugenics, and the Exchange of National Signifiers in Contemporary Science Fiction." Studies in Twentieth and Twenty First Century Literature, vol. 38, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1-19.
↑ Gadowski, Robert. "Critical Dystopia for Young People: The Freedom Meme in American Young Adult Dystopian Science Fiction." Edited by Andrzej Wicher, Piotr Spyra, and Joanna Matyjaszczyk. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 2014, pp. 154-155.
↑ Gadowski, Robert. "Critical Dystopia for Young People: The Freedom Meme in American Young Adult Dystopian Science Fiction." Edited by Andrzej Wicher, Piotr Spyra, and Joanna Matyjaszczyk. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 2014, p. 155.
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