The Giver Theme

Jonas is a dynamic character throughout the book The Giver. In the beginning of the book, Jonas was an innocent, quite nervous, and somewhat selfish child. Towards the end of the book, Jonas is very attentive, selfless, and starts to become defiant. As “December” arrives, “...he wasn’t frightened, but he was… eager, he decided. He was eager for it to come. And he was excited, certainly. (5)” This quotes explains that Jonas is very worried about himself and his career in the future. He’s selfish, but not in a bad way. Everyone worries about themselves and it’s okay. But, towards the end of the book, “He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself. (174)” Jonas no longer cares about himself and his health. He only cares about Gabriel and if he’s going to make it and be okay.  Also, on page 130, it says, “He had not taken the pills, now, for four weeks. The Stirrings had returned, and he felt a little guilty and embarrassed…” This quote shows that Jonas is going against their rules and lying about the Stirring pills. Overall, Jonas has changed dramatically throughout the book after experiencing memories and learning the truth about his community.

The theme of the book, The Giver, is that in order to experience love and feel love, you need to go through hardships and hard times. In The Giver as Jonas gets the memories, he starts to feel love and emotions. Before that, Jonas was just like everyone in the community, he had no feelings or emotions. When Jonas is escaping the community, he says, “But the moment passed and was followed by an urge, a need, a passionate yearning to share the warmth with the one person left for him to love. Aching from the effort, he forced the memory of warmth into the thin, shivering body in his arms. (177)” This quote shows that Jonas felt love for Fiona, although he left her to save the community. If Jonas was not given memories, he would have not had any emotions like love or sadness. Memories, emotions, and feelings affects the community because everyone is the same. They don't have emotions or feelings. Only Jonas and the Giver have feelings. In the book The Giver, Jonas wasn’t the only one that felt emotions. The Giver felt emotions as well. When Jonas and the Giver talked about Rosemary he says, “It broke my heart, Jonas, to transfer pain to her. But it was my job. It was what I had to do, the way I’ve had to do it to you. (141)” This quote shows that the Giver really loved Rosemary and it affected him to see her hurt. He had no choice because it’s his job to transfer memories.