Blogs I have commented on:)

Hi Ms Li,

These are the blogs I have commented on:

1. Judith Chong
http://the-receiver-of-memory.blogspot.com

2.Kimberly Chong
http://kimberlycthegiver.blogspot.com

3.Ke May Sin
http://maysingiver.blogspot.com

4.Rachel Siew
http://rachelsiew.blogspot.com

5.Nicolette Yau
http://giverofmemories.blogspot.com

Utopia, is it possible?

For the past few L.A. lessons, we have been going through The Giver and about how the people in this society undergo laborious activity to achieve “Sameness” in their community.

In The Giver’s society, the people have been freed from all the suffering and pain of this world and lead rather unfeeling and monotonous lives. However, all these changes they have made to the society have also resulted in the people being deprived from freedom of choice and has caused them to lose their individuality and creativity as well. All these negative aspects to achieving “Sameness” in the society have landed the community in more of a dystopian setting rather than the utopia they were trying to achieve. I feel that it is truly very disheartening to think of human beings, just like us, being barred from the true pleasures of life as well as the deep emotions of this world.

In The Giver’s society, the people were genetically modified in such a way that they were neither able to see colors nor hear music, and this caused the people to be rather indifferent towards each others’ physical differences. Assignments and spouses were also meticulously selected for the people based on their personalities and talents and even the members of each family unit, carefully observed and handpicked for each unit.

However, despite all their attempts to acquire “Sameness” in this dystopian society, there will always be an unavoidable hierarchy for the peoples’ assigned roles. For instance, even though the people in the society were each assigned their specific roles in the community, of which the chief elder regards as “Honoring their differences”, there was still discrimination against some jobs such as the Birthmother, which Jonas’s mother outspokenly deemed as a “job without honor”.

To achieve a utopian society, memories of the past have been completely washed from the peoples’ minds as well and they are also modified so that they will better conform to the ways of the society. Taking away all the emotions of the people, they live rather cold lives and this I feel is taking away an integral part of a human being’s life.

So, a utopia, is it really possible? Well, in my opinion it is as its meaning clearly describes, an “imaginary island", not possible and will never be .

"Memory is imagination pinned down. "

Mason Cooley

The Giver has taught me...

"All of us are bound to face multiple challenges and hardships in life,

and sometimes we complain about life not being fair. Living in Singapore with such a competitive education system undoubtedly adds on to these great challenges that most of us have to face as well. It is no doubt that many of us struggle to meet the high expectations of our parents who have invested huge amounts to enable us to further our education and as a result, many of us, myself included are inclined to grumble and think that life is simply not fair for us.

However, as I was reading The Giver, I realized how fortunate we actually are to live in our present environment as compared to Jonas’s society. In Jonas’s society, the people are protected from any form of pain or hardship and lead rather controlled lives, where they have no choices on how they want to lead their lives.

Almost everything the people in The Giver’s society do is controlled and not theirs to decide,even to the extent of them not being able to choose their own Assignments and their own spouses. This in my opinion, does not allow the people to think for themselves and causes them to indulge in the ”comfort” of ignorance.

In such a society, the people are not allowed to make mistakes as everything is chosen for them. Consequently, the people are not given the opportunity to pay for the consequences of their mistakes and learn from them. I think it truly is very sad That the simple joy of overcoming hardships or actually even by making the right choices are taken away from them. In such a community, I really wonder how the people live through such meaningless lives.

I feel that by reading The Giver, I have also learnt to appreciate the lessons from the challenges that we face in life. By enduring such hardships, I believe that we are better able to handle the balls that life throws at us and I feel this makes us richer in our development as a whole.

It is also by reading The Giver that I have come to realize the beauty that creation offers,such as colours. In the hustle and bustle of life, I feel that many of us fail to stop to appreciate these seemingly insignificant aspects of life and overlook them. I believe that all of us should start to recognise all these simple pleasures of life because I feel thesen are the little factors that brings all the meaning to our lives"

The controlled and unfeeling world

This picture shows a jet plane flying over a community of black and white, bringing us back to Jonas’s community when the pilot-in-training lost his direction and flew over the community, causing much chaos. In this community, almost everything is under control and the people live in a sheltered city, protected from any form of harm and where they have to conform to a set of rigid and regimental rules. The people in this community are secluded from the real world and live in a utopian society where knowledge about anything out of their little community is erased from their memories. Consequently, mistakes such as the one made by the-pilot-in-training would leave them clueless on how to react because they have never experienced such unexpected occurrences. This could lead to acts out of fear just like how the pilot-in-training almost got released.
In such a dystopian community where knowledge and memories are taken away from the people, the people live in a “comfort” zone of delusion. Surprises and the fun of life are taken away from them and they live a life of oblivion. In such a “protected” community, where mistakes are prevented instead of corrected, the people living there will never experience consequences of making mistakes and the joy of learning from them.

Pills are commonly consumed by us for health reasons and many other purposes. However, in The Giver’s society, such pills are taken to stop The Stirrings, which are the sexual desires of teenagers undergoing puberty. In this society, the people are not given the opportunity to mature in their natural way. They are forced to take these pills by the way of the law to stop their natural feelings and desires from arising and are also not given the chance to choose their own life partners. As a result, the people live rather unfeeling and cold lives and people are not given the chance to mature in their own natural way .

This picture depicts a scene of a living room in one of Jonas’s memories. In this room, a family was having a celebration and as Jonas had perceived, the atmosphere was very warm and he felt love within the family. Such love of which is made impossible in a society like The Giver’s, where the old gets sent to the House of the Old, people cannot choose their own spouse and where their children are assigned to them as well. The word ‘love’ in their community is even said to be “obsolete” and too vague a word that it held no meaning at all. True love in their community was never felt by the people before that it became somewhat non-existent and the true meaning of love warped. In my opinion, I believe everybody should be granted the opportunity to grow up in their own natural way and to experience true love in its actual form.

Alethea knows why the caged bird sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and its tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.


Maya Angelou




This poem “I know why the caged bird sings” is about freedom and captivity. It shows how the caged bird was tied down and its wings were clipped, preventing it from flying away.

The themes in the poem are similar to The Giver’s. In The Giver’s dystopian society, people were restricted from knowledge whereby all the books were kept away from the people and they were cut off from the rest of the world.

The line in the poem referring to the bird which “stands on the grave of dreams” also reminded me of the people in the book. They were not given the opportunity to strive for their aspirations because they were not given any choices in the givers society with regards to their future. Their Assignments were all determined by the Elders. Almost everything they did was controlled by them.

The caged bird also longed for the “things unknown” despite its fear of the uncertainty of them. This reminds me of Jonas in The Giver who was the “Receiver of memories” and similarly always longed for what “lay beyond”. He too longed for freedom this caged bird always sang for and soon he realized that the people in the community needed it too.

The poem aslo consists of contrasting paragraphs on how the free bird "leaps on the back of the wind" and "dares to claim the sky", showing how happy and care-free the free bird is. The free bird also"thinks of another breeze",showing that it looks forward to and anticipates the wind,always having something to look forward to in life and giving life more colours and meaning.However, the caged bird in the other hand,"sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and its tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom ",showing that the caged bird is always fearful about the things in the outside world however,still sings for it and for the freedom it brings.

I enjoyed this poem very much as it reminded me of how the true pleasures of life are found in freedom. Even though The Giver’s society was trying to achieve “Sameness” and be rid of fear and pain, they were held in captivity and not given the choice to experience the real world and this was a shame.

My first response to The Giver

"As I was reading The Giver, I thought about what really makes a perfect world. The Giver describes a utopian society in which all the people were controlled in their ways and emotions. For example, when all the teenagers around Jonas's age who started to have "the wanting" and discover their sexuality, they were made to take pills to stop the process. This prevents them from maturing in the natural way that we humans are supposed to.

In my opinion, such a cookie-cutter society that is so restrictive is not my desired utopia. I would rather be allowed to develop in my own special way and be free to be and do whatever I want. In The Giver's society, they have taken away history and knowledge from the people and made essential human emotions such as love and anger "obsolete". They have eliminated things that I feel are very important in life.

I believe that such emotions ,the ability to express ourselves freely and make our own choices are the main factors that make us human, and if such freedom is taken away from us, it makes us similar to robots. In The Giver's society, the simple joy of experiencing the peacefulness of a boat sailing on water and the exposure to feeling pain was taken away. This, in my opinion, will cause them to lead rather unfeeling lives because they will not be able to fully appreciate joy when they have not experienced pain. They have restricted things which I believe are very important in our character development.

The Giver is a very thought-provoking book and it broadened my perspectives of life. In The Giver's society all these emotions and knowledge that bring out our individuality are all stifled and this I believe is not the "perfect" world in which we humans are made to live in. I feel that the ability to experience hardship will allow us to appreciate joy and happiness that come at the end of enduring it and this I believe will give us more meaning in life. "