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. "
posted by alethea sim @ 4:41 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
I share the same sentiments with Alethea as i too feel that Jonas's community is too restricted. I feel that the Elders in the community control the people so much that they are indeed akin to robots.
One thing that bothered me very much, was that the people in Jonas's community did not get the chance to fall in love and spend the rest of their lives with the ones they loved. As Alethea has already mentioned, when the teenagers started to have Stirrings, they were to take pills to stop the process. I agree wit her that this prevents them from maturing the natural way, which is important in human life. Also, because they no longer had the sexual desires after taking the pills, they could not develop feelings for someone of the opposite sex and be attracted to them. Instead, they had to spend the rest of their lives with someone whom they had no feelings for, but were chosen by the Elders. However, I guess the people in Jonas's community had no objections to it, because they were under medication and had never felt love for someone before. In a society where there is no medication to cover up these feelings, I really cannot imagine living with someone whom I have no feelings for, for the rest of my life! And I certainly would not like to take pills to control what i feel. I just like Alethea, would very much rather 'develop in my own special way and be free to be and do whatever i want'. which is just like how we are now. Hence, I am very grateful to be living in a country like Singapore! (:
I agree with Alethea and I have the same thoughts about The Giver too :) The society in The Giver controls the people in many aspects.
I agree that the people are like robots. Their emotions are controlled by the pills, which they have to take when they start to develop love towards an opposite gender. Like what Alethea said, this prevented the people from developing in the 'normal' way and they would not feel love for someone.
In Jonas's world, the people will not feel pain. The people do not experience failure when they make wrong decisions too.
Not feeling pain when you injure yourself is quite a good thing. However, you would not learn from your mistakes and feel happiness when you finally succeed. If you have not experienced the consequences of your own mistakes, then you would not learn from it and not repeat it.
This is why I would definitely not want to live in Jonas's society. His society is rigid with too many rules and people cannot grow in their own way with their own thoughts.
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