Freedom and Choice

“Gabriel’s breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing bare-footed on a damp lawn.

"Gabe?"

The new child stirred slightly in his sleep, Jonas looked over at him.

"There could be love" Jonas whispered.

The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away"

This passage shows that Jonas truly believes in freedom and..... love. He wants everything to go back to the way it was. The way it was before sameness. Jonas wants to share color, emotion and deep feelings with the community. Especially with Asher, Lily, Fiona, and his parents so they can feel the joy and to an extent feel the pain of what the world used to be like. But is that for the best? It could be like the world we live in today. To them the past, history, almost never to be remembered. But if everyone knew what a broken leg was and animals, and, color it could be much more alike yet different at the same time.

We all know that Jonas wants things to go back before sameness ever happened, but, would it really be a good choice to go back before sameness? Maybe freedom isn't such a good thing after all; Jonas' community is completely stable and ‘perfect’. It would turn the community's world upside down if they what had existed many centuries before them. And if all of a sudden their world just changed everyone would freak out and pandemonium would break out. The quote “Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do and die." relates to the community of the Giver because in the community they live and do their job with no real emotion then when they are old the are released. Freedom and emotion are exactly he things that the elders centuries before had wanted to get rid of. If the world went back to normal, yes, it would be full of color and emotion, but people would realize the real truth behind everything. Release means death, and dying would once again be could be a normal part of life for people, and so would pain and sadness. So I think that Jonas should look at this situation from a member of the community perspective.

The answer might not make sense but the book doesn't make sense too.

Why does Jonas find the instruction about lying so disturbing?

I think the main reason Jonas find the instruction about lying so disturbing is because Jonas had been raised that way. In the community that Jonas is living in you are not allowed to lie, you are always supposed to follow the rules, and you should always watch out for your language precision. Precision of language is taken very seriously in the community. Later in Chapter 16 he had learned about love and had asked his parents if they loved him, and they had replied to his question by that love was the wrong word, and mentioned how precision of language is so important, once again. Lying is taken even more seriously than precision of language. If you use the wrong word to describe something, you just have to fix your mistake. But lying is just forbidden. You can't lie period. It's forbidden in the community, plus Jonas had never intentionally done it. When you grow up in Jonas' community you're so used to not lying that automatically you just don't do it. That was why Jonas was so surprised when he read that final instruction. All these years he was told not to lie, and now it said that he was actually allowed to lie. The reason it disturbed him so much was because he didn't want to lie. Another big thing that disturbed Jonas was the thought that in others folders it said that they could lie as well. He felt frightened at the possibility of everyone already lying all the time.

Page 71 says a lot about what Jonas thinks of the instruction about lying. As I said in the previous paragraph he thought of the possibility that on others folders an instruction said 'You may lie'. After he thought more about it he thought maybe he could ask people such as his father, 'Do you lie?', but he knew that he would never know if the answer he received was true or not. Although it doesn't go much further than this in the book, after reading this part I thought what if everyone in the community did lie? Do adults in adults in the community all lie? The instructors in the school and at home all said do not lie. In order to have the community running the instructors need to teach the students fake information. If I stretch this idea farther, it could be that every single person in the community who is twelve or older is allowed to lie. Overall, I think Jonas was disturbed because it was absolutely opposite to what he had been told in his childhood, and it had scared him to think that everyone in the community lied.

All in all I think Jonas find the instruction about lying so disturbing because he was never allowed to before and also he never had a reason to do it. So that is why I think Jonas find the instruction about lying so disturbing.

Would you want your future to be decided by others? Why or Why not?

I think I would never want my future to be decided by others because it is not fair to have your job controlled by others because you might have choices or jobs that you might want to do. Like for example take Jonas. Jonas has his choices and likings and disliking for his job but if the job is chosen by the community then he might or might not like it. If your future is decided by others you can’t have your likings/disliking or any choices. Just imagine doing a job that you never like. For example, Jonas in chapters 13-18 does not like his job at all because having the pain of memories gives him pain and so he just doesn't like it. So, to me I believe that I should choose my own job because it is my job and my business not someone else’s.

I would never like my future to be decided by others because all my choices would be gone. I would be choiceless in my life. I like the quote “There are always two choices, two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy.” The quote is for the most part irrelevant in the community of The Giver because they don't have any choices in their community. But the quote “It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.” is relevant in the community. I think I should make most of my choices.

As an American, freedom is instilled in me. I can’t imagine not being able to decide my future. I can’t imagine not being able to decide what college I want to go to, I can’t imagine not being able to decide what my career is going to be. I strongly believe that I should make me choices in my life because I don't live forever so I want to do what I want. This is why I want to make my own decisions in my life.