Dear Giver,

By the time you read this letter, I will probably be far away on my way to Elsewhere. I apologize not for informing you about my change of heart, but once you read my explanations I know you will understand my decision. I honestly had no time. After returning to my dwelling, and while having my evening meal, my father announced that he was going to release Gabriel the following day. While I was gone, the Nurturers decided that they should try putting Gabriel back in the Nurturing Center. According to my father, Gabriel caused an enormous amount of trouble at the Nurturing Center, and even my father had voted to let go of Gabriel. I must apologize, I have been hiding something from you all these weeks. One night, I was trying to get Gabriel to go to sleep. I put my hand on his back, and I had transferred the memory of the sailboat ride to him. Please believe me, I did it unintentionally. I did not realize I had transferred the memory until it was fading from my mind. I kept giving Gabriel some of my memories each night. I am truly very sorry, as I am sure you will think this act was inappropriate, but Gabriel raised feelings in me that I had never felt before. I know you'll understand because you and I are the only ones with actual feelings. I felt a bond with Gabriel, even though he was just a baby. I could not let Gabriel be released. Gabriel is very special to me. Also, if Gabriel was released, his memories would be returned to the community, and although I only gave him pleasant memories, I knew that I would have to face consequences from the community for sharing the memories. I am sorry I had to leave the community immediately without contacting you. Now, I just want to thank you for giving me the freedom to choose my own destiny rather than allowing the community to choose it for me.

Just a year ago, I was just like any other child in the community, not aware of anything outside of our community or our past. Once in a while, I noticed that something had changed, but I did not understand how it changed or why. I remember that time when I was playing catch with an apple with Asher. While the apple was in the air, it changed. I took it home in curiosity but I had not been able to determine what it was that I saw. Just a little less than a year ago, I was chosen as the Receiver of Memory, and the whole community congratulated me. But the one thing that caught my ear was when the Chief Elder said that I would experience a kind of pain that I had never known before. During the past year, you taught me the true meaning of life as it existed, and the kind of life that could exist in Elsewhere. I also learned how blind our community is to the joy of freedom of choice and having true feelings is worth the pain of feeling fear and sadness. Although I will never be sure of this, I think you could have just given memories but you have given me more than just the memories. You gave me a sense of a real family. When you gave me your favorite memory, the memory of love, I delighted in it as well. After receiving that memory, I feel as though you are my real family. It was really nice to know that I had someone like you beside me. The memory of love also taught something else. That night, after receiving the memory of love, I asked my parents if they loved me. They said that I had used the wrong word, and that the word love meant nothing. I learned how heartless the people in our community are, and how every single individual is so confined. What enabled me to live through my days were you and Gabriel. You have always been there for me to help me, and my only regret is that you are not coming with Gabriel and me.

It just seems like yesterday when I witnessed the video of the release and I felt the community is evil. In all the months misery learning about true pain and pleasure, I never questioned what happened to those who were released. That day, I thought myself stupid for not being able to figure out that to be released was to be murdered. Not only was I shocked about how dishonest and cruel the Elders were to kill people and pretend as if it was a happy ceremony, it startled me greatly to know that my own father had lied to me as well. Of course there was that time where I read my instructions as the Receiver of Memory and wondered if in every person's instructions it said 'You may lie', but I never suspected my father as one of those liars. Now that I look back at it, my father has no true feelings for me or any feelings at all. I guess it would have not been a big deal for him to lie to us. It doesn't seem so surprising now that my father had murdered someone; it confirmed that probably countless people in our community are not as innocent or honest as they seem. My father probably felt no guilt in killing the twin. After turning numb because of my father's true self and his mask, you were there to calm me down, and even better, you created the grand plan to release all my memories back to the community. I think releasing my memories would save our community from those liars who simply know nothing.

I genuinely believed that your plan would work. I did have some doubts, since it was a very risky job and I would have to break a dozen rules. I tried to be optimistic. I never thought I would leave the community forever. I do know for sure that you won't blame me. Though, the thought that I am not capable of giving you the same treatment and respect is the only thing that makes me hesitant to leave. You have not yet given me the memories of courage, but I know that I can make it to Elsewhere because you have trained me so well. I know what you have given and taught me is more than enough for me to make it to Elsewhere. During the short time I have known you, I have learned that the meaning of life is to feel all of your feelings and make your own choices to determine your own destiny. I wish you could be here with me so that you can also live the life you have only seen in your memories. Now it's too late for second thoughts. Once again I apologize for leaving you in the middle of this chaos, with the Receiver and the infant-to-be-released missing. I am off to find a real life in Elsewhere where color, love, and all the pleasant things still remain. I just wish you the best and I hope that you can fulfill your dreams of meeting Rosemary once again.

Sincerely,

Jonas

(P.S. I love you, and Fiona.)

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.