Lois Lowry’s suspenseful story, “The Giver”, is about a small community in the future. Jonas, the main character, is about to be a 12, but he is apprehensive about the 12 ceremony that is coming up. The ceremony changes your whole life by choosing what job you will have in the future. Jonas becomes the receiver. He will learn all the secrets about the community from the giver. One lesson in the story is that the community seems perfect, but it is actually unfair and flawed.
In the very beginning, everything is “perfect”. Everybody follows the rules. But then, the 12 ceremony comes up and everything changes. The author explains how “Everybody seems to not want change. They feel nervous,” Jonas and his friends get jobs and they start to slowly drift apart. Jonas becomes the giver so he’s too busy for his friends. Lois also explains that “Jonas and his friends are all worried that they will forget about each other.” Once Jonas is away from them and starts his job, becomes more mature and starts to change. He doesn’t really realize it though. He starts to take new pill so he wouldn’t have any more stirrings. But why do they have to take so many pills? Do they make the community seem perfect? Or are they hiding what the real world is like?
Everything changed for Jonas toward the middle of the story. He becomes way smarter and knew lots of the horrible secrets about the community. The story talks about how Jonas stops taking his pills. He says “I just had this feeling to stop taking them.” Then soon he starts to see color. He thinks “Why do they want to hide all these secrets from us? Why do we need to take all these pills?” The elders make the community unfair for all the citizens.
During the ending, Jonas realizes the community isn’t good for anybody and he no longer wants to be there. Everyone sees the community as perfect, except Jonas. He leaves and take Gabe with him. Jonas was tired of all the lying and the fact that nobody could know about it.
This information supports that what may seem perfect can be unfair and flawed. The people of the community should know more of the secrets and they shouldn’t have to be living like they are.