Research Paper
How does The Giver relate to the aspects of Utopia?
A perfect world where everyone is equal and have no problems to deal with. The Giver by Lois Lowry is set in a community where everything is perfect. Every single person is the same, the way they look and the way they act. From this, there is no competition. This world has no prejudice, hatred, fear, or war. The community appears to be a Utopia, but it then changes to the opposite of a perfect world, a dystopia, as Jonas sees what really goes on in his community.
Utopia comes from the Greek words �ou,� meaning �no� or �not,� and �topos,� which means, �place.�This makes up �no place� or a not existing place (�Cliff notes�). Thomas More developed the idea of Utopia. He termed utopia as � A good place. A place which is no place.�(McKay, Hill, and Buckler 437). A utopia is simply just a perfect society. In a utopia, there would be no hate, competitiveness, or problems in that place. It can be an idealistic, practical, and impossible perfection (�Wikipedia�).
A dystopia is the opposite of a utopia. A dystopia is usually a fictional society. This society has extremely bad conditions of life because of domination, deprivation, and terror. Most dystopias have a corrupt government, which causes the poor living conditions (�Wikipedia�).
From what the government does, the society appears to be proper and flawless because of the terrible rules set in their �perfect� community.
The community of The Giver is set in a Utopian society. This society has no color and everyone pretty much looks the same. All the people in this community are very polite and all behave the same. The people all follow the instructions and obey the rules that are announced on the speakers of the community. Every family is a family of four; each family consists of a mother, father, a brother, and a sister. Though all members of the family unit are not related, the are selected to be together. What makes this community a utopia is the fact that there is no hatred, fear, war, or prejudice. Everything seems perfect.
Jonas, the protagonist, is an eleven-year-old boy from this utopian community. Though everyone in his community is the same, Jonas slightly differs from the rest. Jonas is more intelligent than the rest of his peers and thinks more seriously about his life and future. What makes Jonas very unique is his unusual eyes. In his community, he is able to see things change and appear in color (�Spark notes�). On the Ceremony of the twelve, Jonas is announced to be the receiver of the community�s memory. From his occupation of being the receiver, Jonas finds out what really goes on in his community.
After a year of training, Jonas becomes very sensitive because of all the memories the Giver gave him. The Giver shows him war, pain, happiness, fun, Christmas, and many other things people experience. From all the memories and senses the Giver gave him, he becomes very emotional and sensitive and begins to deeply love his family. Jonas also starts to care for Gabriel, the baby Jonas� dad is taking care of, because he is at risk of being released. Jonas discovers the secrets of his �perfect� community. Before, he and everyone thought that being released was being sent away to another community. (Lowry Chapter 12-13)
The society seems to now be a dystopia. Jonas� society seemed perfect but ended up having a corrupt government and terrible rules. Jonas found out that being released is actually death (Spark notes). He witnessed that when twins are born, one must be killed because they were keeping the community perfect. Jonas also saw what the people of his community had to give up in order for their community to be perfect. The people of the community had lost their freedom and individualities for the good of the community (�Cliff notes�). This shows that the story is actually based on a dystopian society instead of a utopia. The society of The Giver was presented as a perfect society in the beginning but then changes to a terrible society with dark secrets.
The Giver by Lois Lowry demonstrated how a perfect world, or utopia, is impossible. The way this story works is like the quote �no pain, no gain.� In order to keep their society perfect, they had to perform harsh tasks to keep their society in order. The setting of the story seemed to be a utopia by the equality of people and the non-existence of war and hatred. Though, it showed how the society was more of a dystopia by what they had to do to maintain their perfection.
Bibliography
�Cliffnotes::The Giver:Book Summary and Study Guide.�� Cliffnotes. Wiley Publishing, Inc. .
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Dell, 1993.
McKay, John, Hill, Bennett, and Buckler, John. A History of Western Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
�Sparknotes: The Giver�.Sparknotes. Spraknote lcc..
Utopia-Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.� Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..
�Utopia-Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.� Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..
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Reflection
This paper was one of the hardest papers I have written this year in my english class. It required analyzing and researching on a question based on a book. The question I wanted to be answered was: How does The Giver relate to the aspects of Utopia? The book The Giver was based on a utopian society, or a perfect society. Everyone was the same, perfect behavior and equality among all people. Though, as the story goes on, the reader finds out that the perfect society in the story is actually a Dystopia, a perfect society which is corrupt. That meant that the goverment set harsh rules in the society to maintain a "perfect" status in that society. This paper showed that I needed more details from the story and that I needed to elaborate more on the things i write about in this paper or any other paper.