The Giver

Imagine a world without fear, pain, warfare, poverty, hunger, or terror. It sounds like a perfect world, a utopia but as you read farther into the book you realize that to accomplish all of these things you have to take away some fundamental elements of life such as feelings, love, diversity, choices, and even the ability to see colors. For a community to take away all those aspects of life I don’t think there is a utopia in fact it’s the exact opposite. Life is all about perception of events and if you take away the feeling that u get when you see a girl u like for the first time, the vivid colors as you walk threw a meadow of wild flowers, or the pain of someone close to you dying you go through life without feeling anything just living and doing what you are told without any feeling towards anything. You end up doing something just because someone told you that’s how it’s done and that is what u are supposed to do. That is not a visionary system of political and social perfection. A job is one of the most important parts of a person’s life. If it's so important shouldn’t enjoy it. In this "utopia," created in The Giver you don't get to do that. Other people choose the activity you are going to do for the rest of your life. Fiona was assigned Caretaker of The Old, a job she really wanted, but what happens if she starts that job and decides that she really doesn’t like it, She can't change jobs because she lives in a world where she doesn't have a choice, where she can't run her own life. By not having any kind of influence in one of the major choices in your life, the community can have some tragedies such as this one from the book. " I heard about a guy who was absolutely sure he was going to be an engineer and instead he was assigned sanitation laborer. He jumped into the river and swam to the closest community, no one saw him again." Having elders chose every job for everyone and expecting things to run smooth is completely unrealistic and such