What Is The Climax Of The Giver Essay

The Giver by Lois Lowry was written in 1933 about a dystopian society, in which the memories of pain, war, hatred, hunger, conflict, and sadness have been eliminated from society, and placed onto a single man, called “The Giver.” The protagonist, Jonas, has the ability to receive these memories and is charged with the task of taking all of the memories from the current Giver, because he is getting old. During this process, Jonas realizes that the society he grew up in is far from perfect, and that something needs to be done to reform the society. Eventually, he and The Giver formulate a plan for Jonas to escape the city, and break the “memory barrier,” which would return all of Jonas’ memories of the old world to everybody in the society.
He seems to be slightly more perceptive and compassionate than his peers, and he has an uncanny ability to detect “strange changes” in objects, although he doesn’t tell anybody about it. His life is completely normal, until on the day on which his job is supposed to be chosen for him, he is told that he is the be the new Receiver of Memory, and everything changes. As Jonas receives more and more memories from The Giver, the wiser and more aware he becomes. He realizes that memories like pain and love need to be shared; as explained in chapter 20; “But the memories tell us that it has not always been. People felt things once. You and I have been part of that, so we know. We know that they once felt things like pride, ‘And love,’ Jonas added, remembering the family scene that had so affected him. ‘And pain.’ He thought again of the soldier. ‘The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.’ It is around this time that the true antagonist is revealed to be the tyrannical government that is confining this society to an environment where its people are not allowed to have or express free thought, emotion, or given the ability to make decisions for