Joy And Sorrow In The Giver By Lois Lowry

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What if you never felt sadness or sorrow; would you be able to do anything without feeling sorry? What about joy; could you imagine living in a world without joy and happiness? How different would the world look without sunshine and love; could you imagine being one of two people to see and store memories? To better understand how Jonas’ world of Sameness lacks joy and sorrow, The Giver by Lois Lowry must be looked over. Jonas finds he has never known sadness or joy in his world of Sameness. Due to the fact that Jonas has only known Sameness, he has never experienced deep sorrow. For example when the little boy Caleb drowns, they “[murmur] the name Caleb throughout an entire day, less and less frequently” to acknowledge his death (44). This demonstrates how in the community, grief is short lived and viewed as a frivolous expenditure of emotion. This also shows that the simple …show more content…
For example, the Giver taught Jonas what love is, “Jonas repeated it. ‘Love’ It was a word and concept new to him.” (125). This demonstrates that Jonas, along with the rest of the community, do not know love or any form of joy, unlike the world today. This also shows that Jonas’ parents have not taught him what love is and it is left for the Giver to teach him the meaning of love, which most citizens never learn. In addition, Jonas cannot share this information with his friends because “even if trained for years as they had all been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?” (89). This shows how completely oblivious the community is to the joy of sunshine and knowledge that Jonas has because of Sameness. This also demonstrates how weak precision of language and Sameness are because even the brightest people do not know something as simple as joy or sunshine. Jonas and the people in the society have never experienced joy because of
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