For its low page count, a lot happens in The Giver, a dystopian novel in the vein of Brave New World or Logan’s Run. We are perhaps centuries into the future of the present time, and most humans no longer have a memory of the world gone past. Animals no longer exist, and the images of animals are mythical, reduced to plush toys for up to four year olds. There is no such thing as a traditional family as we know it: children are assigned to you through a ceremony. Babies are placed into nurturing centres before they are adopted by a couple.
The father, then is not a really a father and neither is the mother. Yet, this intimacy is very much rehearsed, the concept of filial love and sibling love seem different, more contrived and more artificial. Every passing year, each child has less privileges and new responsibilities. Getting your own bicycle is an important milestone, even though every child bends the rule a little to learn to use the bicycle at an earlier age. After the age of twelve, the children are assigned the role for which they will have to keep for the rest of their lives.
There is nothing random about this however. Each assignation is carefully planned, based on the child’s track record of where they volunteer their time, their intelligence and their passions. A child as young as twelve can earn the assignation of the Director of Recreation. At this moment, the Chief Elder stamped their entry into adulthood but the somber words, “Thank you for your childhood.”
The protagonist of the story, Jonas, was also part of the ceremony, but after a nervous moment where the Chief Elder skipped his name, he was assigned the honourable role of the Receiver, a rare privilege for the community which comes once every generation, for the Receiver is the keeper of memories. The previous Receiver now becomes the Giver, to pass on all his memories. For this honour, Jonas will have to endure pain, as memories can be as painful as they are joyous, and all the spectrum in between. But the role of the Receiver also makes Jonas questions the order of his society, that barely knows any physical or a great degree of emotional pain and relies on him to keep the memories of the past so that the status quo can be maintained.
Memories are fickle things. In this world, years in the future, memories of the past no longer live collectively, in books nor digitally. Only the Receiver and his apprentice has this privilege, and they are isolated from the rest of the world. It is a heavy burden, and to concentrate it into a child is not the most failsafe option. Yet, this is what happened and it has been tried with another child and failed before. What purpose do the memories serve?
The citizens of the Village are sheltered, safe and yet flaccid. It is a monotonous sort of life where emotions are always in check by the emotional confessions at the dinner table. Although there are plenty of suppressed emotions, such as jealousy and hatred, the citizens don’t feel any passionate emotions. Thus, there is no memory here to keep them anchored to any traumatic emotions or sentimentalities. It is a grey world where only a select a few people like Jonas understands colour and can see the shade of red. Such things as music are also literally unheard of. It is a world that restricts imagination.
In the world, the Receiver is part of the council and will be called for to make decisions based on his knowledge of the past, if required. The Receiver’s position is seen as sacred, and for that he has a great deal of freedom to ask questions and to roam about as he pleases. But who watches the watchmen? Memories can be passed on by physical contact, and passes on almost like a one way currency. Once it’s given, the Giver loses the memory which now belongs to the Receiver and thus, passing on the burden.
Arguably, it is a utopia as opposed to a dystopia. But all good dystopia can be argued for both sides. We can continue a safe existence for the cost of our passions and imaginations. Thus, in other words, we can have security for the cost of our humanity. I am not so sure if it is a worthwhile trade. Jonas ultimately becomes dissatisfied when he finds out about the fate of the baby in his family’s care, Gabe, “released” to his death. All failures who cannot fit into the mold of society ended up being released, and thus killed. The father, whose job was the nurturer, was responsible for releasing Gabe and thus disenchanting Jonas of the price of order. Yet, Jonas’s horizons have grown beyond his families, and can we blame the father for doing his job and unaware of the wider ethics of what actually happens when someone is released?
Yet, can we also blame the Giver for releasing Jonas into arguably, his death? The Giver sacrificed Jonas so that the memories lost can be reverted to the people of the village, and the Giver to help them deal with the new memories. The ending of the book is openly ambiguous and we don’t know whether Jonas and Gabe made it out to their freedom, or if at least Jonas had died. Although The Giver isn’t a bad read by any means, I won’t be looking for its sequels to find out. So I’d like to think that Jonas succumbed to his death at the end.
