Topic > Freedom vs. Security in “The Giver”

In a country where many are free to learn what they want, to express themselves, and to feel a wide range of emotions, it is an outlandish idea to see these simple freedoms limited or even abandoned. Lois Lowry's The Giver follows Jonas, a boy who begins to question his perfect, problem-free society when he receives memories of the past as part of his job as a Memory Receiver. The community gives up the freedom of its citizens in favor of security, which results in ignorance of the past and inability to perceive the future. Giving up freedom makes emotions non-existent. It raises the question; Is it really worth canceling the freedom to learn, to experience the world and to feel emotions in favor of safety? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Jonas's community governance greatly limits the range of knowledge that can be acquired within the education system; here the education of young people revolves around renouncing their individuality to preserve unity and maintain order within the community. Because of their identity-centered upbringing, no one learns from the past and no one can think beyond the parameters set by the community. This indoctrination ensures that everyone has a place in society and also ensures that no individual is able to disrupt the order with their own thoughts or concepts that conflict with the Oneness. The citizens are so ignorant of any other method of thinking, that even Jonas doesn't realize how ignorant he is until he learns about family and love in a Christmas memory. Jonas states, “I didn't realize there was another way until I got that memory” (157). He didn't know there was another way to live their lives, and he didn't even know what Christmas was or what love was before he received that memory, which goes to show how limiting their memories are. Because of this security, no one can be free in his own mind. How do you perceive the world on a physical level? The answer is with their senses and their thoughts. How can one perceive if both thoughts and senses are incapacitated? It's a trick question; it is not a person who can perceive, but, rather, it is the illusion of perception. In other cases, The Giver's community opposes basic facts of life that most free societies never question. No one in Jonas' community can see colors or hear music, which appears to be harmless enough. Color is an expected comfort in the life of a typical person, but in such a controlled environment it can be overlooked and music can be seen as a distraction from an orderly lifestyle. However, it goes a little further than being able to discern hair color or hear chord progressions. Color allows people to be individuals with separate qualities in their body (hair, skin, eyes), and music allows people to express creativity. Therefore, color and music conflict with Oneness because they express individuality and choice. No one can see colors or hear music because everyone is genetically modified before they are born so that they are all the same. They are essentially intended to never be different to maintain the safety of the community. If people are born different into Jonas' society, they are released from the community via lethal injection. The narrator describes euthanizing a twin baby: “He pressed the plunger very slowly, injecting the liquid into the scalp vein until the syringe was empty” (187). Twins are not allowed inside the.