The Giver Essay

1506 Words7 Pages
The Giver Essay The community in The Giver, by Lois Lowry, can be shown to be dystopia. Dystopia means imperfect, as utopia means perfect. Jonas believes that it’s not always good to have a utopia society. A dystopia Jonas discovers, can be explained through rules and ceremonies, family and relationships, external and internal conflicts, and the theme. Rules and ceremonies play a major part in The Giver. In the society rules are very strict and obeyed. They have several rules to create a utopia environment. Every citizen believes that they are living in a perfect world. Nothing ever changes and everyone can relate to similar lives. One of their major rules is that no one could ever lie. In each family up to four, they never have secrets or hidden thoughts. They were to always have been shared aloud. Each morning they would share every detail of their dreams and thoughts they had. When a male has a dream or a thought that involved love or sexual feeling toward someone they are given pills. Another rule is that every December they have a ceremony celebrating each age of a child. For example, when a newborn celebrates their ceremony of one they receive their name and toy, and they are provided with a family. Each year something is rewarded or taken away during their ceremony. The ceremony of eight, the eight year olds get their toys removed, start service hours and they receive smaller buttons and pockets. The ceremony of nine is a ceremony many children look forward to, they receive their bicycle and girls remove their ribbons, which are tied tightly every single day. Most kids are secretly taught how to ride a bicycle by their older sibling. That is the only rule that is sometimes disobeyed very secretly. The most important ceremony of all is the ceremony of twelve’s. The ceremony of twelve is the last ceremony you attend. During the ceremony of twelve is when
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