In Chapter 16, the Giver transfers the memory of a family celebrating Christmas together and Jonas experiences genuine love for the first time. Jonas thoroughly enjoys the heart-warming memory and the family love he experiences during the celebration. After receiving the memory, Jonas asks the Giver several questions regarding the family structure of the past and the concept of love. Even though Jonas finds the memory pleasant and enjoying, he mentions that having grandparents around is not a very practical way to live. He also recognizes love as being dangerous but struggles to elaborate on why he feels this way. Jonas has been conditioned by his society to view powerful emotions like love as dangerous and has been taught that strong emotions can destabilize his highly-structured, delicate society. In Jonas's community, which is founded on the principles of Sameness, family units are created by the Committee of Elders and language is strictly regulated. Love is a strong human emotion that implies loyalty, support, devotion, and allegiance to one another. These concepts are viewed as threatening to the community's authority figures, who are solely concerned with maintaining a stable, comfortable society. Love also involves risk, which is the antithesis of everything the Committee Elders values.
Ever since Jonas's society adopted the Sameness, they have been ruled by logic. That should make sense since a result of the Sameness was a general elimination of emotions. Put simply, Jonas's society saw emotions as a big enough problem that they got rid of them. Now, the society makes all decisions based on cold logic, and it is seen as smart and safe. The people believe that emotions could cloud a person's judgement, and that is what Jonas says in chapter 16 about love in a family.
The Giver is showing Jonas a memory of Christmastime and family love. On the whole, Jonas likes the memory and the feeling of love. He even admits that the family felt more "complete" because of the emotion.
"I liked the feeling of love," he confessed . . . "I wish we still had that," he whispered.
This entire sequence is a great sequence because the reader can see the logical centers and emotional centers of Jonas warring with each other. He knows that he liked the feeling of love, but he also knows that he should not want to have that emotion. He has been told his entire life that emotions are dangerous, and that is what he tries to do here too. Jonas comes up with two reasons why love is dangerous and bad for a family.
The first reason is that the elderly grandparents would be present at the celebration. This would be bad because they would not be getting the great and proper care that they get now.
"It wasn't a very practical way to live, with the Old right there in the same place, where maybe they wouldn't be well taken care of, the way they are now."
The second reason that Jonas believes love could be dangerous is because it caused them to have candles burning and a fire in the fireplace. Jonas believes that was a risky thing to do all for the sake of a warm and loving environment.
"Well," he said finally, grasping for an explanation, "they had fire right there in that room. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. And there were candles on a table. I can certainly see why those things were outlawed."
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