In Lois Lowry's The Giver, Jonas is presented with a list of responsibilities and duties for his new position as Receiver of Memory. Many of the instructions concern him because they go against the values that were so carefully taught to him throughout all his childhood.
From the very first two items on the list, Jonas already feels detached from his peers. They tell him to report to training immediately after school and to go straight home when his training is over. He worries that he will have no time to socialize with his friends. This is only a foreshadowing of the intense loneliness that Jonas will experience, mainly due to the fourth item on the list:
4. Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community, including parents and Elders.
At this point, Jonas does not yet understand the isolation that is to come, but he does see himself as being different for the first time in his life.
The third rule is very unnerving for Jonas:
3. From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.
This rule contradicts the strict social education he received as a child. This is a community that rejects rudeness. He believes that he will never use this privilege.
The final instruction is the one that frightens him the most.
8. You may lie.
This goes against everything he has ever learned. He was strongly disciplined as a child for merely exaggerating. Lying was out of the question. The fact that he is being allowed to do something that had formerly been prohibited to him is shocking.
As Jonas thinks about this instruction, he wonders if other adults have also been allowed to lie. This is frightening because he has no way of knowing if what anyone has told him is true. Until this moment, he has never had to wonder whether someone had ever been untruthful to him. He considers asking his father whether or not he ever lied, but how was he to know whether he was giving an honest answer?
These rules demonstrate a change in Jonas as he perceives the world as an adult. He no longer has the naivety to believe everything he has been told. For the first time, he is experiencing doubt, and it is this doubt that frightens him.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Which items in the list of duties and responsibilities frighten Jonas? Why?
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