Importance of Language in The Giver

 

The dynamic of the community in The Giver is supposedly utopian and egalitarian, however we also see implications of totalitarianism. While superficially, the society seems to function in a way that ensures equality, totalitarianism is evident, as every facet of society in The Giver is carefully cultivated to run smoothly by the Committee of Elders and Chief Elder. They control each person’s occupation, meal times, and family life. There are also rules that dictate proper vocabulary and manners. For example, whenever anyone apologizes for something, the receiver of the apology is trained to automatically say “I accept your apology”. In addition, precision of language is extremely important to people in the society. One time we see this is when Jonas asks his parents if they love him. They laugh the question off and say that the word is very generalized and meaningless. They define the equivalent of love as being prideful of his accomplishments or enjoying his company. They seem to think that the word “love” is incorrect to use because it isn’t accurate. The children have been trained since early childhood to never lie and imprecise language is equated to lying.

This is interesting to me because the creators of this ideal society (current and past Elders) use incorrect language to explain multiple things in the story. Prominently, they talk about “releasing” members of the community, which we later find out is actually murdering them. They have been brainwashed and don’t understand what is actually happening. Also, each night, members of the family are required to share their feelings from the day. However, the people can’t actually experience real feelings and the Elder and Committee ensures this by requiring them to take a pill daily training them from a young age to be polite and passive. There are multiple other examples of terms used by the “government” that are quite imprecise and are used to keep community members in the dark. I think that it is blatantly obvious that all members of the community are just blindly going through life, unaware and doing what they are told. However, the language used by both the “higher power” and regular community members adds another dimension of inequality to this supposedly utopian society.

 

3 responses to “Importance of Language in The Giver”

  1. hwseo1004 Avatar
    hwseo1004

    Yeah, reading The Giver was sort of shocking to me because as I read the first few chapters, I actually thought the sharing of feelings quite a good practice. And then as I progressed, I saw it was one of those things that made these people without deeper emotions and thinking. Also, one of things I thought was that I found it weird that Lowry discussed the people in the community as having ‘no feelings’, or no ‘real’ feelings. I think that rather than having no real feelings, the people were trained to have the most superficial feelings as possible, and to think much less deeper than a person with more vibrant and deeper emotions could think. And this is all because the Elders (or the people who chose this way of life) decided that very least level of feeling and thinking should be done in order to establish order and ‘safety’, making the people unable to think critically. That’s why the Receiver exists at all, because the Elders know that human experience (emotions and thoughts and freedom) is essential to a successful society, but they want to keep it to the smallest level as possible so they designate just one person to carry the ‘burden’ as Lowry calls it. One last thing is that I couldn’t imagine the world as without color, as Jonas’s life would have been before he became a Receiver.

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  2. emilycollins7 Avatar
    emilycollins7

    I thought the discussion we had in class on the required apologies in the Giver society was interesting. Apologies seemed to be a way to acknowledge an accidental break in continuity within the community, without actually having to think deeply about that break. This is represented in how Asher was so uncomfortable when Jonas tries to explain his reaction to the war game. Asher, uncomfortable with Jonas’s unusual display of emotion, apologizes to Jonas hoping to end Jonas’s outbreak. However, Jonas does not, in line with what is expected of him societally, just mindlessly accept the apology. Initially, he wants to explain his reaction and his feelings to Asher, but upon Asher’s “I said I apologize, Jonas,” he thinks to himself, “Of course Asher couldn’t understand.” Here Jonas realizes that there is no space for uncomfortable conversations in the Giver society, and this leaves him with a feeling of immense hopelessness.

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  3. foulonni Avatar
    foulonni

    I found your discussion of apologies really interesting, especially because of our conversation in class. In the world of The Giver, apologies don’t seem to carry much meaning because the world is devoid of actual emotion. It hadn’t occurred to me before our discussion in class, but when i am making a sincere apology I am very emotionally invested in what I am saying. It was obvious that Jonas was emotionally distressed about the war game, but because distress is alien to the people in the community, no one even understood what Jonas was expressing. In fact, if you look back at that passage, all of the children are confused but not worried. Jonas’ reaction doesn’t make sense to them because it is entirely emotional, which is something that casual members of the community simply cannot comprehend. It makes sense then that Asher quickly uses the accepted mode of tempering someone: apologizing. His almost robotic and unsatisfactory apology is rough for us because we realize just how devoid of emotional commitment it is. When I first read that section, even though I understood why Asher’s apology had been so bad, I still felt dejected for Jonas. I think I realized just how painful a world without emotions and feelings would be at that point. If the most simplest of gestures became meaningless then what would be the point of engaging with people at all?

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