“His father loaded the carton containing the body into the chute and gave it a shove.

‘Bye-bye, little guy,’ Jonas heard his father say before he left the room,” (188).

It is after this provoking memory of Jonas’ father releasing a newborn baby that The Giver and Jonas finally act to change their society. In The Giver community, the idea of death has been sugar-coated to the point that individuals in society have no sense of death. Death has been renamed ‘release’, which fabricates the peaceful, transition to Elsewhere myth The Giver community believes in. The old, young, and deviant are scheduled for released after a vote from the community, and this misinterpretation of death allows individuals in the community to commit murder nonchalantly.

It is in the release of deviant individuals that we see Lowry comment on political matters – specifically, capital punishment. Lowry’s decision to make the release occur through lethal injection mimics the US method of execution. Similarly to The Giver community, many US citizens are brought up supporting in the death penalty, and 31/50 states still enforce the death penalty for certain crimes. Lowry’s depiction of the nonchalant attitude of Jonas’ father as he releases the newborn represents the disregard American citizens have towards the death penalty. US citizens have been trained to accept execution as a natural part of the cycle of life. However, through distancing ourselves to mere readers of this execution, readers can see the innate wrongness in legally sentencing someone to die.