So I’ve just finished reading a coming of age book called The Giver by Lois Lowry, which was synchronistically introduced to me the other day. I was intrigued that this is part of the UK national school curriculum and I wanted to know what it was all about. As it is primarily a kids book I wanted to read it rather than watch the 2014 movie, as I knew it would only be a short read. I may then go on to see the movie too, later.
If you are not familiar with the premise of the book then I’ll summarise for you. It appears to be set in the near future in a very controlled town, that manages it’s populace with all the technocracy style governance that groups like the WEF seem to be pushing these days. It is here that I make my first observation; This story is a gentle introduction to technocracy for children, and it is a curriculum read!
The story focuses on Jonas who is a 12 year old boy that is growing up in this ideal society and is going through the community training of volunteering in the town and of learning precise vocabulary of politically correct speech. All normal human behaviours, beliefs, and understanding have never been seen or taught to these people and they are like robots living controlled lives, making themselves busy producing “something” for “unknown” reasons and masters. It is possible that they are not human at all given the innate abilities that Jonas has dormant within him, and these are exposed through the training he receives from another with abilities called The Giver. Jonas is entered into a year log experience with this elder of the community who keeps memories for the town and uses them to help advise them in big decisions.
There is a weird thing going on with these humans as one man is chosen to hold all these ancient memories of humanity and there is an effect he can call upon where by he can transmit these memories once, and only once, to his chosen pupil. It is said in the book that if a memory holder dies then the memories are once again shared with the community and it takes a long time for them to dissipate, and they cause much discomfort for the town folk, which is why they are bottled up in this one man.
Jonas learns from the giver and gains a large number of memories that he has great difficulty holding within him, to the point he wants nothing to do with this community and their secrets, so he plans his escape.
The story ends with Jonas stealing away a young boy call Gabriel that he has been helping look after, and has been sharing memories with, and he either seems to reach a sanctuary community called The Elsewhere that was hinted at in a memory he was given.
The book has familiar echoes of other stories as follows:
- 1984 is front and foremost with the controlled narrow speech and simple NPC community, chanting, the speaker/tv system is similar to Big Brother too.
- There are elements of Soylent Green with the protection from death, and the ceremonies and procedure around those to be “released” from life.
- The regular taking of medicine to dull the senses like in the movie Equlibrium. As is the stopping and the stirrings coming back.
- Brave New World is represented with the artificial creation of babies outside of families, the streaming of the infants quality, and the ultimate disposal of poor specimins.
- There is the supposed danger outside of the community and of escaping it to find it was lies, like in Logan’s Run
- Rosemary’s baby is hinted at with the idea of an evil being put upon innocent babies by some outside force, and this is perhaps referreced in the Giver’s daughter.
In general the dystopian fiction library has been cherry picked for this book’s back story, although we never find out who is behind the setting up of the community or why it was done this way. In this respect there is an Oblivion angle here with the old world now just existing as memories in one’s head, and a compartmentalized community, although there is no obvious use of great technology in this story. It could also be said that there is a strong communist ideology at play here, with the community assigning people roles and positions, and perhaps being an experiment in controlling people and planet.
There are various disturbing allegories in the book over and above what has been said already. One of the most prominent suggestions is that of sexual abuse. The names, practices, and effects of The Giving could be seen as code for this. The roles provided by the book for a special relationship between an elder and a child are The Giver and The Receiver, and the manner of giving requires the Receiver to disrobe, lie face down on a bed and for The Giver to painfully (at first) massage thoughts into the Receiver, who is left with physical and mental trauma afterwards.
The community is a religious cult like structure called “Sameness” that is keeping people innocent and stupid, but happy. It’s careful selection of individuals for roles and it’s discarding of anyone deemed unfit is telling of a technocratic loss of free will.
There is the allegory for waking up out of the shared delusion, with the gaining of technicolor in one’s awareness, as well as the knowledge gained, as Matrix style “The One” position for the Receiver. It also covers ground of people who want to stay asleep and free of painful memories, controlled by an unseen force outside of the community.
It has the allegory for one being able to withstand the onslaught of greater knowledge than others, in that the special one is chosen who can hold all the pain of the past and it dramatises the idea of with great knowledge comes great sorrow. For the Receiver is saddened by the knowledge to the point of wanting out of this society.
It has a kind of positive spin on George Orwell’s Winston Smith, who so badly wanted knowledge and was forbidden it, but in this story the one who wants to know is welcomed as the special one who will know. There also was a nice nod to 1984 with the giver being able to turn off his speaker and have privacy, like O’Brein’s tv.
Who is running the community and what are they all doing? I’m guessing that they are robotically building weapons for some distant war, and one side is behind the running of this community.
One final piece that i can’t get my head around is that when an elder Giver shares with a young Receiver, they lose their memory! but I can’t see how/why this happens in the context of the story?
So why is this recommended for schools?
I guess firstly it is a coming of age story, about growing up and entering an adult world, so this seems to be the easy selling point. It also many allegories in it and references to other things so is good as a topic of discussion. On the society discussion front this is perhaps where we can split and go two ways. Is the book a warning about our own future and how we should avoid this outcome, or a gentle introduction to the intended outcome for humanity by the technocrats. The first is a classical literary position that has a tradition before it, which this mines. The second is more worrying as a gentle introduction to many of things the prior stories warn of. Perhaps a numbing at an early age to things parents of the children reading this were shocked by when they learnt of these ideas from adult books. Ideas like “Is this a WEF training programme?” kept surfacing for me with concepts of 15 minute cities where the only form of transport is a bicycle kept coming to the for of my awareness!