The Giver tells the story of a boy named Jonas who lives in a dystopian, unnamed society. He is eleven when the story starts and is getting anxious about turning twelve because in his society that is when children become adults and are told what their assignment (career) will be. In his society the Council of Elders makes all of the decisions and rules for the society, including who marries who, which couples can have children, what careers each individual has, and so on. The society is very orderly and we get the impression it is cut off from other communities.
Jonas is assigned to be the next Receiver of Memory, a very honored position in his society, but one which he is completely unfamiliar with. When he meets the current Receiver of Memory, a very old man, he is told to call him the Giver (hence the title of the book) because he is now going to train Jonas and "give" him the memories of the entire world. This confuses Jonas, but as the Giver explains, every person in the community only knows what they need to know and nothing more. Even the Council of Elders does not have memories of its own society from generations past. As a community they all agreed that only one person, the Receiver of Memory, should hold all of the memories for the community and that person acts as an advisor to the Council when the community experiences something new that it does not know how to handle.
Jonas begins his training and finds that his new position allows for him to break some of the rules everyone else is held to. He can ask questions of anyone and he can life, for instance. The training is very difficult, emotionally and physically, and as the training goes on, Jonas realizes that the society he lives in is not perfect. No one in the community has free will or choice or knowledge to make choices, which he becomes aware of as he is exposed to the world before "Sameness". Sameness is the policy they passed in the community to keep everyone and everything as uniform as possible. But now Jonas questions it.
One ritual in the society that Jonas also learns the dark truth about is something called "Release." This is a euphemism for lethal injection, and in his society it is treated as something that is either celebrated (for old people) or required for those who do not meet the community's standards. This is not a ritual anyone questions and no one except the people who carry it out really know what it actually means. Toward the end of the novel Jonas knows his father has participated in the release of a newborn twin and he wants to see the video of the ceremony, thinking it will be a positive thing to watch. When he sees the reality of what release is, he is horrified and immediately decides he can never return home and doesn't even want to stay in his community anymore.
The Giver helps Jonas comes up with a way to escape the community. They agree that the Giver will remain behind and help the community deal with all of the terrible memories that are going to come flooding back to them once Jonas escapes. Apparently, once before when a Receive of Memory died, all of her memories came back to the joint consciousness of the community and it was "Chaos." The Giver knows they will face this again and he must stay to help them.
Jonas goes home and after everyone has fallen asleep he packs up his things, and the toddler that his family has been fostering since the beginning of the novel. The toddler is scheduled for release the following day, and Jonas has grown quite close to him. Now that he knows what release is, there is no way he can let the baby stay in the community. So, he takes his things and the baby, Gabriel, and steals his father's because it has a baby seat on it. He rides out of town. It takes a very long time to get out of the community's boundaries and once they realize he is missing they send out search planes. He bikes for days and avoids the planes and eventually they stop or he travels far enough away beyond their search area. The story ends with Jonas coming up on a house lit up with Christmas lights. He and Gabe are very weak from traveling so long with so little food and shelter and in the middle of winter, but the final scene shows them heading toward this house and hopeful that this is a new start.
For more information on specific scenes, characters, and themes make sure to look at the study guide.
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