The choice made us who we are today

 

Hi, this is Iris. I am going to share the book "The Giver" in this log. Many of you might have already read it, but maybe we have different perspectives. So, let's see~

The story starts with an apprehensive of a boy (Jonas) about “coming December”. In December, all twelve years old get an assignment. That assignment is related to their whole life but they have no right to choose. So, this is a community of “No Choice”. They are planned for everything, even death. While Jonas’s friends got assignments as a doctor, birth mother, and laborer, he was chosen to be “The new Receiver of Memory” which was considered a big honor. As the training began, the current receiver of memory now is “The Giver” transferred his memories of the past to Jonas by placing his hands on Jonas’s forearms. As Jonas got memories of snow, sunshine, sunburn, hunger, ocean, Christmas party, etc...he started to get wisdom and realized that people in this community do not have real feelings, and do not have a chance to make their own decisions is unfair. 

In this community, people get released when they get old, when they make three mistakes and when there are identical twins. When Jonas finds out what release really means, he is shocked. He decided to escape from his community with Gabriel(who is going to be released) and release all his memories to people, allowing them to feel. On the way to escape, they are weakened from lack of food and feel cold and wet because of two days of rain. At the end of the story, Jonas thought he achieved his destination, saw someone was waiting for them, and heard music. However, we don’t know whether that is his hallucinations or not.

I feel this story is a bit dark because it claims that there is no lie in the community. However, when Jonas was chosen to be the receiver of the memory, he was told that he could lie. Also, at the story reveal I see that her father was lying about “released” (which is killing) all the time. Maybe everyone was told that they could lie…

After reading this story, I started to think that memories are really a thing that shapes us. Without memories, we know nothing. No memories mean no regret, we can not remember what hurt us and prevent that from happening again. 

Choices are very important. Like Jonas, once he chose to escape from the community, he had to accept the starvation that he never had and an unpredictable future. Sometimes we are afraid to make choices because we can’t afford the consequences of wrong choices. However, there are no such wrong choices. Whether our choices are good or not, they always help us to grow in one or another way. Choices made us who we are today.