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  • Essay / Censorship, Control, and Conformity in “The Giver”

    In “The Giver,” we can see that Jonas lives in a dystopian place where his community believes everyone should be the same. Throughout history we can see certain rules in the community that apply to identity and at the same time restrict freedom. Some of these rules state that girls must wear their hair until a certain age, that they must tell their feelings at night and share their dreams with the family, and that each family is allowed to have a maximum of two children, of whom a girl and a child. the other being a male. After Jonas is given the role of the Memory Receiver, he learns about all the books and how society is controlled by the Elders. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” » To me, this quote means that books are like the soul of a room because it is the books that give us knowledge about everything that exists in the world. Before the Internet, all the answers to our questions were found in books. Just as our body would be nothing without a soul, a room would be nothing like books. Sometimes when I read books and I see a meaningful and inspiring quote, I try to think deeply about it. I try to identify with the quote and make a difference in my life according to the quote because I feel like I could become a better person if I start acting like the quote. For example, if the quote says something like "don't give up," I would try to think about the times I gave up and convince myself that if I hadn't given up so early, I could have achieved something. something that I really wanted now, so I would try not to give up again and try harder. This quote will give me some knowledge and tell me that if I try harder, I could achieve great things in my life. This will never happen in the society Jonas lives in. They don't have access to books, so how will they ever acquire this knowledge? Elders might be stopping them from achieving great things and society is too naive to know that this is happening. In my opinion, a community where knowledge is only held by a small number of elected officials is a bad community and poorly governed. If the community "leader" doesn't want you to know something, that means "they" are probably doing something wrong and fear what the community would think. They are afraid of the community's opinions. They are afraid that if they allow the community to have access to the books, they will gain more knowledge and become aware of the dystopian world they live in. By gaining this knowledge, the community will not agree with the way the "ruler" I handles things, and everything would become complicated and people would start coming forward for a better life. If my access to books and the knowledge they contain were restricted, I would feel like I was being controlled to live a certain way. , and that my rights have been revoked. I would feel like I had no opinion because I would have no knowledge of what was going on and I would feel like I was being told how to live. I would feel exactly like “a body without a soul”. And that's exactly how Jonas began to feel when he realized that he and the rest of society were being blocked from accessing this knowledge. In “The Giver” we can clearly see aspects of censorship, control and conformity. “They” prevent the community from acquiring more knowledge by preventing itto have access to books. They do this so that the community doesn't realize that they are living in a dystopian place and that there are better places to go. Books are very important in The Giver because the community really has no other way to gain knowledge. When Jonas saw the room containing all these books, he was very surprised to know that they existed since everyone in the community only had access to a few books, these being instructions and rules. Jonas then realized that there was more to know about the world in which they live. An example of control, conformity and censorship in The Giver is when we are told that the memories saved by the Receiver are things that no longer exist because it was not "practical" as it poses problems of transportation. Therefore, in the interest of “uniformity,” the snow had to go. Jonas expresses his wish to have and see snow again, but the receiver of memory tells him that "this choice is not ours." It seems like the community has taken control of this part of life and someone is making this decision on behalf of everyone. This is a restriction and is intended to establish compliance. However, snow is a part of life and removing it is like having “a body without a soul”. Another example is how the community does not allow Stirrings. Stirrings are basically the feelings we humans have and the one thing we can't control. But “they” allowed this to be controllable. A pill was created to control this. It was created to get rid of their feelings and block their emotions by taking the pill every morning. They control how people should feel and turn them into robots. Even though Jonas didn't want to give up these feelings, he still had to take the pills because he was forced to, but then he felt guilty because he didn't want to give them up. He shouldn't have felt this way. No one should feel guilty about having feelings, let alone getting rid of them. This shows how messed up this community is. In my opinion, these rules only make the community worse, because people have to live their lives according to these rules, and I think they should be able to decide things for themselves. This community does not allow love. No one knows what love is in this community, except for a few. They didn't experience it either. Normally a family is made up of love and care for each other, but in "The Giver" that doesn't exist. I don't understand how it is possible to not love your family. I don't understand why this community doesn't allow love. Loving someone is not harmful, it will not kill you. It's the opposite. You feel cared for and safe. When I think of this society where love is absent, I think of a sad place. A dead place, without joy or happiness. It terrifies me to think about it. When Caleb, a child living in this community, died, I thought the family would be heartbroken. But they never loved Caleb, so the death didn't bother them as much as it should. They simply replaced Caleb with a new child and never thought about their old child again. They continued their lives as if nothing had happened to Caleb. It's very depressing to think about this and it shows how crazy this community is. The absence of love is not the most shocking thing in this society. The fact that Jonas' father had the courage to free a newborn who was almost part of their family is outrageous. It is revealed that freeing someone kills them, but everyone in the community thinks that freeing is when.