The Giver

Rituals help enforce rules, norms, and conformity in Jonas’s community. They also help preserve order. When something distressing and overwhelming occurs, such as the loss of a child, the community embarks upon a ritual to bury the memory of what happened. Families analyze their feelings and dreams at daily rituals. Apologies tend to happen in unison, in a fashion so ritualized that it loses almost all meaning. People know when they’re supposed to apologize or forgive, but it seems that they’re not really sure why they’re doing it. For instance, when the Chief Elder says she is sorry for causing anxiety in the crowd at Jonas’s Ceremony of Twelve, the people in the crowd say, “We accept your apology”(60), automatically in unison, as if they haven’t considered what the words mean.

Ceremonies are also filled with rituals such as the assignment of jobs and age-specific uniforms. There is little choice about whether to perform a ritual; failure to comply with even the smallest rules and customs results in punishment, at the very least a scolding by one’s parents or a reminder about the rules from the Speaker.

The Giver insists that memories and strong emotions will overwhelm the community because its residents are not equipped to deal with these things. In his view, being "overwhelmed" (144) can lead to chaos. It can lead to violence as well, as when large numbers of people are overwhelmed by hunger. The community’s emphasis on order and control seems to be a way to prevent people from becoming overwhelmed by the demands of daily life. Every person has a specific job to do and a set of rules to follow. Making expectations and responsibilities clear is a way to prevent people from feeling that they can’t handle it all.

The Receiver position also exists to keep the community from feeling burdened by painful memories and emotions: “They selected me—and you—to lift that burden from themselves” (113). In insisting that the Receiver bear this unwieldy "burden," the community makes it more likely that this person will crack under pressure. This is a reason the Committee of Elders looks for personality traits such as calmness in future Receivers. It’s likely that Receiver is deemed the most honorable position as a way of keeping people from leaving it—or leaving the community entirely. In other words, the emotional load of the role is so heavy that the community must provide motivation for someone to keep carrying it.

From the moment Jonas hears that becoming Receiver involves being alone and apart, he is concerned. He worries about losing his friends and feeling lonelier than he can tolerate. The job and its training involve a high degree of isolation, and he spends most of his after-school hours with the Giver. Jonas doesn’t feel lonely when he’s spending time with the Giver. However, he knows he will when the training ends, when he must spend hour after hour on his own, experiencing other people’s memories.

Other aspects of the Receiver job are isolating as well. As Receiver, Jonas may not discuss the details of the role with anyone other than an outgoing or incoming Receiver. This means he can’t talk about almost everything he does every day, which makes it difficult to have a spouse or children. He cannot show his books to others because they are “forbidden to citizens” (102)other than himself. Almost no one in the community understands what the Receiver is going through since they cannot feel emotions fully, barely experience pain, and do not relive the memories of the entire world. The Receiver is physically alone much of the time and emotionally and spiritually alone nearly all of the time. This is why the Giver thinks loneliness, not pain, is the worst aspect of the position.

Events such as the Ceremony of Twelve indicate that a child is moving toward adulthood. Jonas feels ambivalence about this transition. He loves to play and spend time with his friends, and he doesn’t want to sacrifice these things simply because he’s a year older. He worries that his friendships will disintegrate when he begins his training and they receive theirs. After beginning his training, he feels these relationships “slipping away” (135)when a war game emphasizes some important differences between how he and his friends understand the world.

In addition to bringing the responsibilities of a job, growing up in Jonas’s community means physically separating from one’s family. Jonas knows he won’t see his parents after he officially begins his Receiver duties and moves out of the family dwelling. He will be able to apply for a spouse and children once he’s an adult, and he will lose nearly all vestiges of his childhood life.

In Jonas’s community, assigning honor to a role is a way of making it more appealing, even if it involves painful or thankless work. Honor is also a way of maintaining social order and absolving other community members of the guilt they might feel for giving someone a miserable role to play. Although the elderly are placed in an institution where they lose touch with their former lives and most of the other community members, they are said to be honored citizens. Saying that a role has little honor might be a way of keeping too many people from clamoring for it, or so people who are suited for more challenging roles do not pursue it. Jonas’s mother tells Lily that there is “very little honor” (21)in the Birthmother assignment to discourage her from wanting it.

Because honor is linked to status, it’s something community members value and want to achieve. When a child receives a not-so-honorable job assignment, this reflects poorly on the parents and suggests that they have not succeeded in their child-rearing duties. Jonas’s parents are proud that he will assume the Receiver role, but they don’t seem to wonder how the role might affect Jonas. Instead, their main consideration seems to involve what the assignment says about their parenting skills.

And at the Ceremony of Twelve, the crowd cheers wildly when Jonas is selected to be the future Receiver, even though they probably don’t know what the role entails because they’re not privy to the details. They simply know it carries much honor, so they cheer to reflect this fact. In the end, Jonas sees honor for what it is in his society and decides he wants freedom more.