The theme of “The Giver” is we need history to understand why something happens. This is a theme throughout “The Giver” because the people aren’t aware of the events that took place before their community developed. They know their community’s history, but other than anything dealing with their community, they know nothing. In the middle of “The Giver”, Jonas starts learning about the events that took place before the community developed in detail. He experiences events that he would never had known about had he not been selected as the “Receiver of Memory”. For instance, he experiences war, violence, and terrorism, things he would have never even known about. By the end of “The Giver”, Jonas realizes the events of history affects us in the now. They are contributing factors in decisions made by the Committee of Elders. The Elders make their decisions with the help of the wisdom of the Receiver of Memory. The Receiver, since he has knowledge of the mistakes made by humans before the community, can help the Committee not make the same mistakes. The past also affects us in the now because if acts of terrorism hadn’t occurred, we wouldn’t have such high security. Government officials often look back on the causes of tragic events in history so they would not make the same mistakes and cause catastrophic events to occur. This is why this is one of the many themes of “The Giver.”
In the beginning, “The Giver” starts out by providing evidence to what Jonas’ life is like every day. The children obey every one without a question. To make sure that no feelings are hurt, they avoid talking about differences and state apologies when the rules regarding rudeness are infringed. Phrases that we probably use in our everyday lives, such as “I’m starving”, which Jonas says as a little kid, are considered lies and exaggerations to how they really feel. The instructor reacts by telling Jonas that he is not starving, he is merely hungry, and will never be starving. The Committee of Elders makes sure no one goes hungry, that everyone has what they need, and that they are content. They use systems developed by knowledge of the past. The Elders themselves don’t know what happened in the past, only the Receiver of Memory ever knows what happened before the community was formed. The Receiver advises the Committee based on events of the past and the Elders act accordingly. This ensures that the catastrophic events of the past never happen again. This makes everyone in the community happy, even though they have no idea why the Committee adopts certain rules based on the past. The community members have no idea what lead to the community adopt some rules, they just assume they are for their own safety and well-being; which the rules are, but they have a much greater purpose than what the community truly understands.
This might seem like a pretty good place to live, but these people have also never seen color, felt love or other good feelings. The Elders, with the help of the Receiver of Memory, decided people should not have choices of their own or feelings. They take a special injection to numb these feelings, and the Speaker, without singling any one out, says an announcement reminding anyone who forgot to take their injection to take it. This is based on evidence of the past that when people make choices, they can either chose right or wrong. They can’t see color either, which is tied to the choices. If you held up a blue balloon and a yellow balloon, the Elders believe you can still choose wrongly. Colors play a very important psychological role in our lives. They can help define who we are. The color for newborn boys is blue, and the color for newborn girls is pink. We also have pastel baby colors, and more rich and dark colors for older people. This is totally eliminated in “The Giver”. The community only sees black and white, to eliminate not only choices but differences as well. Finally, they don’t have love in their lives. This eliminates differences because people can all choose who to love and who not to love. Everyone is kind of like friends with everyone. They want to be inclusive, so they eliminate love and other feelings, like feelings of content, happiness, hate, Through his training Jonas realizes that she mild impatience and exasperation, if she felt anything real.
In the middle of the book, we see that Jonas is starting to realize that we need history in our lives, and that we’re repeating some of history. They aren’t repeating all of it, just some of it. It’s a little like the ideology of communism. In communism, everyone is equal, everyone is happy, there is total control, and no one really has a choice to make. This is when communism is at its best. It’s repeating history in a way because they kind of succeeded in the ideology of communism. Unlike other previous nations, like China and North Korea, the founders of the community actually succeeded in establishing a “perfect” world. In the middle of the book, Jonas has his first meeting with the Giver, and he goes sledding for the first time. The Giver places his hands on Jonas’ back and gives him the memory of snow and sledding. In his community, they have Climate Control, and have never heard of or seen snow. Jonas doesn’t understand why they don’t have snow until he realizes they don’t have it because it was inadequate weather, which made it difficult to farm and grow food. Now they can enjoy fruits all year long. One time, he saw farmers bringing pumpkins to the community. The pumpkin was seen as orange in an instant, but then it was gone, returning to its flat and hueless shape. This shows that they have believed in control so much that they have eliminated color. This also shows that they took communism to a whole new level.
Some people might say that they never bothered to ask about the past. While this is slightly true, there is a loophole. Maybe they did ask about the history before the community, and they were scolded for doing so. They never received the answers they wanted, but because they wanted to be perfect and not singled out, they dared not ask again. However, Jonas’ situation is different. Although he was brought up to believe that one should never question the great workings of the community, once he goes to see the Giver, he is free to ask any question. He asks many, many questions about why this happened or why that occurred. The Giver encourages this behavior, unlike at home where is scolded for asking about such things. So, the community could very well want to ask about what happened before the community or why they have a rule, they just don’t dare to ask. Or maybe they are right, that they just never bothered to ask.
By the end of the book, we see the wisdom Jonas has gained through his training. He finally realizes after receiving a memory about love, that everyone should have the memories, otherwise known as history to us. Whether good or bad memories, everyone should have the memories, according to Jonas. The Giver agrees with him, although it will be tough to get the community under control after the shock of receiving all these new memories. They devise a plan to make this work out. Reluctantly, Jonas agrees to the plan because he will be separated from those he loves the most. They set a date, but when an out-of-the-blue announcement is made within Jonas’ family, Jonas decides he has to leave before the date that he and the Giver had originally planned. Once he completes the first bump in the road, it is up to the Giver to take care of the community and Jonas to rely on his strength and stamina to survive. This is about where the community would probably start asking questions why they have certain rules, but we never hear from the community after Jonas completes his first task.
In conclusion, the theme of “The Giver” is that we need history to understand why something happens. For example, in our everyday lives, we have traffic lights so that less accidents happen. This is based on that when cars first came out, we didn’t have traffic lights and there we often accidents. In “The Giver” there are many rules and everyone must follow them without a question. The people don’t have memories of the past and don’t understand why the Elders have certain rules for them to follow, but they don’t ask why, probably for fear of a scolding. Jonas, once he learns about what happened before the community came about, starts asking questions why they have certain rules. Sometimes he gets an answer, and sometimes he has to make an educated guess. Once he receives a specific memory, he realizes that everyone should have these memories even though some of them are not pleasant. When he decides to take action, he uses his wisdom to overcome the obstacles. This proves the theme: we need history to understand why something happens.