Rachel Greim Post #5: The Giver

Lois Lowry's The Giver is about a society in which your job, spouse, and children are chosen for you.  There is no weather and no color.  There is no money; everyone depends on everyone else to do their jobs to create a functioning community.  When the main character, Jonas, is twelve, he and the other "Twelves" are assigned their jobs.  Jonas is to be the Receiver.  Every day he goes to the Giver and receives knowledge about the world, including all the joy and pain felt throughout all of time.  He experiences snow, war, holidays, and many other things he has never heard of.  As he learns about the world, he begins to realize how strange and wrong his society is and wants to rebel, but no one else understands.

Many aspects of this community are communist.  Each person has a job he or she is fitted to, and everyone works together.  No one is more valuable than anyone else.  However, a closer look shows that the government has complete control over the people.  They choose your life for you, and no one questions them.  The government has tried very hard to create a utopia, but have gone too far and created a dystopia.  Once people reach a certain age, they are killed.  Jonas's father cares for babies before they go into their assigned families, but if a baby does not develop fast enough or has any difference from what is expected, it is killed.  There are women whose only job is to reproduce.  The citizens take pills every day to suppress their feelings and sexual urges.  The people have no control or choice in their lives, and even if they don't notice or care, this is still a clearly dystopian society.

I will most likely use a Marxist lens to analyze this novel.  I may bring in some psychoanalytical criticism as well.  I have not done very much research yet, but there are several blog-type pages that discuss The Giver in terms of Marxism.  I've looked for a scholarly source about this, and there are some about the novel but I haven't been able to find one using Marxism.

http://chikki16.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/the-giver-conflict-theory/
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Utopian+function+of+memory+in+Lois+Lowry's+The+Giver.-a0204868852