"The Giver" and Arguments on its Censorship
"The Giver" and Arguments on its Censorship
It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, and no pain. No one in The Community wants for anything. Each Family Unit is entitled to one female and one male. The Community also has a Committee of Elders choose the professions (assignments) of every child when they become 12 years old. If an Elder is not on the committee he/she is well taken care of by the younger children or those people that are given the life assignment of "Caregiver". It seems that this is the ideal Community. To everyone it IS the ideal community until Jonas, a sensitive twelve-year-old boy, is given his life assignment as the "Receiver of Memories." He then begins to learn this way of life is controlling and empty.
From the moment Jonas becomes "The Reciever". He begins to discover that The Community is not as perfect as it seems. He learns infants are killed if they fuss too much, individuality has been suppressed and that choice is scorned.
Jonas, with the help of his trainer called the Giver, takes it upon himself to change what he is seeing. He begins to try to find all that has been lost or suppressed and return it back to the society.
Lois Lowry deals with issues of everyday life that are so often taken for granted. Through Jonas, Lowry tries to present a glimpse of what could be the future if individuality, creativity, and self expression were suppressed. As the novel progresses so do the number of questions that Lowry confronts the reader with. She presents a forceful novel that demands to be heard and philosophically dealt with. This strength and the ideas she presents are what gave rise to the controversy of censorship and her novel.
Reasons for Censorship:
"There are numerous reasons that a book may be challenged for censorship. According to "Appendix A: Common targets of censorship from The Schoolbook Protest Movement: 40 Questions and answers (Jenkinson, 1986, pp. 70-71), The Giver contains several targets for censorship. Here is a list of reasons it could be censored:
Abortion (throughout the book), Atheism (throughout the book), Violence (pp.118-120)Sexual references (pp.34-36; 129), Euthanasia (throughout book), Conflict between Children and parents (throughout book), Conflict between children and authority (throughout book), Science fiction genre, Moral conflicts, Values clarification, Secular humanism, Socialistic...