Lecture 10: Contemporary Children's Books
Science Fiction

The Giver

It's a great question: "Where DO they go? The ones who walk away from Omelas."

Ursula LeGuinn's short story "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas" (which you may wish to read for comparison's sake) was clearly not written for children. However, it has a lot in common with Lois Lowry's incredibly popular (and often challenged) The Giver.

Both books challenge institutional thinking; both are deeply philosophical. The LeGuinn story is based on a notion that has challenged students in Ethics classes for generations: would it be better to live in a world where everybody suffered or in a world where nearly everyone thrived at the expense of a very few? In the case of LeGuinn's story, she's reduced the "few" to just one tormented child.

The "correct" answer is we'd NEVER allow the child to pay that price. The "true" answer is our world seems to depend on it. The philosophical argument is reduced to its absurd extreme; in reality, the one child is many children and adults from within our nation and around the globe.

In order for someone to have more, someone else must have less. Even in a Marxist society (if there ever could be such a thing), people would be discontent or feel cold or ache from hunger. Like the famous lifeboat problem (from the same Ethics class), if there isn't enough to support everybody in the lifeboat, everybody can die, or someone will have to be cut adrift.

There are no easy answers.

Some read LeGuinn's emigrating characters as morally indignant individuals who can not live with themselves if they know the child is suffering. So why don't they change the system? Why not just pull the child from the cellar, clean and feed and nurture him/her? The simple answer is, "You can't. It's one of the givens of the exercise." The real world is more complex than an ethical exercise. Some people DO oppose whale hunters and clear cutters and genetic engineers because they feel strongly that certain society needs to be changed. But change always comes with a cost. Keeping the dolphins out of the nets may mean more expensive or less plentiful tuna. Everybody sacrifices just a teeny bit. There are hundreds of thousands of teeny sacrifices, and, again, LeGuinn is rolling it up into a single change: if the child is released, the whole society will suffer. The exaggeration makes the issue come clear.

And when Jonas in The Giver releases the memories back into his society, there will be pandemonium (look at what happened the last time the receiver released just a fraction of the memories back). It is likely the community will be quarantined and, eventually, exterminated; the surrounding communities will not want to be infected with the ensuing chaos.

So the ones who can't stand the thought of the suffering child just leave; they look for somewhere better than Omelas. But is there such a place? LeGuinn may be describing the idealists of the world; she may also be describing those who are too weak to face up to responsibility and reality. The story does not have an easy ending; neither does The Giver.

Freedom, free will, independence--all are treasured (in theory). But The Giver does point out that it has its attendant price: allowing the community to introduce more children reminds him of the memory of hunger. Likewise, we can see that failing to release the elderly might have the same consequence. The community does not experience hunger. People have jobs. There's no vandalism, no drive-by shootings.

There is also no love (remember, "Precision of language"). The warmth of family gatherings, even the ability to choose (even see) color has vanished. Lowry, like LeGuinn, exaggerates to make a point--a stable society requires sacrifice and restriction.

Would anyone be willing to sacrifice freedom for safety and stability.

Most people do. Some more than others.

When I drive through southern Orange County (and it's just one of many such places), I find the unbroken chain of white, off-white, beige, off-beige tract homes (in three or four model styles per tract) dull. No one will paint a house Pepto-Bismol pink. That's probably a good thing! Who wants the neighborhood to be trashed by a Pepto-Bismol pink house? or tagging? or derelict trucks on the front lawns? Who wants to have to have the family duck behind the couch at night because a stray bullet might hit the children? So people leave the inner-cities, push further out into the tract houses of the west San Fernando Valley or east of Diamond Bar or south of Irvine and live in Association-controlled, gated, homogeneous communities. They trade freedom of expression and movement for safety.

Most people don't hide in gated communities. But people do pay taxes (for the common good); they obey laws which restrict freedom (again, for safety and the stability of the community). Most people would find a completely unrestricted society frightening. The Giver encourages readers to ask, "But where do we draw the line?"

Lowry doesn't answer the question. It's not her place to do so; she is trying to get the reader to think and choose (because, unlike the characters in the community, we can think and choose).

The Giver stays; he has, in the past at least, helped to keep the community stable. Jonas can't accept the cost--he treasures the ability to see red and the warm Christmas fire indoors after the bracing snow of the sled ride.

Is he heroic? Is he selfish? Is he making a change or just walking away from his responsibility?

Even the books powerful ending is ambiguous. There is no question that Jonas and Gabe die (though many readers just don't want to admit it), but how are we supposed to feel about that? When I discussed Andersen's "The Little Match Girl," I suggested you keep the ending of the fairy tale in mind when you read The Giver. I really think they have the same ending.

discussing The Giver

Julie Corsaro, a school library media specialist, put together the following list of discussion topics for The Giver:

• "It was one of the rituals, the evening telling of feelings." What are the other rituals or rules that Jonas must follow before the Ceremony of Twelves? How do these compare with the rules you are expected to follow at home, school, church, or temple?

• During the Ceremony of Twelves, Jonas's friends Fiona and Asher are given their Life Assignments. If you attended a similar ceremony today, what assignment, or job, do you think you would receive from your elders? Why? Would you choose the same job for yourself?

• Describe Jonas's relationship with his family and friends. How does his "selection" change that? What would you think of Asher and Fiona if they were your friends?

• The Giver's favorite memory is of "families, and holidays, and happiness." If you could give Jonas your favorite memory, what would it be? How is yours similar to and/or different from The Giver's?

• Jonas lives in a community that has turned to Sameness. Are there times in your life when you choose sameness or conformity? What are they? When do you act independently?

• When Jonas asks, "What if we could hold up things that were bright red or bright yellow, and [Gabriel] could choose?" The Giver responds, "He might make wrong choices." What are the advantages and disadvantages of having choices? Have you ever made a wrong one? Have you ever regretted having to choose?

• When The Giver shows Jonas the videotape of his father's release of the baby twin, is he trying to be honest and open, or is he hoping Jonas will leave the community, thus releasing his memories?

The questions are geared to late-elementary to middle-school children and are likely to spark interesting discussions with lots of examples.