The Giver Chapters 17-20
Chapters 17-20
The speakers announce an unscheduled holiday for the whole community just as Jonas is preparing to leave for school. Jonas is happy that he doesn't have to go to school, he decides to look for his friends. As Jonas rides through the community he begins to examine his emotions and realizes that the memories have allowed him to experience emotions at a deeper level. The colors always remain with him now, and it's been four weeks since he stopped taking the pills for his stirrings. They have returned to him now, and he enjoys the feelings they incite. Jonas also understands that the other citizens have never truly experienced emotions like anger and sadness for he had now experienced true anger and sadness. Jonas finds his friends playing a game of mock war, a game he had played often. Now, he understood the ugliness of war and is left breathless as his friends pretend to kill and die around him. He remembers the scenes on the battlefield and nearly begins to cry. The other children stop their game due to Jonas's awkward behavior and leave. He is left standing in the field with Asher and Fiona. He pleads with Asher to stop playing the game, but Asher is irritated that Jonas interrupted his game. Fiona asks him to ride with her along the river but Jonas cannot bring himself to do so. Asher and Fiona leave Jonas alone. Jonas realizes that he loves his friends but they probably have no understanding of love. Jonas sits down on a bench and absorbs the loss of his childhood and its uncaring days.
In the evening, his father talks about an expecting mother who will certainly be birthing identical twins. Jonas questions his father about the process of releasing the smaller identical twin, and his father explains that someone from elsewhere comes to pick up the baby. Later, Jonas asks the Giver what he thinks about the release. The Giver tells Jonas that he has wanted to apply for release in the past, but the Receiver cannot be released until a new one is trained. Jonas shares that he being the trainee is not allowed to apply for release either. The Giver upon Jonas's request explains how the committee had created the rules for the Receiver-in-training after their failure to create another ten years ago. The Giver tells Jonas about Rosemary, the girl who had been chosen to be the Receiver before Jonas. The Giver had loved Rosemary in much the same way as he now loves Jonas, but his assignment required for him to give her the memories of pain. He had been unable to give her physical pain, but he had given her other kinds of pain. The happy and cheerful Rosemary transformed after learning of pain. One day she decided that she had had enough, and applied for release.
That release had caused the painful memories she had received to affect the citizens, and the Giver had been unable to help them because he had been deeply disturbed by Rosemary's release. Jonas wonders what would happen if he had some sort of accident or was released, would the people experience the painful memories he had been given. The Giver isn't certain that would occur, but he reasons that he could help the citizens deal with painful memories similar to how he helped Jonas deal with the pain of memory.
Jonas explains that he had only asked about the Release because his father had recently told him about a releasing ceremony that he would have to perform on an identical twin. The Receiver wishes that they wouldn't do that to children, but Jonas tells the Giver that he had wanted to see the ceremony but his father had refused and told him that no one was allowed to see it. The Giver tells Jonas that he has the right to see anything in the community, and so the Giver goes to the speaker. He turns it on and tells the receptionist to show them the video for the release of the identical twin. Jonas is delighted to see the ceremony, but his delight soon turns to horror as he watches his father inject medicine into the baby's skull. Jonas watches as the baby's movement slows and it takes on the pose of death, one that is now so familiar to Jonas. His father puts the baby in a container and puts it into a chute almost like the one used to dispose of trash.
Jonas cannot bear the knowledge, he weeps and cries, unbelieving that his father would do something so horrifying. That their community would participate in such a horrific process, that they would kill the old, repeat offenders, and little children. The Giver tells Jonas that Rosemary had chosen to inject herself, he had watched her administer it with her own hand. Jonas refuses to go home and see his family. The Receiver asks his attendant to inform Jonas's family. Jonas feels helpless, he tells the Giver that nothing can change. The Giver reminds him that things had been different in the past and so they can imagine a different future. A future in which they aren't the only people who can experience emotions like love.
They sit down to hatch a plan. Jonas returns home the next day and begins his preparation to leave the community in December on the day of the ceremony. The night before the ceremony, Jonas would sneak out of his dwelling, sneak through their community and hide a set of clothes and a bicycle next to the river. He would then go to the Giver's room and stay with him till the morning. The Giver would then request a car and a driver to visit the surrounding communities as he had done several times in the past. Jonas would hide in the car and the Giver would help Jonas escape so that he could find elsewhere.
The Giver then plans to return to the community to help them deal with the several painful memories that Jonas's disappearance would unleash. He would help them cope with it. Jonas wants the Giver to come with him so that they could both escape. The Giver can't leave, he wishes to stay with the community so that he could one day join his daughter. The Giver tells Jonas that his daughter was called Rosemary. The Giver also informs Jonas of how his ability to see color had fled and how his ability to see beyond had manifested through hearing. He had begun to hear music, he wants to give it to Jonas, but Jonas refuses it. He wants the Giver to keep that pleasure for himself.
Analysis
Jonas appreciates the depth of feelings that he is now able to experience due to the memories, but his interaction with his group mates forces him to confront what he had lost. Before becoming the Receiver-in-training, Jonas had led a regimented lifestyle that lacked freedom of choice but it also lacked anguish and pain. The reader is forced to consider whether Jonas was indeed better off without the memories. He could not feel the absence of love because he had never known it, and he certainly wouldn't have missed the colors because he had never seen them before. Jonas retains some of his earlier naivete despite his understanding of death. This becomes apparent when he tries to seek an explanation for the process of release from his father. He wonders whether an individual from elsewhere comes out to collect the baby, and had earlier considered whether Larissa would raise the twin that would be released.
The section with the release of the twin is horrific, and the author manages to imbue it with the appropriate horror in part due to the character of Jonas's father. Until this point in the book, his father has been depicted as a gentle and compassionate individual that seems to gain genuine pleasure in caring for children. His demeanor during the release ceremony of the child remains the same, and it thus becomes evident that he feels no connection to the child, and experiences no remorse in killing a child for simply being born as an identical twin. This scene is most certainly the climax of the novel. Jonas is left horrified by his father's actions, and it is evident that after this point in the story, he will never again see his family or his community in the same light.
