The Giver by Lois Lowry by Savannah

The Giver by Lois Lowry by Savannah - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

I believe that all high school students should read The Giver by Lois Lowry before they graduate. Granted, many student do read The Giver during their high school careers, I agree with the decision of many English teachers to read the book. The Giver is set in a dystopian society in which the government has complete control over all its citizens. While we do not live in such a society, there are many struggles that the coming-of-age book characters face that many graduating high school students might also face.

In the book, the main character, Jonas, is nervous about the “Ceremony of Twelve”, the ceremony in which he will be assigned a job and start his training to become an adult. I believe that this resonates with many high school graduates. I remember feeling the same way that Jonas did. I remember wondering what I would do next, how my family would treat me, how the community would treat me, what would be expected of me, now that I am graduated. I also remember feeling a bit conflicted, because though I was graduating and becoming a legal adult, I would still be living at home until college, and the relationship with my family might change. These are all things that Jonas faces, also.

The main reason that I appreciated The Giver, and its real world applications, is Jonas’s personality. In his world, choice is taken away, and everybody in the community is essentially brainwashed. That is the way going to college seemed for me. All throughout middle and high school, my parents and my extended family had been asking me about college. Where I wanted to go, what I wanted to major in, if I had received scholarships. With my family, there was no other option. Jonas did not get to pick his career, but he had to have one. To be a functional part of the community he had to pass his training and have an assignment (career). However, during his training as “The Receiver of Memory”, Jonas is enlightened about certain things that the Elders of his community had hidden from the public, and he realized that there was so much more to the world than he, or anyone in his community, had any idea about. He tried to share lost memories of the world with his friends, and got into a lot of trouble along the way, but eventually set everything back to the way it was meant to be.

The Giver is a very deep and intriguing book, and there are lessons that readers can take home after reading it. One implication of the book that I think is very important for high school graduates is that, no matter who the world says you need to be, or what they tell you that you need to do, there is so much more beyond what you have always known, and you will eventually figure out what is right and good, and you will be successful if you stay true to who you are.