Alvarez 1

Briana Alvarez
English 113B
Professor Lawson
25 April 2016
project text rough draft
word count: 1506
The Juxtaposition Between Living in a Utopian Society and the Real World
Everyone desires to live in a world where everything is equal and perfect and a world
without crime or misery. However, a society that is perfect does not exist without the cost of
losing valuable things in life people who take for granted. In The Giver, the community lives in a
society of sameness, where everybody is the same and therefore results in no more violence,
prejudice, intolerance or indifferences. However, the society might seem perfect without the
negative things people deal with everyday but it comes with a cost. A society needs balance and
with a society of sameness its hard to balance good and evil. In The Giver, Lois Lowrys
builds a dystopian society and disguises it as a utopian society where the cost of sameness and
stability is losing experience of diversity, personal choice, and the beautiful things of life.
Through this novel, Lowry gives us a warning about our own world, and what can happen when
we sacrifice diversity, choice, and beauty for security and homogeny.
Lowry creates and reinforces sameness by having the society look the same and follow
strict rules on how they should live their lives. For example, she shows that almost every citizen
in the community had dark eyes (20), and have special aging ceremonies for children between
1-12 and that rules were very hard to change (14). The notion of sameness can benefit the
society because hierarchy between gender or race would no longer exist. Women or people of

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color would not have to worry about being minorities because they will all be the same. The
author displays this when in the household of the protagonist Jonas, his mother and his father
switched roles. Whereas, the father is displaying the nurturing role and the mother showing
authority role in the family. The Elders who make all the decisions in the society does this to
create equality and have a control society to prevent chaos. However, with the job that Jonas was
assigned with caused him to be alienated from his own society. With the knowledge he was
going to inherit, it was forbidden for the others in his society to know about it. In The Utopian
function of memory in Lois Lowry's The Giver, an essay by Carter Hanson she analyzes that,
both Jonas (once he becomes the new Receiver) and the Giver express severe dissatisfaction
with their society and with the knowledge about this past exist but are off-limits to all but one
person. This prevents Jonas from interacting again with sameness and his community and
because of that he becomes defiant. This sameness that the society deals with removes diversity
in their world. Diversity is an important aspect of societies because of belonging to a group
accepting people for being different is significant.
In the book, everyone is colorblind and it symbolizes it by saying that everyone should be
colorblind and see all the other races as one color. Most people and especially in that society
believes the idea of colorblind would prevent prejudice and intolerance. Although this may be
true but rather than seeing people as one, people should learn to accept everyone for who they
are. When one thinks of seeing the race as no color they still decide to see white as a default and
refuses to accept whats different. In Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using The Giver to Challenge
Colorblind Ideology, Susan Lea states, such colorblind stances promote the ideology
exemplified by the community of The Giver, that is, emphasis on Sameness and avoidance of
difference, particularly at an individual level, with no awareness of the institutional systems at

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work. She goes in analyzes how people mostly white people ignores the differences of a person
and doesnt knowledge other races problems simply because they have never experienced it
before and believes that people have the same opportunities as they do.
However, when one can relate to others and socially accept and value each others
uniqueness, the community can be stronger in diversity and people will most likely define a
community diverse when they feel they are socially accepted. In an experiment where they tested
students perceptions of diversity by the numerical representation or social acceptance; the
results showed that both Whites and racial minorities conceptualize diversity in terms of both
representation and social acceptance (Chen). This is important because when one feels alone
and not part of a community, they most fall into depression or rebellion. Jonas is not given social
acceptance or representation because of his job and with his job their can only be one giver and
receiver and that alienated himself from his own society. Diversity is significant because people
can experience things from different points of views, create more options in life and have a sense
of belonging. This does not play in a society of sameness because they dont have anything
different neither do they have personal choice.
In the book, the society has no personal choice or freedom when it comes to choosing
things for themselves. Jonas realized that having people make choices on their own was
Definitely not safe (98), and We really have to protect people from wrong choices (99).
Jonas express his fear of imaging people having the right of personal choice and choosing the
wrong decision. This shows how controlled Jonas has been throughout his life living told what to
do. The elders decide how each individual will live their lives; they choose peoples spouse,
children, and jobs. Without having people making their own decisions, it leave no room for
errors. However, risking personal choice is worth freedom that people are given in America

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today. Having personal choice is important not only do you get the chance to make your own
decisions but one also develops responsibility. Reasonability is a big factor in personal choice
because one becomes responsible for their actions and they learn from their errors. If personal
choice does not exist, human wont learn from their mistakes or from accomplishments. Goran
Duus-Otterstrom, discusses that choice is valuable because it promotes valuable personal
growth and is conducive to qualities such as discretion, independence, maturity, and a sense of
responsibility and within it also benefit peoples in a psychological aspect because we derive
enjoyment from having and making choices. So in defense the community removes personal
choice to prevent people from making the wrong decision but however its removes all the
important qualities that individualizes a person.
In Jonass community, the citizens live in a sedated state of mind. Rather than to be
living their life they we they want to, they are being brainwashed. Yes, they still live their lives,
but from the hands of other people, who tell them how they should live their life and sensor the
aesthetics things of life. They are immune to color and emotion, pain. Because of sameness
everyone sees the same color and doesnt experience the varieties of colors that life has to offer.
Color has can affect someones mood, show the unique things of the world and carry so much
meaning. Not only did the community lose the experience of color but also experience to human
emotions and sensations.
The citizens are forced daily to take medication to control their sexual urges and share
their emotions and pain medication. When Jonas is given pills because he started feel emotions
his mom told him youre ready for the pills, thats all. Thats the treatment for Stirrings (37),
and when he stops taking medication, he started to feel pain and emotions and realized that they
have never known pain (110). Although, it maybe nice not to feel pain and emotions like anger

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and sadness but not feeling happiness or love is not worth it. Emotions are so important to
humans because it consociates and plays an important role to memory. The importance of human
emotion is evident in that what we notice and remember is not the mundane but events that
evoke feelings of joy, sorrow, pleasure, and pain and a lack of emotional equilibrium underpins
most human unhappiness (Dolan). When deprived from emotion not only is one losing feelings
to express themselves but they are also being deprived from sanity and memory. Thats why
Jonas is experiencing all these emotions from theses memories and its something his community
arent allowed to do.
In the dystopian society that Lowry built, she showed us what world we would have if
didnt have diversity, personal choice the aesthetics. Living in a world without those things arent
worth it because its what makes life beautiful and makes everyone an individual. As Johannes
Kepler says, The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in
the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh
nourishment. Diversity is so unappreciated and even though people feel like it might cause
chaos, it actually brings beauty to the world and creates new and different things everyday.

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Works Cited
Chen, Jacqueline, and David Hamilton. "Understanding Diversity: The Importance of Social
Acceptance." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41.4 (2015): 586-598.
This article is about a research on how academic and business people interpret
diversity within the minorities as non-Whites and with Whites. The article also discusses
how social acceptance connects with the importance of diversity and explains that with
diversity in societies people can achieve. I found this argument by accessing the CSUN
Oviatt Library website by using the One Search engine. I searched for Importance of
diversity in society and and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed)
Journals. I know its an appropriate source because its an academic source and a scholarly
journal. This article is useful for my essay because it gives statistics information on how
students of different races perceive diversity within their society. Its also has some good
significant intuitions on how theres problems with diversity in the societies and how its
important to have diversity and this information will help compare me with The Giver,
whereas, in the book they dont have diversity but sameness.
Duus-Otterstrm, Gran. "Freedom of Will and the Value of Choice." Social Theory and
Practice, 37.2 (2011): 256-284.
This articles argues on the value of having personal choice is associated with libertarian
free will and discusses the importance of having personal choice and the reasonability, control
and self determination its comes with. I found this argument by accessing the CSUN Oviatt
Library website by using the One Search engine. I searched for Importance of personal choice
and freedom and and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals and the

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publication year to 2011 to 2016. I know its a trustworthy source because its an academic source
and a recent peer-reviewed article. This article is helpful for my essay because it explains how
about having personal choice works independently and its not controlled by other influences.
This is useful because when I compare it to The Giver because in the book they dont have
option of personal choice, everything in their life is chosen for them.
Dolan, R.J. "Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior." Science. N.p., 02 Nov. 2002. Web. 25 Apr. 2016
Hanson, Carter F. "The Utopian function of memory in Lois Lowry's The Giver." Extrapolation
50.1 (2009): 45+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.
This article analyzes The Giver society and makes the connect that society that was built
to be a utopia society is truly a dystopia society. It goes in detail how the society gave up their
freedom, personal choice and all the aesthetics of the world like color. I found this article by
accessing the CSUN Oviatt Library website and using the databases by subject to use Academic
Search Premier search engine. I searched for The Giver and Lois Lowry and I limited the
search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. I found the article from my results. I know
its a reliable source because its from CSUNs Oviatt Library website and a scholarly journal.
This article is useable because it has good insights and its related to my topic of me essay and
discusses the hidden issues within the society and also identifies what the society are living
without due to sameness.
Lea, Susan G. "Seeing Beyond Sameness: Using The Giver To Challenge Colorblind Ideology."
Children's Literature In Education 37.1 (2006): 51-67. Academic Search Premier. Web.
18 Apr. 2016.
This article scrutinizes how The Giver creates a mystical world for the society but
discusses the results when protagonist find outs that his world isnt so perfect. It also goes in

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detail how the society is colorblind which connects to race and and racism and compares it to
their society to the reality. I found this article by accessing the CSUN Oviatt Library website and
using the databases by subject to use Academic Search Premier search engine. I searched The
Giver and Lois Lowry and I limited the search results to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. I
found the article from my results. I know its a reliable source because its from CSUNs Oviatt
Library website and a scholarly journal. I will use this article for my essay when I discuss about
race and racism in my essay and use the insights of how people in the society of The Giver is
colorblind to race and to colors and are only allowed to see what the Elders in their society let
them see.
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Laurel Leaf, 1993. Print.