The Giver (The Giver, #1)

by Lois Lowry

Even the children were scolded if they used the term lightly at play, jeering at a teammate who missed a catch or stumbled in a race. Jonas had done it once, had shouted at his best friend, “That’s it, Asher! You’re released!”

palpable,

My favorite word

“I apologize to my classmates,” Asher concluded. He smoothed his rumpled tunic and sat down. “We accept your apology, Asher.” The class recited the standard response in unison. Many of the students were biting their lips to keep from laughing.

It was one of the rituals, the evening telling of feelings.

Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow, the essential capacity to connect to others, which was required for the creation of a family unit.

“Lily,” Mother reminded her, smiling, “you know the rules.” Two children—one male, one female—to each family unit. It was written very clearly in the rules.

“Why is that, son?” His father looked concerned.

“Did you find it?” Jonas asked. He was fascinated. It didn’t seem a terribly important rule, but the fact that his father had broken a rule at all awed him.

“And there are certain people waiting for their comfort object.” “Lily,” her mother said fondly, “you’re very close to being an Eight, and when you’re an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.”

chastise

“Three years,” Mother told her firmly. “Three births, and that’s all. After that they are Laborers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old. Is that what you want, Lily? Three lazy years, and then hard physical labor until you are old?”

Each family member, including Lily, had been required to sign a pledge that they would not become attached to this little temporary guest, and that they would relinquish him without protest or appeal when he was assigned to his own family unit at next year’s Ceremony.

Release was not the same as Loss.

Their Match, which like all Matches had been monitored by the Committee of Elders for three years before they could apply for children, had always been a successful one.

They were arranged by their original numbers, the numbers they had been given at birth. The numbers were rarely used after the Naming. But each child knew his number, of course.

You Elevens have spent all your years till now learning to fit in, to standardize your behavior, to curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group. “But today we honor your differences. They have determined your futures.”

His heart swelled with gratitude and pride. But at the same time he was filled with fear.

She smiled, pushed a button, and he heard a click that unlocked the door to her left. “You may go right on in,” she told him. Then she seemed to notice his discomfort and to realize its origin. No doors in the community were locked, ever. None that Jonas knew of, anyway.

No voice made an explanation. The experience explained itself to him.

He was very aware of his own admonition not to discuss his training. But it would have been impossible, anyway. There was no way to describe to his friends what he had experienced there in the Annex room. How could you describe a sled without describing a hill and snow; and how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?

But when the conversation turned to other things, Jonas was left, still, with a feeling of frustration that he didn’t understand.

“Oh, your instructors are well trained. They know their scientific facts. Everyone is well trained for his job. “It’s just that . . . without the memories it’s all meaningless.

He watched the landscape for glimpses of the green that he knew was embedded in the shrubbery; when it came flickering into his consciousness, he focused upon it, keeping it there, darkening it, holding it in his vision as long as possible until his head hurt and he let it fade away.

He went to his sleepingroom early, and from behind the closed door he could hear his parents and sister laughing as they gave Gabriel his evening bath. They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely, and he rubbed his throbbing leg.

The boy sighed. His head fell back, his lower jaw dropping as if he had been surprised by something. A dull blankness slid slowly across his eyes. He was silent.

Overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant.

He had seen a birthday party, with one child singled out and celebrated on his day, so that now he understood the joy of being an individual, special and unique and proud.

He was in a room filled with people, and it was warm, with firelight glowing on a hearth. He could see through a window that outside it was night, and snowing. There were colored lights: red and green and yellow, twinkling from a tree which was, oddly, inside the room. On a table, lighted candles stood in a polished golden holder and cast a soft, flickering glow. He could smell things cooking, and he heard soft laughter. A golden-haired dog lay sleeping on the floor.

“It works,” The Giver agreed. Jonas hesitated. “I certainly liked the memory, though. I can see why it’s your favorite. I couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was so strong in the room.” “Love,” The Giver told him. Jonas repeated it. “Love.” It was a word and concept new to him.

“No need. Nothing is foolish here. Trust the memories and how they make you feel.”

“Do you understand why it’s inappropriate to use a word like ‘love’?” Mother asked. Jonas nodded. “Yes, thank you, I do,” he replied slowly. It was his first lie to his parents.

“There could be love,” Jonas whispered.

Feelings are not part of the life she’s learned.”

Jonas found himself using the nasty, sarcastic voice again. “Then we’ll have a sharing of feelings?” The Giver gave a rueful, anguished, empty laugh. “Jonas, you and I are the only ones who have feelings. We’ve been sharing them now for almost a year.”

At dawn, the orderly, disciplined life he had always known would continue again, without him. The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past.

There had been no time to receive the memories he and The Giver had counted on, of strength and courage. So he relied on what he had, and hoped it would be enough.

All of it was new to him. After a life of Sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that lay beyond each curve of the road.

He slowed the bike again and again to look with wonder at wildflowers, to enjoy the throaty warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to watch the way wind shifted the leaves in the trees. During his twelve years in the community, he had never felt such simple moments of exquisite happiness.

At night, while Gabriel slept beside him, Jonas lay awake, tortured by hunger, and remembered his life in the community where meals were delivered to each dwelling every day.

If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love.