Chapter 13 and 14

THE GIVER CHAPTER 13-14                              BRUCE

1) in a world without sunshine, animals, and colour, the losses to humanity are indescribable. First of all, without animals, there would not be life as we know it. The first thought i arrived at was that if we did not have bees, then flowers wouldn’t be pollinated. Also, if we didn’t have herbivores like rabbits and squirrels, then plant life would dominate the earth, eventually starving the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Also, if carnivores did not exist, then herbivores would strive and would eat all of the vegetation on the earth, therefore destroying all plant life other than algae. if there were no sunshine, then the earth would eventually freeze, because the ecosystem does not function without the sun. Without the sun plants would starve, and all the animals would die. Without the sun, there would be no heat, and earth would freeze up into a huge ice ball. The end of humans in general. Without colour, we would have almost no depth perception and we wouldn’t be able to make decisions based on what we see in colour terms. Also, if any of these did not exist, humans would probably succumb to a cold, bleary, death on a big ball of ice that used to be known as earth. With sunshine, animals prosper, and ice melts, water evaporates, and life can exist. Thinking more physiologically, sunshine has a warming effect on humans, and you feel good when you feel it on your skin, so the lack of it could present emotional problems. Considering the fact that Jonas’s community has climate control, and they still manage to live without much problems, then i think a life without colour, sunshine, or animals would not be so bad, considering that the people there have never known what any of those things are.
2) Jonas is beginning to learn about how back then, when society was as it is now, we had much more choices than at their time. He knows this because in the memories, the people are faced with much more choices than normally they would be faced with. In memories, people made bad choices, and i think that is how Jonas is supposed to comprehend so much wisdom. When the people make mistakes, Jonas comprehends and learns from them, and theoretically should make him wiser. As Jonas observed, he felt the pain of a broken leg, and he knew that that was caused by his ‘choice’ to go on a sled. I think it was from this small failure in choice that made the community remove hills. All the other times the person went down on the sled he probably didn’t fall and break his leg, but even if he identified that there was even a risk of breaking his leg, even if the risk is one in a million, the community still removed hills. I think this mass removal was only caused by the fear of humans. The fear that even if there is a little risk, that it can still be significant. I think by removing the pain factor in life, they also reduced the purpose of life. From what i have read and learned, daredevils describe life as being fun only if there is danger in it. That is why they skydive, kayak rapids, bungee jump, and do such things that have a great amount of risk in them, because it is a high amount of risk that allows people to appreciate life. I remember when i once heard a radio broadcast about a magician, and escape artist actually, who said that “every time i escape from from a daring position, i always find that i can appreciate the fact that I'm alive just that little bit more”. Later he also comments that the only purpose for escaping from hard-to-escape-from-places is not to earn money, but to have a thrill and appreciate life a lot more. Also, he says that when he feels that his life is boring, he just escapes from a near death situation again, and he appreciates life once again. I find this concept inspirational, because it shows how humans turn to risk for pleasure, for entertainment, and how some people can turn a near death situation into a thrill ride, like the escape artist i mentioned.
3) I think the Giver is trying to explain that the memories are the things he does every day. He is so overcome with all the memories he has that he spends every day nursing them. He is so overcome by his feelings of his memories because they almost block off his will to think for himself.  He goes over his memories and sometimes ends up sitting in pain as he reviews his memories every day. It’s almost like he is being controlled by the memories, and sadly that is his job. This comes to show that humans can never totally abandon memories, because no one can channel all their memories into an object like a rock, for example (if we could, there would be a lot of very sad rocks) and they would have to channel them into someone, and make him/her keep it for them, and bear the pain for them. In a way, the Giver is a slave to the normal society, because he unknowingly is bearing all the pain they have ever experienced. This demonstrates the fear humans have of all pain, and that they are willing to do anything to not have it, in this case give all the pain to a receiver.
4) I think the bridge over the river symbolizes how in control the community is. When the little 4 Caleb drowned in the river, it symbolizes how even in a Utopian society, there can still be something unpredictable, like the river. The river symbolizes the fault line between Utopia and dystopia, which is unpredictability. When Caleb drowned, the Giver and Jonas were reminded that even in the perfect society they live in, there is still a weakness, which is always imminent, like the river, for example. Caleb is also a symbol, which shows that people can still be hurt by the small risks that still exist. Also, when Caleb drowned, the people in the community were flooded with feelings, and so they performed a ritualistic ceremony of loss to give them selves a false sense of comfort. The bridge in this situation, represents the best attempt the council had to counter the river, or the risk. The bridge also symbolizes how the council wants to be in control of everything, even water, but just can’t seem to get a hold on everything, because nature will always find a way to squeeze through. This is almost like nature fighting back, because even though the community might have weather control, and sunshine control, and basically control of everything, nature’s ‘secret weapon’ is just water, because the people just can’t seem to completely control water. The bridge also symbolizes the connection to elsewhere, that even if people completely forget about it, there must still be a way to get to it. Page 106 “he stood at the foot of the bridge that spanned the river, the bridge that citizens were allowed...visiting the outlying communities...” i found this excerpt extremely interesting, in an inspirational way. Even though he did not know what was out there, he could still use his abilities to guess what was there, and the bridge helped him do that because he thought about elsewhere by thinking about the bridge. The bridge is almost a way for thinking, because Jonas thinks of many things ‘through’ it.
5) In the story, Jonas receives memories of pain to gain wisdom. This is through of process of learning through his mistakes, or someone else’s mistakes. In the memories, the people make mistakes, and Jonas analyzes all the mistakes and learns through them. Because he has such a bigger database of memories than even people now, he can make much more connections to the world as it used to be and how humans had failed before. He can also connect to literature, and i think that is why the books are there. In reality, we cannot perform a channeling of memories, and so we have to gain experience much more slowly for ourselves, because we cannot see trends in depressions or assemble info together to form a chain of events more clearly like the Giver can, and so we have to share our knowledge by some way to create solutions, but even though we have this method, our system is still inaccurate and flawed. I think this might have been the reason the people chose to channel their memories into one person; to solve problems better and create their Utopian society faster, even though it’s not Utopian for the receiver of memory bearing all the pain. I think in reality, if you were to create an Utopian society, you would have to channel the memories into a receiver, create the world, and then channel the memories into some inanimate object or animal, so that the environment is Utopian for everyone.
6) The advantages and disadvantages of bearing pain for everyone is listed here:

PROS	CONS
-No one has to go through pain to gain experience or wisdom -No one has to endure pain and society is happier without it -Pain is forgotten and no one knows how to inflict pain on something -There are no memories of being in pain and so there are no memories of it	-One person takes all the pain -That person could use his honour and start to spread pain with other people -That person might not want to endure the pain and he might give it all to someone who is not ready for the job -He/She might go crazy -The person might want to commit suicide (apply for release) or inflict pain on other people -The person might die of pain

The impacts this situation would have on society are:
- People might forget pain in general, and people might not appreciate life for what it is, causing mass suicide or riots. This might not be possible though, because in this situation no one would know what pain was, and they might not try to question authority because they have never known anyone who has tried that and got what he wanted.
- People might demand pain, because they have heard about it and have arrived on the fact that it might make life worth it.
7) I think the power as Jonas is describing it is the power to lie. Because he had unknowingly given away a memory to someone not yet qualified to be a receiver made him shocked, almost ridiculed, as he realized that he could technically lie to cover it up. It clearly stated in the rules that Jonas was handed “ 8. You may lie “ and he knew he could easily take advantage of this if he was not careful.