CHAPTER 23
BRUCE
1.
I
think Jonas’s fading memories represent his urge to leave his already hated
community. By losing his memories faster, he makes himself think that they
recovery process (the Giver’s plan) will work faster and they can all return to
a “normal” life like in his memories. The odd thing is that because he is
losing his memories, he would not know what is normal or what, but as he noted,
at the end of the book, he said that he had a memory to keep, and that he would
never lose it. I think this shows that he has arrived at where memories are
made, or elsewhere. Another interesting thing is that by abandoning his
received memories, he can turn to his own memories, such as memories of Asher,
Fiona, his family, the community, and the joys that he had had living there. I
think he was only forced to use these memories under extreme stress, which is
the end of the book, where he was climbing the hill. “But he began, suddenly,
to feel happy. He began to recall happy times…” This shows that Jonas really is
depending on his last final reserve of memories, which are memories of his own
life to fulfill his needs at the moment, which is protecting Gabe and
continuing on to the top of the hill. His fading memories also represent his
entry into a world in which memories are made, not passed on. By losing the
memories of an older place, it allows him to take in the newer places memories
more easily.
2.
I
think elsewhere is what the community left behind, a band of people who decided
not to go with the rules of
the community. The people in the community are the ones who I think chose to
leave the other people out because they chose to keep memories. I think
elsewhere is what Jonas has been looking for because the people there encourage
memories. To Jonas, the people of elsewhere represent the hope he has, because
all the other people he knows other than the Giver and Gabe don’t have
feelings, and being like himself, he obviously wants to share feelings. The
hope of a better future is pretty much all that Jonas has left in his heart to
continue on his journey. He is deprived of all other necessities and emotions,
but still manages to hang on to the last bit of a memory he still has, the
memory of hope, or a better future. To Jonas, I think Gabe represents the same
thing as a better future. This might be because he is still a newchild, and he
has not yet adjusted to the ways of the community, which means that he has no
biased or even influenced perspectives. He represents the hope that maybe
society can be like Gabe, born into a world of memories and not just a
dystopian society. This also shows that by searching for elsewhere, Jonas had
to sacrifice a few things of his own. “You have never been starving, he had
been told, and you will never be starving. Now he was, If he had…not be” this
shows exactly what I have spoken about. Because he made the CHOICE to go on
this quest, he CHOSE to forgo the necessities he needs for the CHANCE to get to
somewhere he wants to go rather than stay where he doesn’t want to be and have
the necessities but have no chance. Jonas starts regretting this on page 173.
“And Gabriel? …not really been a choice” and “then, when he had had a
choice…But if he had stayed” this shows that Jonas is contemplating whether his
choice was right or not. He didn’t think about this when he was just beginning
his journey, because he had mostly what he needed then. “But he had come this
far, he must try to go on” this shows Jonas’s utter determination towards
reaching his goal, or both his goals, to make his community realize and
understand, and also, to reach elsewhere and start a new life there.
3.
The
sled represents his entryway or path into a new life somewhere else, it
represents his life and its course downhill, it represents a ‘new beginning and
the end of an old life, and it represents the future of Jonas’s life.
-The sled represents his path into
elsewhere because it guides him to it. Because he has already received memories
of a sled before, he knows the purpose of the sled, to descend a snowy hill
quickly, and slowly stop at the end. Because he knows the purpose of it, he
knows that the sled can quickly take him to another place, and the other place,
he knows from memories, is elsewhere. The sled is only a tool to guide him
there. Also, the sled symbolizes his entry into a world where you make
memories, not pass them on. Because the memories must have been created at one
point (as the Giver points out at one point in the book) there must have been a
place where they were created. Because Jonas had experienced the sled memory
before, the memory acted like a ‘sneak preview’ to a real life, as I think all
the memories he received before are. Its like a movie trailer, when you see it,
it only gives you parts of the movie, and you can roughly assume what its
about, but by actually experiencing the memory in real life and not as a
memory, Jonas gets the entire load of the situation, and also what the person
having the memory would be thinking, because he really experiences it. During
the memory of the sled, Jonas says that he could steer it, so he could use
basic motor skills, but he probably couldn’t feel the emotions and the thoughts
the rider felt, because he isn’t the rider. Because he wasn’t the rider, he
probably couldn’t understand the thoughts either, but being the rider allows
him to have his own thoughts and opinions about the situation, not just listen
to someone else talk about it.
The sled represents Jonas’s life because
that is the direction he is taking on his life. At first at the beginning of
the sled ride, the memories are fun and he can handle them, and Jonas has a
reasonably fun time taking them in, but as the sled approaches the bottom of
the hill, the snow piles up on the runners and then the sled slows down, and
Jonas’s life is slowly filled with memories and his good times start stopping.
Eventually, as the snow piles on more and more and more, Jonas attempts to
nudge himself and force the sled forward, and his efforts are slowly failing,
and that represents Jonas trying not to be affected by the memories, but slowly
failing like the giver is and slowly giving up. When the sled stops, I think,
represents the end of his life, where suddenly, he is relieved and his ride
just ends there. This I think is what happens to all people, because at the
beginning of your life you are young and there are many pleasures and you are
‘reckless and happy’ but as you begin to get to your 30’s and 40’s you start to
get tired, and long to have the happy times you had had when you were young. As
a person ages even more and reaches their ‘sunset days’ they begin to slow down
and they’re body starts slowing down. At the end of their lives, people have
fulfilled their purpose on earth and leave to go ‘someplace else’ but in
Jonas’s case, it is the end of his OLD life, but actually the start of a new
life, in a way similar to rebirth.
The sled represents rebirth only for Jonas
because for him, the sled ride represents him ending his old life. This is
because at the beginning of his ‘real life (one full of memories)’ the Giver
told him about how the life was like a ride downhill in a sled, and then the
snow piles up on the runners… then he asks whether Jonas understands it or not.
After he got the memory, Jonas understood the literal meaning of it, but he has
not yet answered the question the Giver asked him, whether he truly understands
what the life is like. Now that he has truly lived a life of memories, he
understands the true figurative meaning of it, and what it symbolizes, because
only a person with so much wisdom would be able to comprehend it.
The sled also represents the future of
Jonas’s life because it tells him and gives him a simple impression of what it
will be like. At the beginning of his career of receiving memories, Jonas got
the good ride on the sled, but later on in his training, he gets the memory of
the time he rode on a sled and broke a bone and suffered immense pain. This
shows to him that each thing has two sides, a good side and a bad side, and by
receiving memories for both, he knows what both are like. Because he has
already learned this through the sled, he knows the possible risks and he knows
that a real life of memories is just like that. This shows what real life is
like to Jonas and states and presents clearly the risks associated with it.
4. I think the people who were waiting for
Jonas and Gabriel were the people from elsewhere. Clearly they are willing to
be the caregiver for Jonas. If what you mean by remembering is what Jonas
remembered of the community, then I think he is remembering his past life, and
the joys he had during it. He is remembering this probably because he is about
to leave it. This is similar to the recollections that someone has when they
are almost dead, it’s as if ‘your life passes in front of your eyes’. I realize
this is the same case with Jonas, but he is not dying, but just in a way being
transferred into a new person and a new life. Anyways, Jonas is remembering his
older life as he makes his entry into a newer one, and as he is remembering it,
he makes final regrets and thoughts about it before giving it up and accepting
his new life. The ride on the sled gives Jonas a last chance to contemplate his
decision to leave, but being so close to the end, he must already know what
will happen.
5. The music could have many meanings and
could symbolize many things. Some things that it might symbolize are included
here:
- Jonas could be recalling the memory of
love. The love from the community in front of him reminds him that there is
love in the community that he left, and the love serves as a reminder that no
matter what, there will always be love in the bleak, dystopian world Jonas
lives in.
- The music represents a new perspective
that Jonas has. Music is something that Jonas has never heard of before, and
because at the beginning of his receiver career, he saw colours, the music
could signify a new life, because he could hear music. The music is like a
second reminder that he has already accepted a new life, because music is a
completely new perception to him. The music symbolizes Jonas’s entry into a
life full of pleasures. Also, it symbolizes hope and regeneration because by
hearing it, Jonas has regained hope and knows he will heal in a new place, and
regain his life in a different way.
- The music symbolizes Jonas’s entry into a
new world and serves as a reminder that he has entered a place where love and
memories are not banned, but encouraged, and there is freedom, not restriction.
It is a reminder that he has truly entered the real world where not only
memories exist, and it will be filled with dangers and delights that will be
boundless.
- The music also serves as a reminder that
the same things are happening in the community. “From the place he had left, he
thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo” this shows that
clearly the same music was heard from the community, and Jonas is reminded that
that was his real task, to restore order in the community and share his
feelings and knowledge.
- Also, the music might represent Jonas’s
link with the Giver, because the Giver is the one who heard beyond. “Music, I
heard music…I’ll give you some before I go” this shows the Giver’s connection
with Jonas, and how he truly loved him. Before the Giver said this, he said
that he had been selfish with the memory of music and he was unwilling to give
it to someone else. This shows that the Giver would only give the memory either
because it was an extreme circumstance, or because he felt so much love to
someone else that he would actually be happy to give it. In this case, it is
the second, so it shows how the Giver also doesn’t want Jonas to leave, and
would be willing to make the escape easier on Jonas in any way possible. It
also represents Jonas’s connection with the giver because as the end of the
book reports, the music also came from behind, but also mentions that the music
might be an echo. This shows that Jonas does not believe in the Giver fully,
but trusts in him enough to spread the word and restore the community to
normal, and also trusts him enough to think that the music was coming from his
community and not possibly just an imagination.
- The music could also represent Jonas’s
last struggles. Because Jonas is nearing death, the music, the new community,
and the echo might completely figments of his imagination. Heck, even the sled
ride could be, because Jonas had already experienced this before and might only
have been reimagining it. Because Jonas is nearing death, he might be
hallucinating and all the things in front of him aren’t real, which would mean
that he and Gabe would freeze to death in a blizzard. It is an odd possibility
because he imagines music, even though he has never heard any of it before, so
he wouldn’t know what it would be like, but a starved and half dead mind can
probably think of all sorts of things, and the echo he heard from the place he
had left might have been another figment of his imagination, just something his
brain would conjure up to give himself some confidence and make him think that
he had fulfilled his job, so he can die with confidence. It is sad to imagine
Gabe and Jonas freezing to death during a snowstorm, but it is a possibility
and that might have been what happened to them.
- While we are on the topic that the music
might be a reminder that Jonas had fulfilled his job, it might have really been
just that, and it might have been the Giver sending out a last signal in hope
that Jonas can hear it and know that he has done what’s right.
i got an a on this yay!
(that was the edit)
i got an a on this yay!
(that was the edit)
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