Amber Stacey
Research Outline
7 March 2007
I. Introduction
A.
B. In Lous Lowry’s The Giver, the “utopian” society is in truth a dystopia due to the eradication of difference within the community, the disposal of individual choice, and the limitation of freedom.
II. The community eradicates difference, reverting to “sameness” to keep order.
A. The people of the community are raised to not bring up difference.
a. It’s considered rude to ask personal questions that might imply difference. It is awkward and not easy to speak about.
i.) “It was the sort of thing one didn’t ask a friend about because it might fall into the uncomfortable category of ‘being different’.” (The Giver. Pg. 38)
b. More comfortable, easier, pleasant to talk about what’s the same. It’s more familiar and less rude.
i.) “Always better, less rude, to talk about things that were the same.”
(The Giver. Pg. 38)
c. The Chief Elder admits that the citizens are raised to not be different.
i.) “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.” (The Giver pg. 52)
ii.) “Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent
is bad.” (Dystopia definition and characteristics. Read. Think .Learn.)
B. Different natural occurrence were done away with to create “sameness”.
a. There was once snow and sunshine but they climate control was developed to
to make the weather predictable and easier to grow things in.
i.)”Climate control. Snow made growing food difficult, limited the agriculture periods. And unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible at times. It wasn’t a practical thing, so it became obsolete when we went to sameness.” (The Giver pg. 84)
b. The people of the community lack the ability to see color. Things appear in
in black and white which makes skin, hair, and eye color just about the same
except when it comes to Jona’s pale eyes that he shares with the Giver and a
girl in the six age group.
i.)”...his people literally have limited vision (they can only see in black and white, so they do not notice racial difference, or colors of any kind..”
(Over view of The Giver - Galenet)