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Picture montage
Thursday, July 29, 2010  This photo shows a young boy lifting his hands up, getting ready to catch an apple. In The Giver, this is the scene where Jonas and Asher were playing a simple game of catch during recreation period. Jonas had picked up the apple from the basket where snacks were kept. While playing, Jonas suddenly noticed that the apple had “changed” in mid-air. For just an instant, the apple had changed into a shade of red which stands out against the black and white background. At this point in time, Jonas was starting to see the colour red. He is one of the very few people who are able to see colours. The chief elder, the Giver of memory, refers to Jonas’s experience of starting to see colours as “seeing beyond”. The “change” in the apple caused Jonas to be mystified. The way the apple had “changed” was new and strange to Jonas. Puzzled by this phenomenon, Jonas brought the apple home to examine it. Jonas’s ability to “see beyond”, in this case seeing the colour red, differentiated him from his peers. This tells us that Jonas is unique. He is able to see things from a perspective where other people cannot do so (he sees life differently from the rest of the community). The special ability of “seeing beyond” helped Jonas to see that the way of life the community is leading is wrong. Jonas managed to make a change in the community at the end of the story where people led normal lives once again. They experienced love, warmth, complicated emotions once again.  This photo shows a pale, light eye. In the GIver, Jonas has pale and lighter eyes compared to the rest of the community. This makes Jonas stand out from the community. Most people in Jonas’s community have dark eyes. There were a few exceptions like Jonas who have different lighter eyes. They were the Giver of memory, Gabriel and a female aged five. It is mentioned in the novel that light eyes and pale were not only a rarity but they also gave one a certain look ---“depth”. It was as if one were looking into the clear water of the river, down to the bottom, where things might lurk and which have not been discovered yet. This shows that people with such eyes have the ability to “see beyond”, to see and understand things in depth that other people cannot see. This describes what Jonas is like very well. Being able to see more deeply into objects, Jonas can see colour. Jonas’s perception of colour symbolises his perception of the complicated emotions and sensations that other people cannot perceive. He sees life differently from the rest of the community. People with pale eyes are unique. They can experience memories, emotions, see colour and hear music (etc.). For Jonas, he starts off by seeing the colour red while the Giver of memory experiences music first. When Jonas was soothing Gabriel back to sleep one night, he transmitted a memory to Gabriel by accident. The fact that Gabriel was able to receive shows that he too had special abilities as only a few people in the community could enjoy memories.  This picture shows a baby with pale, light eyes. It reminds me of Gabriel in the Giver, the baby that was brought home Jonas’s father (a nurturer) for extra care. Babies are often than not symbols of hope and regeneration in literature. In this case, the new child, Gabriel, is a symbol of hope and starting over. Firstly, since Gabriel is too young to have absorbed the customs and rules of the community, he is still receptive to the powerful memories that Jonas had transmitted to him. Secondly, Jonas escapes out of the community with Gabriel to save Gabriel’s life. At the same time, Jonas’s gesture is also symbolic of his resolve to change things, to start a new life “Elsewhere” and change the community for the better.  This picture illustrates the filling up of a syringe with an unknown liquid from a bottle. This depicts Rosemary, the previous receiver of memory, who ended her own life prematurely. She injected herself with the liquid for release. She ended her life as she could not take the feeling of loneliness that the Giver of memory gave to her. She was very disturbed by the first heartbreaking memory of a child being taken away from his parents. In the end, Rosemary decided to end her life. This saddened the Giver and Jonas greatly. ,The picture also reminds me of the video Jonas watched which was about his father, a nurturer, releasing the lighter of two twins. His father injected the liquid emotionlessly into the infant’s scalp vein, killing him almost instantly. Jonas was bewildered, furious and overwhelmed by sadness. In The Giver, most people in the community have no emotions feelings except for people like the Giver of memory and Jonas. As a result, they are rather cold and heartless to the extent of killing a baby who has an identical twin. Haven’t the people of the community questioned themselves whether it is right to kill an innocent child who has the right to live? After this event, Jonas felt the urge to change the community by escaping from the community.  The cartoon shows some of the different occupations available in the community. At the Ceremony of Twelve, the elevens going twelve are given different jobs like engineers, labourers, lawyers, the speaker, teachers, pilots, researchers, technicians and so on. The community celebrates the differences between these children for the first time in their lives with the children being differentiated from their parents and peers. We can see individuality for the first time here. From this point in time, the elevens develop into an individual, maturing a young adult with unique abilities, dreams, and desires. The novel encourages readers to celebrate differences instead of disparaging them or pretending they do not exist. Individuality in a community is important as it will be dull and boring if everyone is the same. In the Giver, individuality also refers to Jonas having unusual qualities like “seeing beyond” and strange abilities which end up bringing lasting, positive change to the community.  This picture shows ‘Love’. This reminds me of the time Jonas asked his parents whether they loved him. They replied that Jonas should be precise in his language. ‘Love’ was a generalised word that is very meaningless that it is almost obsolete. Well, family love is absent in Jonas’s community. Family love is not important and vital in his society. Family love is ‘lost’. The photograph also reminds me about the Christmas memory the Giver gave to Jonas. For the first time, he experienced the pleasures of family love land warmth. He had liked and appreciated the feeling a lot. Jonas once said, “I wish we still had that”, “that" refers to love. Unfortunately, family love does not exist in Jonas’s community. |
