#2 - The Stars of The Giver
Hey! These are the main characters who are part of my journey with The Giver. Want to take part in my journey too? Then, you have to know the main characters first.
On the surface, Jonas is like any other eleven-year-old boy living in his community. He seems more intelligent and perceptive than many of his peers, and he thinks more seriously than they do about life. He enjoys learning and experiencing new things: he chooses to volunteer at a variety of different centers rather than focusing on one, because he enjoys the freedom of choice that volunteer hours provide. He also enjoys learning about and connecting with other people, and he craves more warmth and human contact than his society permits or encourages.
The things that set him apart from his peers was his unusual eyes.
While the other children have dark-coloured eyes, Jonas has pale-coloured eyes, like the above picture.
Like any child in the community, Jonas is uncomfortable with the attention he receives when he is singled out as the new Receiver, preferring to blend in with his friends.
Once Jonas begins his training with the Giver, however, the tendencies he showed in his earlier life, his sensitivity, his heightened perceptual powers, his curiosity about new experiences and his high intelligence, make him extremely absorbed in the memories the Giver has to transmit. In turn, the memories, with their rich sensory and emotional experiences, enhance all of Jonas’s unusual qualities. Within a year of training, he becomes extremely sensitive to beauty, pleasure, and suffering. He was also fiercely passionate about his new beliefs and feelings. Things about the community that used to be mildly perplexing or troubling are now intensely frustrating or depressing. Jonas’s inherent concern for others and desire for justice makes him yearn to make changes in the community, both to awaken other people to the richness of life and to stop the casual cruelty that is practiced in the community.
Although Jonas possesses more wisdom than almost anyone else in his community, he is still very young and knows little about life in the community itself. At twelve years old, Jonas is too young to control the powerful emotions that his training unleashes, and the natural hormonal imbalances of preadolesnce make him especially passionate and occasionally slightly unreasonable. His youth makes it possible for him to receive the memories and learn from them. However, if he were older, he might be less receptive to new experiences and emotions. Hence, he still needs the guidance and wisdom of the Giver, who has life experience as well as memories, to help him keep all of his new experiences in perspective.
The Giver
Like Jonas, who is a young person with the wisdom of an old person, the Giver is a bit of a paradox. He looks ancient, but he is not old at all. Like someone who has seen and done many things over many years, he is very wise and world-weary, and he is haunted by memories of suffering and pain. However, in reality his life has been surprisingly uneventful.
In the world of the community, the Giver has spent most of his life inside his comfortable living quarters, eating his meals and emerging occasionally to take long walks. Yet he carries the memories of an entire community. He has experienced the positive and negative emotions, desires, triumphs, and failures of millions of men and women, as well as animals. He is responsible for preserving those memories and using the wisdom they give him to make serious decisions for the community. Anyone would feel weighted down by this enormous responsibility, and because the Giver is forbidden to share his knowledge and pain with anyone else, the weight is more difficult to bear. Thus, the Giver has become an exceptionally patient, quiet, deliberate person, growing resigned to the fact that he cannot change the community even though he realizes that it needs to be changed.
However, the memories that the Giver carries inside him are too powerful for him to be entirely stoic. Among the members of the community, the Giver alone is capable of real love, an emotion he experiences with Rosemary, the first child who was designated to be the Receiver. Years of loneliness, isolation, and unshared emotion made the Giver’s love for Rosemary intense, and when she is taken from him, his anger and grief are equally intense. It is this anger and grief, fueled by the Giver’s growing love for Jonas and Jonas’s own youthful energy, that allow the Giver to finally overturn his years of silence and endurance and change the community.
His patience, wisdom, and restraint make him an excellent teacher and mentor.
Jonas’ father
Jonas's father is a mild-mannered, tenderhearted Nurturer who works with infants. He is very sweet with his two children. He enjoys his job and takes it very seriously, constantly trying to nurture children who will stay alive until the Ceremony of Names. However, even if he is attached to a child, he will release it if that seems to be the best decision. He has an affectionate, playful relationship with his two children, usually referring to them by silly nicknames, and he likes playing childish games with the children he nurtures.
Jonas’ mother
Jonas's mother is a practical, pleasant woman with an important position at the Department of Justice. Jonas’s mother takes her work seriously, hoping to help people who break rules see the error of their ways. She frequently gives Jonas advice about the worries and fears he faces as he grows up.
Lily
Jonas’s seven-year-old sister. She is a very lively character who is also quite a chatterbox. She is also extremely practical and well-informed for a little girl.
Gabriel
Gabriel is the adorable newchild that Jonas’s family cares for at night. He is sweet and cute during the day, but has trouble sleeping at night unless Jonas puts him to sleep with some memories. Gabriel too has unusual eyes like Jonas, which are pale. Jonas and Gabriel soon develop a very close relationship.
Labels: Characters
