The Giver Dystopian Society Essay Example

When someone hears the words “perfect society” what do they think of? Do they think of unicorns and rainbows? Or do they think about the society in The Giver? Jonas’s community believes they live in the ideal society, but when comparing their society to ours, it makes me wonder if they know they're wrong. In Jonas’s society, the government controls the people somewhat like ours in an unbending kind of way. In the Giver’s society, their “government” controls more rules, how spouses are chosen, and they exclude the elderly from the community. As thinking about those examples, you already can recognize the similarities and differences. When comparing this fictitious dystopia by Lowry the government rules are more inflexible than ours. Each one of the ideas is similar and different from our everyday society.  

The rules in the Givers dystopian society are more controlling than our rules. In Jonas’s community, you will be released if you disobey three or more rules. Release in this society is not so good. Release means death or it's like a death sentence to our society. This means once you break three or more rules you will be killed. In our society, if you break a small law such as speeding you will be given a ticket or sent to jail for a night. The only way you can receive a death sentence in our society is if you commit a crime such as murder. That rule is so accustomed to the people in Jonas’s society, but such a shock to us people living in a new day society. As it may seem that there are no similarities between laws and rules there are. In both societies, you are forced to go to school every day. Even though both societies have schools the grades are called different things and there are fewer people in the schools. In the book, the grades are referred to as “Fives”, “Nines”, and “Elevens” while ours are referred to as K-12. Since everything is so controlled there are only fifty students while in our society there can be over a thousand students per school. In our society, you are not always forced to go to school. By our law, you can drop out of school at the age of 16 years old. That means before you turn the age of sixteen you are required to go to school five days a week. Most teens in our society get jobs between 14 and 17 years old depending on who they are as a person. In this “perfect society” you are assigned a job once you become a Twelve. Assigned jobs are something we have never thought of in a real way. In the book, everyone is always watched so the “government” can determine what jobs fit all the Twelves the best. The jobs will then be announced at the Ceremony of Twelves.  Assigned jobs to our society mean doing a certain task at the job you chose or even doing your chores at home. The rules in both communities are created to have successful people and economies. While Jonas’s community takes the rules to the next extreme ours allows us to choose our way to succeed in this lifetime.  

Do You know all the stories of people falling in love at a young age and marrying their soul mates? Well in Jonas’s society things are a bit different. In his society spouses are chosen. When people are ready to start a family, they must send in a spouse application. Then, when everyone sends in their applications the “government” pairs the couples up that are most alike. When the couples can prove they work together can send in applications for children. The children come from birthmothers. It is a job assigned when you become a Twelve. Birth mothers are the only ones who can give birth. This sounds off the wall when comparing to our society. Choosing your children in this dystopia is something that happens all the time in our new day society. Choosing your children is like adopting here. You send in an application and an inspector comes to see if you are stable enough to foster a child or adopt it and make it your own. In our society, you can choose whomever you love and desire to marry. You are also allowed to have as many children as wanted with whoever. In this dystopia, you are only allowed to have two children per household. One girl and one boy. Divorce is something you do when you get married and no longer want to be with the person you married. An example of that is, my parents got together at a young age and later found out they did not work as a couple. That lead to a terrible divorce. Since in the book emotions are turned off by the pills, they take every morning no one feels true love which makes divorce not a thing. You must stay with your assigned spouse until you are sent to the House of Old. Marriage and having children are a huge part of people's lives but not so much when you have no control over who your family is.  

As people begin to get older, they start to lose their minds, so they get to nursing homes. My grandma is in a nursing home to be helped. Although, both societies have nursing homes they are meant for different ideas. In the not-so-perfect society, the House of Old is the place all the elders in the community get sent to. It is a place of release and the way the community excludes the elders. The elders are not allowed to live with anyone, so they become lonely. Just like our society the nursing homes bathe the elders and take care of them. Our society's nursing homes are just much safer in the end. They are a place for nurses to take care of the elders who truly are on their last string. It’s not a place to send elders to release or death as the book does. Even though many elders die in our nursing homes their main goal is not to kill them. This shows me and many others that even though both societies are similar they are also very different in the wrong ways. 

On the whole, you can now see a bigger picture of a “perfect world” comparing to our new day society. In our world, we have more rights to plan out our lives and futures. In the perfect world society, their futures are already made and chosen for them. Their families are chosen, the decisions they make every day, and the life as an elder is all chosen by their corrupt government. That perfect world is not so perfect now.