Jonas represents an aberration to a society centered on the loss of personal choice and will, to create a society void of confusion and errors associated with wrong decisions. The man Jonas depicts an individual who decided to leave a mediocre thinking society that has constructed men to live a life patterned by a set of elders waiting to enact punishment on all those who fail to line according to laid down rules and regulations.
Does Jonas die in The Giver? Here’s what you need to know
The plot twist surrounding the Giver creates the question in the hearts of many readers: Does Jonas die in The Giver? There are so many online entries trying to give explanations and perspectives to the looming question. The circumstances that surround the end of the story bring confusion as to whether Jonas indeed died or not.
It is not clear whether Jonas died because of the confusing play of events that further describe if his journey becomes successful or not. As Jonas tries to apprehend what position he would get during the ceremony of twelve, he is ignorant of the effect of the loss of the memories of the life that makes it beautiful.
There’s more to this story, so keep reading!
Jonas In The Giver
He has trained to adapt to a life void of the beauty of love, pain, suffering to see sameness, and lack of error as an approachable standard to life. During his training with the Giver, Jonas discovers the negatives of uniformity and realizes that it has terminated life’s spontaneity and the citizens’ independence.
It becomes his motivation for correcting the ills he finds in his environment. This drive is what motivates him above death. We see that this zeal draws him to the point where he desires to leave the society despite the troubling circumstances.
At the time before his training in the hands of the Giver, Jonas was still ignorant of what the common term of release meant. They had all assumed that the council had devised an unusual way of handling people who were to be released, and they could bother less about the specifics of the process.
The position Jonas received required that they train him to be able to hold the memories. These memories held deep secrets far beyond his imagination. He later found out that only elders and newborns that didn’t grow up properly get released peacefully.
Jonas And Gabriel
When Gabriel came into the picture, he was to enjoy the privilege of extra care by Jonas. His connection with this young child taught him a lot about life; his mentality void of love and compassion had now readjusted. It brought about changes in the way he perceived his environment, events, and happenings.
Gabriel was not just privileged but also gifted with the ability to see things far beyond mere view. Jonas discovered this as he was able to transfer memories to Gabriel at nights when he was having difficulty sleeping. Jonas also discovers that so many secrets were unknown to the entire city.
At this point, he begins to question all he has heard and taught to discover the loopholes and underlying truth. Not many see this truth, and even when he tries to share these discoveries with his friends, they think he is going crazy and has lost his mind. He takes the mission of escaping with more seriousness. The aim was to prove to them that some things are missing in their way of life.
What Does The Death Of Jonas In The Giver Mean?
If Jonas dies in the Giver, it will promote the story to be a tragic one. One in which the hero whose struggles is founded on the genuine desire to bring a change to his world and society by restoring the lost memories of everyone and bring balance to a world stripped of all the beauties of life.
Jonas’s new affiliation with newborn experiencing troubles while sleeping brings him to terms with the effect of beautiful memories such as love, friendship, hope, joy, peace, and closeness. It teaches him that the family experience all this while was not founded on true mutual feelings but on a sense of responsibility to see everyone grow up into the stage where they are assigned a different task to ensure the continuity of the society.
During his training with the Giver, he finds out that the Giver’s daughter breaks since these emotions are entirely foreign to her. She got the same training he had and made to experience all the feelings of war, hate, bitterness, and human anger. The fact that she broke down plunges the community elders to device a technique for preventing the sudden influx of emotions and memories when she eventually dies.
Jonas is genuinely aware of all these risks and pitfalls. It makes me believe that having had a full understanding of the risks and complications involved in this task, it is highly not possible for Jonas to die in the end.
In his bid to escape with Gabriel, he runs off to elsewhere a place outside of the community civilization, one built with real emotions and colorful atmospheres and weather. As Jonas approaches elsewhere, he eventually tires out, and the safety of Gabriel is at stake. It forces him to sustain Gabriel with little happy memories to enable him to keep on fighting until they eventually reach the end.
It happens that Jonas got stuck in a heap of snow, and his resistance eventually gives way as he slowly gives in to the pains of his present situation. Jonas doesn’t seem to die at the end because the sounds of music and sight of a hut just a little beyond the landslide reenergize him to continue to reach the shelter believing that someone is waiting to receive them.
Jonas’ death at the very end would become a sad tale in the interpretation of a heroic effort to do all it takes to bring back the richness of societal values. In his training with the Giver, his understanding of human emotions & feelings make him appreciate the beauty of life. If Jonas dies in the end, it will make us believe that the subtle attempt of the writer to make us think that trying to change a popular opinion of life, which is not correct, would end up being futile.
Many look to the inspiration of Jonas, risking all to save his dying society, his determination and craftiness in achieving this goal is a morale booster in breaking their limitations. Jonas cannot die as a result of the amount of sacrifice that he has put into ensuring that he reaches his end and successfully escapes into elsewhere.
As an integral part of him, his escape into elsewhere arms him with the mentality that if he fails, the sacrifices of others ultimately go down the drain. Jonas’ concrete determination to do and see things from a different perspective all his life had led him all this while right from when he was not yet assigned the duty of becoming the next receiver of memories.
Lessons From Jonas’ Journey
The journey of Jonas in the Giver teaches so many lessons. These lessons are:
Determination:
The determination of Jonas makes him achieve all he has set to and become a difference in a society shaped into a specific standard. In life, we have to be determined to achieve whatever we have set our hearts to do.
Sacrifice:
The sole aim of Jonas in the Giver is not to live an extraordinary life, but to do whatever it takes to bring balance to an already blind generation, even if it would cost him his life. It means that whether he ends up dead or not, he has been able to drive home the point that nothing is too high a price to pay in the liberation of humankind.
Love:
The determination and effort he put into achieving his mission come to full peak once he appreciates the beauty of life. His passion for seeing this spread among everyone makes him see things from a different perspective. In a bid to understand the family relationship, the memories he transfers to Gabriel are essential in proving that humans are worth loving.
He says that humans were like some form of machines to control and monitor and become what a set of elders chooses for them. They removed love from society as babies who are born are taken to families and caregivers who have no genuine affection for the lives of these newborns.
Ability to stand out:
Another reason Jonas can’t die at the end is that his life suggests the strength in him to be different and stand out from others. The Giver knew this, and that propelled him into giving him the necessary support to make sure that he follows through with the mission to the end.
Although others have tried and attempted to solve the same problems Jonas has seen, most of them failed because their approach to the problem was virtually the same. Out of the many, Jonas knew that if he must finish the mission, he must apply a different strategy and become proactive. The elders could identify this, and this made him selected as the best to suit the position of a receiver of memories.
Conclusion
With the way it ended, there have been questions such as, does Jonas die in The Giver? It is entirely unclear if he died or not. However, we seek to believe that he did not die. For Jonas to die at the end of the Giver would bring a total waste to his life principles.
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