Sameness

I didn't realize it until now, but this world has no color, no feeling, and no point. These people have nothing beautiful to look at.

The Giver tells Jonas that no one but them sees color because of the goverment's efforts to make everyone the same. What would it be like without color? We use it to catergorize, to recognize, and to see beauty in things. Without that, our world is more boring and pointless than pretty much anything. No color. That means that anything painted, paints, all that stuff, was wasted and unneeded. That completely wipes out the field of the arts, without color. Not a good decision on their part.

And they don't feel things like we do. They might think they do, but really they are just thinking about the concept of an emotion, not really feeling it. That's what kills this world to me. I wouldn't be my own person (which is kind of what they're going for in this book), and I can't live without that. I don't want to be the same as everyone else, no matter how many problems it'll solve. When they get emotions at the end (or after the end) of this book, they are going to freak out and panic, seeing colors, feeling things for real, and being their own persons. They've never felt that, and it will surprise the living daylights out of them.

That's probably why the government has to choose and approve of who you marry, and why people don't mind that the old and some younger babies are killed.

Without all of this, there's no point to being there at all, even if it is paradise. Otherwise, this would have been an excellant way to live. They choose the job that you'll love and be best at, and they care for you your whole live, treating you fairly till you are gone.

These people are nutjobs, but I like them.

All in all, this book was amazing and totally worth reading, just to see that we don't need paradise, because it comes with lots of ifs and onlys.

Ciao,

Carli