Life in the Memories Essay

Austin Witthun 2/22/12

Life in the Memories

Authors note: this is a 5 paragraph essay about how the quote "You understand, don’t you, that this is my life? The memories?" shows that the Receiver is an important job that will take over someone’s life.

When someone has an extremely important job, it probably needs to have constant attention. If that is the case, then it would require extra attention that a normal job wouldn’t. It would take time that would cut into your outside life. The same thing happens in the story The Giver by Lois Lowry, when The Giver says "You understand, don’t you, that this is my life? The memories?”

In the community that Jonas lives in, the people have never experienced any emotion ever. They have this thing called Sameness which is where the weather is always the same and there is now sunlight and no colors. They are completely numb to their surroundings and if they were to start feeling emotions, it would impact them very strongly. The Receiver’s job is to hold all of these memories so that the people are not exposed to them. When the people don’t have emotions then the committee believes that they function more efficiently and that there would be less crime.

Because everyone else cannot have the memories, Jonas and The Giver have a very heavy burden on their shoulders. If anything were to happen to them, like the previous receiver who applied for a release for herself (this released all of the memories into the community), then the people would suffer because among those memories are memories of war violence and pain. This is why the receiver’s job is so important.

In addition to my other reasons that contribute to the fact that the Receiver is a job that will take over the owner’s life is that in the end of the book it totally changes his life because he leaves the Community. By leaving the community he is letting all of the memories that he has in his possession go back to the people of the community. That changes the people’s life but it changes Jonas’ more dramatically. This is so because he is far away from his family and friends and he has to take care of Gabriel.

Although the receiver is an important job it is not an easy one. A few people couldn’t handle it. For example the receiver previous to Jonas, Rosemary, couldn’t. After 3 weeks of memories including the painful ones, she applied for a release. This lead to the council changing the rules of the receiver, so that they cannot apply for a release. When Jonas runs away it is the same thing as being released except that he doesn’t die. The farther he gets away from the community, the more memories he loses as they go back to the citizens of the community. These are the reasons that being the Receiver is one of the most important jobs and it will always take over the owners life.