Matt Brooks 4/13/11 Chapters 1-4 1. Jonas's family is very organized, structured, and also somewhat lifeless.

The families are also very far away from each other in terms of emotional space. It seems to be organized with a normal, but precisely planned breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The families in Jonas's society are called "family units," and are made up of a mother, father, a boy, and a girl. The families seem to treat each other with high levels of respect and personal space. Families in modern society treat each other with a high sense of love and compassion. Modern families also tend to like to be close to each other, both physically and mentally. Modern families usually also have certain eating customs and eat individual foods that may be close to their nationality, while in Jonas's community, every family eats the same thing. The organized families in Jonas's community keep everyone in order. Love in that community may be able to get in the way of work or cause distractions, which can interrupt the way the community works. In our community, we have emotions, so it seems that without a family who loves one another, it can lead to depression, which can lead to suicide in our community. 2. Some rules in Jonas's community include the littlest of things like "precision of language." Precision of language in Jonas's community, for whatever reason, is such a key factor in the way people communicate, because of the lack of emotion that they have as they talk. There is also a pretty strong rule (which may be more of a habit) is to never lie. These rules are created for control of the community so there is absolutely no havoc or uncertainties whatsoever. The way Jonas's community reminds people about rules is that if

you break a rule, they announce (without saying your name) a reminder to the whole community. The rules in modern America are called "laws," and they are constructed through the government. Many of the rules in our community are not exactly what "to do," but more of what "not to do." For example, murdering one another is something "not to do." We are expected to do things like pay taxes or pay for items we have purchased, a system that doesn't even exist in Jonas's community. Many of the rules in our society are there so we don't all try and kill each other or cause mass destruction. Most of the rules in Jonas's community exist because that is the way it's been for them ever since Sameness. It has "always" been that way. Chapters 5-6 1. If everyone was the same, there would be many logical advantages. If we all become emotional lacking creatures from birth, we would practically be robots that are programmed to work. If that's looked upon with a logical perspective, we would be able to achieve many things a lot quicker, such as finder a cure for cancer, or more sufficient ways of transportation and trade. There are a lot of sort of moral disadvantages if we were all the same. Life would be highly predictable, and there would be nearly nothing to look forward to. Your life could've been exactly like someone else in that society's life. You could be assigned a carpenter, work as a carpenter until you die, and someone else decades ago could've done the exact same thing. Life would no longer have "life" in it, and would be a set sequence of events that every single person goes through. 2. The families in Jonas's community seem to be missing even little uncommon things like parent-child bonding, and the parents seem to be very uncaring towards their children other

than means of survival. The whole "influence" factor seems to be missing entirely from the community. Everything is based off of prediction along with no emotion, so no one can feel certain ways or make choices based on what the media shows. This just seems to show that Jonas's society is entirely predictable and planned, so there is no reason for any influence.

Chapters 7-9 1. One of the jobs that has the least prestige is a birthmother. For whatever reason in Jonas's community, a birthmother gives birth for 3 years and then works in hard labor for the rest of their lives until they get into the House of the Old. It is also a pretty plain job, which is probably why the community nearly resents it.This shows that the community is mainly about advancing and moving forward. If one is a birthmother, they are just providing more people in the community, not more information for the community to use. In our community, jobs that people have any respect or prestige for are jobs that required hard work. If one is a doctor, a job that requires hard training and studying, people respect that person not only for the important work that they do, but also for the hard work they've done. Jobs that also hold value in our community are actors. Actors are so important to youthful Americans that we actually pay to see them either make us laugh, cry, or give any other reaction to their audience. My ideal job would be a musician. Musicians do really have an important role in the opinions and acts of children and adults all around America. Songs have influenced people to give to charity, think about their actions, and even commit bad things like murder. Music of the ages also reflects the personality of the people, so if could be that any song I make can influence hundreds of thousands depending on who listened to it.

Chapters 10-13 1. I was in a vehicle transporting me through smaller, almost unnecessary spaces. The air was so thick, it almost had this bitter taste of sweat and oils. There was an unusually hot feeling that covered my arms and especially the tops of my shoulders, which felt like a blanket warmness covering the top half of my body. Eventually, I arrived at what seemed to be an apartment complex filled with many different kinds of people with a variety of personalities. I stepped into the first door on the right, feeling exhaustion and thirst - a certain wanting to just sleep and let the day pass by. As I walked down a somewhat short hallway, I almost tripped over something that for some reason I never even knew existed in my household. It was called a guitar. 2. As long as we teach the people in the country about the choices that we make in life, we are free and safe to make choices for ourselves. I think it's that if we just let people on their own and go insane with their choices is when sometimes they need serious help. Sometimes people don't even want to make choices just based on their selfish thoughts, which is where religion or other groups can come in. It doesn't seem as though people should not be able to make some choices, but rather that depending on that choice, that they would need permission before pursuing that choice. Like if one wanted to advertise their business in another country, they would need permission both from that country and their business to just go and commit to that act, as it may come to trouble depending on the country they will be coming to. Chapters 14-17 1. When it comes to physical pain, suffering, and war, then that situation is a good thing. The reason I say this is because there really are no benefits coming from a scraped knee or

cancer, it's always something that's just hard to deal with. If we were talking verbally, then it might be a different case. Arguments are bound to happen, and no one in the entire world will always agree on every point that they here, so arguments and emotional pain will most likely always based on our human nature. Lowry seems to illustrate this as something forced onto the community. There is no way possible that anyone could argue over what food to eat because the entire community eats the same food anyway. Everything in the community is the same, so jealousy is eliminated, which takes out some key factors of war. There is no currency, so no one can argue over the values of money. Communism and totalitarianism have taken out some factors within their own countries that may relate to pain, suffering, and war, but they have not attempted to eliminate it from our world. Even if they tried, it would just lead to more arguments, more pain, and more war. 2. If it had not been specifically mentioned in the book, I would have shown Jonas the Holocaust. I would give this to him to teach him about how acts of prejudice can lead to extreme terror. An entire group of people hated another group of people so much, that they decided to literally work them to death, and then later on kill them. This would teach that hate used to be a deadly weapon in the past that lead to terror throughout the world, and to make sure that those actions never occur again. Chapters 18-20 1. A lot of the music that I hear is very happy or optimistic. It talks about morals, lessons, or problems in the world, and can be commonly heard on the radio, the Internet, or even the TV. My favorite kind of music is progressive metal, for the reason that as dark and melancholy it is, it can be used to bring great messages to the public with really creative melodies.

Music can bring about emotions that make one want to jump up and down, cry, or really think about what they do every day. However, no person besides the Giver and Jonas have any emotion, so music wouldn't be able to enjoyed without the full experience of emotions along with the ride. The entire community would find it useless, as it doesn't contribute to their society of advancement, which is just about all that they care about. Chapters 21-23 1. Jonas and Gabe are probably going to die, if that had not been inferred already. He didn't know how long it would be to get to "Elsewhere," so he never even knew how much food he should have taken from the start. This probably shows that although his intentions seemed to be the right choice, his choice of what he needed to do and when was very unstructured. He would've starved of color and feelings if he would've stayed. He had experienced something so great, wonderous, and new that he could not have just thrown it all away. If Jonas had released the memories to the community, then the old may experience great pain in their experience of the release of memories. The old especially, would experience great suffering from the release of the painful memories.