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The Giver - Extract - Chapter 11

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152 views

The Giver - Extract - Chapter 11

Uploaded by

Deivis Mota
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE GIVER – CHAPTER XI

EXTRACT

To receive memories, Jonas removes his shirt and lies facedown on a bed. The
Elder puts his hands on Jonas’s back and begins to transmit the memory. This
transmission includes concepts like snow, sledding, and hills. At first, Jonas can
only sense coldness, but the memory takes on additional dimensions over time.
Suddenly, Jonas is experiencing snow and the excitement of sledding down a
hill. When his mind returns to the Annex room, he is quite enthusiastic about the
experience. The process has not been so easy for the Elder, who feels a little
lighter without the memory. When these memories are transmitted, the Elder
loses them forever, though he does have many memories of snow.

In Jonas’s community, there is no such thing as snow, nor are there hills. Jonas
learns that such things were eliminated through climate control when people
chose “Sameness.” Snow made travel difficult and interrupted agricultural
cycles. Hills were also inconvenient. Jonas reflects that he would like to have
hills and snow again, if only for brief periods of time, and the Elder agrees.
However, much as they might wish for such things, the Receiver does not have
the power to make them return. The Receiver’s position carries great honor but
little power.

Jonas receives another memory, this time of sunshine. Unlike the previous
transmission, this time, Jonas has to identify the memory he has received. When
he is able to identify sunshine, it is clear that Jonas has a talent for receiving
memories from before “Sameness.
Jonas experiences sunburn for the first time. The Elder warns that there are
more painful memories coming. He is reluctant to transmit too much pain too
early because that is what led to disaster with the last Receiver ten years earlier.

293 words

Lowry, L. (1993). The Giver (pp. 101-110). United States: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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