There Could Be Love And There Shall Be

This week's blogpost is yet again focused on The Giver Literature Circles - the fourth one. The third blogpost was commenting and that's the reason it is missing from my blog. Find it on one of my peers' blogs - Cienna's. Again, moving on, this blogpost is more precisely focused on freedom and choice.
Here's what the blogpost is based on:
'Gabriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing bare-footed on a damp lawn.
"Gabe?"
The new child stirred slightly in his sleep, Jonas looked over at him.
"There could be love" Jonas whispered.

The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away.' - The Giver (A MUST READ!)

We are supposed to find the reasons of why this passage and chapters 16-18 relate to freedom and choice and I have many ideas to that - since I enjoy thinking of these things often.

My first reason that the 2 chapters and this passage relates to freedom and choice is because in this passage - Jonas chooses to not take his pill (when everyone else has probably never even thought of that, especially doing it on purpose.) He showed that he has a spark of freedom in him - slowly removing himself from the things that keeps the environment so safe, weak and boring. The pill keeps away emotions, the memories teach him the hidden past, The Giver told him of why it was safe and that made Jonas not want to always be in this environment that oddly reminds me of an empty kiddy playpen made out of plastic and has no way out except to climb over.

Also, Jonas -in these 2 chapters- had asked his parents if they loved him and they only 'enjoyed' him. Love is obselete to them, absolutely meaningless. Even Jonas knows it's the complete opposite, especially when he thought "Meaningless? He had never before felt anything meaningful as the memory." But the parents wouldn't know better - it's drilled in to their mind is that they know these words but never use them (because the emotions never occur to them) and to them, it's meaningless, sadly. This relates to choice because if they knew love meant something, would they choose to say they loved Jonas? But it doesn't exist to them.

Finally, when Asher, Jonas, Fiona and the other twelves play their game and as Jonas realizes it is war - it relates to freedom and choice because if the committee didn't have such a tight grip on control, it would bring freedom and the twelves would soon figure out it was war. Then, it relates to choice because if they had seen what Jonas had seen and knew war existed: would they still play the game of war?

You know what is - Black and white. :)

The song - made by the community featuring myself - Dee Zee!

But that's not what we're here to talk about today. Infact, in the 6A team at ISKL, we're reading The Giver by Lois Lowry and this is the second blogpost on it. There were 3 questions to answer back on this site: http://isklrewired.blogspot.com/, the 6A team site. I chose this question to respond to:

When Jonas learns all about colors, he claims "it isn't fair that nothing has color". Why does he say this?

This question is a good one and, well, it's answer is basically like a question: Would you like the world without color? Thinking about all the reasons of a world without color, anyone could understand Jonas. But anyways, here's the explanation...

Colors are beautiful and to us, it's just a typical part of our everyday world, it soon becomes something we don't really think about. Well, except for when you're learning it and in art situations but otherwise, they're like a chair. No one has actually thought of a world without color, well, because it would never happen, but we never know.

When Jonas said it wasn't fair and when we really look in to colors, they are actually beautiful and just make everything more vivid and amazing. I mean, what would beautiful, gentle scarves be without their color? Nothing, just soft items that are barely acknowledged or described as anything more then comfortable and has a pattern.

If you were the only one besides The Giver that knows about color, wouldn't you say it isn't fair that nothing has color? I mean, we're so lucky, we get color everyday. Their community has no color at all, objects just barely acknowledged and probably with no color, definitely no art classes. Some people take colors passionately and use them like that in their art pieces. It wouldn't be fair for a person to not find out that they could be a good artist.

Jonas said it wasn't fair to live where nothing has color since colors actually fill the world, making it more interesting to us and can be undefining at times.

A Day In The Giver

Would you want your future to be decided by others? Why or why not?

Honestly, I would never like to have my future be decided and written out for the rest of my life. Our lives in Malaysia aren't even that controlled, rules for safety, rules for property, not any rules that are in The Giver. We have choices if we want to do some work, choices to do what we want. In The Giver, they don't really have a choice to do volunteer hours or else they don't graduate and have to have their own private ceremony later and are shunned for it.

Of course, freedom of choice is important for choosing what you have to work with or live with. What if you don't like the choice they give you, it may not fit what you're interested in. Having a spouse, they may be most compatible, single and appropriate, just for you, but that doesn't matter if it happens to be someone you weren't very interested in. All those romance movies and romance comedies would have to make a run for it if the government chose your spouse.

The main idea is: I would never want to have someone deciding my future. If it was my parents pushing me to become a doctor or something, just because it was good for my future, I would only choose a job with a passion for it, my eyes wide open and concentrating on it. It would never be just that person's choice, it would be mine as well. If someone was pushing me in to a relationship, I would push back as much as I could if I didn't want it. If it was someone I did take interest in, again, no one would just push me in. Never, am I going to let someone run my life when it is mine.