The Giver — Chapter 1

About This Passage

Lois Lowry lays bare the community's social hierarchy in two compact sentences. The triad 'interest or skills or insight' reveals the community's view of competence, and the phrase 'essential capacity to connect' introduces a concept — human connection as a civic requirement — that the novel will spend the next twenty-two chapters examining and ultimately overturning.

Narration Prompt

Summarize Chapter 1 of The Giver for a friend who has not read the book. Cover Jonas's search for the right word, the jet incident he remembers, the family ritual of feelings, and what the Ceremony of Twelve is.

Discussion Questions

1. When Jonas abandons 'frightened' for 'apprehensive,' he is doing something unusual in his community: insisting on a precise emotional vocabulary. What might the community stand to gain, or to lose, if every citizen took Jonas's level of care with language?
2. The Speaker announces the lost Pilot 'will be released,' and the narration notes the Speaker's tone is 'ironic, as if the Speaker found it amusing.' How does that brief detail reshape your view of the authority running this community, and what ethical line is the Speaker crossing by laughing at a death sentence?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide