The Giver — Chapter 12

About This Passage

Lois Lowry uses the parenthetical em-dash aside ('—and continued to have, as he blinked, and stared at it again—') to slow the sentence at exactly the moment Jonas's perception stops slipping. The interruption in the grammar mirrors the sudden steadiness of what he is seeing: for the first time the color holds, and Lowry's syntax holds with it.

Narration Prompt

Retell the chapter in five to seven sentences, tracking the dream at dawn, the silence at school, the ride home with Fiona, the test with the sled memory and the bookcase, and the Giver's explanation that Jonas is beginning to see the color red.

Discussion Questions

1. Jonas tells his mother he had no dreams when in fact he had been re-dreaming the sled ride all night. What does Lois Lowry gain by making Jonas's first small lie the one that protects a transmitted memory rather than one of his own experiences, and what is the author signaling about the line that has just been crossed in his Community-self?
2. On the second day of training the Giver announces, 'It's your memory, now. It's not mine to experience any longer.' What ontology of memory is Lowry establishing here, and why does she stage this disclosure as the Giver's first lesson after the initial transmission rather than as part of the initial transmission itself?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide