The Giver — Chapter 14

About This Passage

This sentence is the chapter's first picture of Jonas's new loneliness. Lowry layers four words that sound and feel alike — desperately, throbbing, anguish, isolation — so the rhythm of the sentence carries the weight of what Jonas is starting to carry alone. The dreamed memory returns him to the hill even in sleep, which is Lowry's way of showing that a memory once received cannot be set aside at bedtime.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 14 in five or six sentences. Begin with the second sled memory and the broken leg, move through the Giver's refusal to give relief-of-pain and his teaching about hunger and warfare, and end with Gabriel in Jonas's room and the sail memory Jonas accidentally gives away.

Discussion Questions

1. When Jonas returns home with his leg still aching, Lowry writes, 'They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely.' What evidence in this chapter shows that Jonas's family really has been shielded from pain? Why does knowing something alone make Jonas feel lonely rather than special?
2. The Giver tells Jonas that the memory of hunger 'came from many generations back. Centuries back.' and that after the hunger came warfare. What does this say about how Jonas and the Giver are carrying things that happened long before they were born, and why does Lowry have Jonas learn this before he learns about destruction?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide