The Giver — Chapter 15

About This Passage

This one sentence is the hinge of the whole chapter. Before it, Jonas is a student entering a room; after it, he is inside a battlefield. Lowry uses the single word braced to show that Jonas now knows what a transmission can cost, and the word torturing (instead of something softer like hurting) signals to the reader that this memory will be worse than any Jonas has received before. The sentence is short, which matches the quick physical moment of a hand being placed and a mind going somewhere terrible.

Narration Prompt

In your own words, retell what happens in Chapter 15. Begin with Jonas walking into the Annex and finding the Giver in pain, walk through what Jonas sees and hears inside the warfare memory, and end with the Giver's last words. Try to keep your retelling in order so a friend who has not read the chapter could follow it.

Discussion Questions

1. The Giver is 'rigid in his chair, his face in his hands,' and Jonas offers to help before he has been asked. What in the story tells you that Jonas has changed since his first days in the Annex, and how do you know this change matters to the Giver as well?
2. Jonas's own arm is 'immobilized with pain' in the memory, and he can see 'ragged flesh and splintery bone' through his torn sleeve, yet he still reaches the canteen to the wounded boy's lips. What in the story shows that this is a choice Jonas makes rather than something that just happens to him?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide