The Giver — Chapter 22

About This Passage

Lowry compresses into four sentences one of the novel's sharpest critiques of the community's language training. The child Jonas was 'chastised' for using 'starving' when he did not yet know what the word meant — which is to say, the community used discipline to teach a meaning it deliberately prevented him from ever experiencing. The passage reveals the trick: the community's 'precision of language' does not connect words to experiences; it connects words to a substitute set of community-approved meanings the citizens are trained to apply. When Jonas actually starves in the wild, he discovers that the trained word and the experienced reality have almost nothing to do with one another, and the community's entire claim to linguistic precision collapses.

Narration Prompt

Summarize chapter twenty-two by tracking two parallel arcs: the disintegration of the community's protection — the rougher road, the failing bike, Jonas's weakening body, the diminishing memories — and the arrival of unmediated experience — birds, deer, a waterfall, wildflowers, and wind. Note where the two arcs intersect, especially at the moment the bike falls and at the closing scene in the rain.

Discussion Questions

1. The chapter opens with the road becoming 'narrower, and bumpy, apparently no longer tended by road crews.' This is the first physical sign that Jonas has left the community's infrastructure. Analyze how Lowry uses the state of the road as a metaphor for Jonas's relationship to the community, and discuss whether the bumpy road is a sign of freedom, a sign of neglect, or both at once.
2. Jonas recalls being 'chastised' for misusing the word 'starving' as a child. Now he is starving. Discuss what this revelation does to the community's claim of 'precision of language,' and examine whether the community's training was actually about precision or about something else — perhaps about control, or substitution, or the engineering of citizens who cannot recognize their own circumstances.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide