The Giver — Chapter 6

About This Passage

Lois Lowry uses this passage to explain how the community's clothing is an unfolding system of symbols: every year of childhood is marked by an object, from back-buttoned jackets that force cooperation to the bicycle that carries the child outward. The passage also contains three of our vocabulary words and is the chapter's clearest window onto how the community engineers its stages of growing up.

Narration Prompt

Summarize Jonas's Ceremony day so far in three or four full sentences: begin with Mother tying Lily's hair ribbons at home, move through the Nurturers bringing the newchildren to the stage for Naming (including the replacement Caleb), describe Lily's Ceremony of Eight and the Nines collecting their bicycles, and end with Asher's Sanitation Laborer story at the midday break and the signal calling everyone back inside.

Discussion Questions

1. Lois Lowry describes the jackets at Fours, Fives, and Sixes as fastening down the back so the children must help each other dress and learn interdependence, and then gives the Seven a front-buttoned jacket. What in the chapter shows that the community is using ordinary clothing as a teaching tool, and how does this help explain why every age has its own clear marker like the jacket, the bicycle, or the Ten-year haircut?
2. When the replacement Caleb is named, the community performs the Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony, but for the newchild Roberto there is no such ceremony because Release is not the same as Loss. What does the chapter reveal about how the community treats people who are released compared with people who are lost, and why does that distinction matter to Jonas's family and to Gabriel?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide