Chapter 15 · The Giver

Copywork

The Giver looked up at him, his face contorted with suffering. "Please," he gasped, "take some of the pain."

Finally, when the container was open, he extended his arm slowly across the blood-soaked earth, inch by inch, and held it to the lips of the boy. Water trickled into the imploring mouth and down the grimy chin.

The Giver asks Jonas to take “some of the pain.” Why might he ask for only some?

For the educator Two passages, two times someone in pain asks Jonas for help. The first is a whole paragraph: The Giver looks up at Jonas in the Annex. Its first sentence holds the vocabulary word “contorted,” and after the comma, “his face contorted with suffering” tells us how he looks. The second sentence is broken dialogue. One spoken word, “Please,” closes with a comma inside the quotation marks; “he gasped” sits between the two parts; the rest of what he says opens with a small letter, because it is the same sentence going on. The second passage is the last two sentences of a paragraph on the battlefield, when Jonas, with one arm useless, gives the wounded boy water. The first sentence is long on purpose. It opens with “Finally,” and commas slow it down, “inch by inch,” the way the arm moves. The second sentence is short and holds the vocabulary word “imploring.” The talk prompt turns on one small word in the first passage: The Giver asks for “some” of the pain, not all of it. One student may say he is sparing Jonas: even in such suffering, he asks for only part. Another may say the pain is more than one person could take: even “some” keeps Jonas on the field “for hours,” until he “would welcome death himself.” A student may also notice that The Giver does not say how much “some” will be, and Jonas does not ask. Either answer can stand if the student points to the page. Do not say The Giver chose this memory as a lesson; he was in pain and asked for help. Whether he was wrong to ask belongs to the last written question.

Discussion

Narration Tell back the chapter in order. Start where Jonas walks into the Annex room. Stop where The Giver says, “Forgive me.”

Jonas offers to help before he is asked, then tells The Giver, “Put your hands on me.” Which of them is in charge today? Character
A horse runs wild across the field, then falls and does not get up. What does the horse show Jonas that the groaning men do not? Inference
With one arm broken, Jonas gets the water to the boy “inch by inch,” but the boy dies a moment later. Did the water matter? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Think of a story, or a time in your own life, when someone asked a friend for help. The help cost the friend a lot. What did the one who asked owe the friend afterward?

Vocabulary

contorted: The Giver looked up at him, his face contorted with suffering. Twisted out of its normal shape, as a face twists with pain.
parched: "Water," the voice said in a parched, croaking whisper. Badly dried out from thirst.
carnage: The colors of the carnage were grotesquely bright The killing and wounding of many people, and the bloody scene it leaves.
imploring: Water trickled into the imploring mouth and down the grimy chin. Begging desperately for help.
stench: Overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant. A strong, horrible smell.
randomly: Horses lying on the ground shrieked, raised their heads, and stabbed randomly toward the sky with their hooves. With no plan or aim, in any direction at all.

Critical thinking

The grass in the boy's hair is “startlingly green.” Why would Jonas notice a color at a time like this?
The Giver begs Jonas to take some of his pain, and afterward he says, “Forgive me.” Was he wrong to ask?