The Community in The Giver is Not a Better Alternative to...

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, was published in 1993, and caused worldwide controversy over its views on conformity, communism, and euthanasia. It is about a character named Jonas, who lives in a conformist community where there is no colour, emotions, love, weather and most importantly, choice. This community is inferior to the modern day Australian community. The community in The Giver, which is led by a committee of Elders, does not allow for any choice, as in their eyes, choice is a risky, unnecessary concept. Jonas, like everyone else, is oblivious to this, until he is assigned the job of the Receiver of Memories. This job involves receiving memories from the Giver of Memories, who received his memories from the previous Giver, and â€Å"back,†¦show more content†¦That, along with the knowledge that the Community kill the old and disabled babies that he gains later in the book, is what makes him decide to leave the Community in search of a better place. The topic of euthanasia has been debated heavily over the past few years. In Australia, all forms of euthanasia are banned, although in 1995, in the Northern Territory a bill was passed allowing euthanasia to be performed. This bill was overturned two years later by the Federal Government. The type of euthanasia that is used to kill people in The Giver is called non-voluntary euthanasia. This is when the person being euthanised didn’t request to be killed, but was killed anyway. In Lowry’s community, handicapped babies (pp14-15), twins (p169), the old (pp44-46) and people that break the law are killed with a poison that is injected into them in a method which they call ‘release’. Euthanasia is heavily opposed by many people, with many anti-euthanasia organisations founded in the past decade. Pope John Paul II said that: Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person (URL#3). 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