The Analysis of Utopian Society in "The Giver"

The Giver is an award-winning novel that tells about a utopian society- a perfect world envisioned by its creators. It has eliminated fear, pain, hunger, illness, conflict, and hatred—all things that most of us would like to eliminate in our own society. The author mentions a lot of rituals that seem to be perfect in the Jonas society but in our society are imperfect. For instance Euthanasia, the word used for term Euthanasia in the novel is “released”, it is a ceremony when a person is offered to death by injecting lethal injection.

In society getting released was an event that is seen differently depending on who is getting released and what situation is that. Released is a ceremony for all of the elder members of the community and tends to be a happy occasion, as people think or knew that old people were sent to some other place to spend the rest of their life. On the other hand, if a new child or a person who had broken rules gets released, it is considered a sad occasion. People feel sad or sorry in terms of the release of a child or a person who breaks the rule because they know that released means they would never see the person again.

Jonas felt that it was unfair to release someone for own sake. Before receiving the assignment as “The receiver” he didn't know what does the word “release” really means as all other community members he also thought that it was a common thing. However after he was chosen for the assignment of The Giver, he gets a lot of memories and one of those memories describes the real meaning of release. After knowing reality he thought that this unfair, it was not a release it was a punishment.

Euthanasia is also practiced in my society but not when someone does a crime or when a baby doesn't grow properly. It is an activity performed by doctors when someone became too old and sick. Nonetheless, people in society don't really know about that but it is performed secretly at a stage when a doctor knows that the patient is too old and can't recover from a disease. They don't have any bad intentions towards the person but they don't want them to suffer in pain.

To conclude, in Jonas's society people really don't what does release and they think that it was a common thing, at the beginning Jonas had same point of view but when he came to know the real meaning of that he felt that is something unfair and wrong. In my society, it is also practiced but in a different way. Doctors don't kill the patient for their own sake but to realize them from the pain. Euthanasia is practiced in both societies. The only difference is that people have different perspective to see them. According to me the novel does not promote but conditionally accepts the practices.