The Giver: Irony 4 key examples

Jonas's mother and father have just spoken with him at length about the Ceremony of Twelve, when children receive their Assignments that determine the jobs they will have for the rest of their lives. Jonas has been apprehensive about the Ceremony. His parents reassure him that whatever Assignment the Committee gives him will be perfectly tailored to him and his interests. The Council spends 12 years watching each individual child to learn their strengths and weaknesses. Theoretically, each child is assigned to a role that will give them an equal chance to succeed and contribute to society in their own unique way. This conversation suggests that there is no such thing as a bad or dishonorable Assignment. No Assignment Jonas receives could disappoint his parents.

When Lily rejoins the conversation and says that she would like to be a Birthmother, her mother chastises her. This harsh reaction is not at all in keeping with the counsel she has just given Jonas. If every job is good when it is assigned to the right person, Lily should be free to explore the idea of any Assignment. Perhaps Lily will turn out to be suited for this role. Instead of supporting her daughter's curiosity, Lily's mother chastises her for considering a job that would have her giving birth several times and then doing hard labor for the rest of her life. The way the children's mother speaks to both of them about Assignments is ironic. Maybe there is no Assignment Jonas could receive that would disappoint his parents, but that is only because he has grown up into the kind of child they believe will receive an Assignment they are proud of. All Assignments are created equal, except those Assignments that are not.

This ironic scene hints at a greater situational irony in the novel's larger society. The belief that they live in an egalitarian society prevents Community members from noticing that they do, in fact, think of Assignments hierarchically. They see why Assignments like Birthmother are necessary. Still, they want their own children to have more prestigious jobs. On the one hand, it is no wonder that Lily's mother wants a different future for her daughter: there is something highly exploitative about training a 12-year-old child to bear children for other families before a lifetime of hard labor. On the other hand, it is ironic that Lily's mother believes wholeheartedly in the system that would foist this future on someone else's daughter.

Neither Jonas nor Larissa knows exactly what happens when someone is Released. Larissa is able to tell Jonas about the ceremony that took place before her friend Roberto was led to a private room to be Released (i.e., killed). Only members of the Committee have ever been inside the private room. Jonas wishes he had been allowed to attend the ceremony at least. This comment makes Larissa "frown" and realize, it seems, that she has never thought about why children are kept away from these ceremonies. She explains it away as a practical matter of room capacity. However, her frown indicates that she has had an uncomfortable realization. The Committee has been gatekeeping Release for some reason that they have not made clear to the public.

Jonas makes light of the tense situation by joking that they should ask the Committee to consider enlarging the Releasing Room. "Maybe they'd study it," he says. Both Jonas and Larissa know that Jonas is being sarcastic. It is a running joke in the Community that the Committee "studies" difficult questions not to find the answers, but rather to avoid answering the questions altogether. When the Committee says it must "study" a question, everyone knows that they will set it aside until everyone forgets that they were waiting for an answer. Jonas's verbal irony diffuses the tension and allows him and Larissa to laugh together over a frustrating situation. At the same time, it also allows them to indirectly discuss some shared skepticism over the Committee's honesty and effectiveness. Open critique of the Committee is not yet possible in the Community, but Jonas and Larissa use laughter to find allies in one another.

The Giver is the only person in the Community who knows what it is like to carry all the memories of history. The Giver tries to use imagery to describe to Jonas the extraordinary pressure of this position. For any of Lowry's readers who have been sledding, the Giver's imagery effectively draws on remembered sensations of cold, speed, excitement, deceleration, and the atmospheric smell of snow. These readers may even remember how sledding for fun always ends with the exhausting task of trudging back uphill. Most of Lowry's readers probably also have some experience with the mixture of wonder and devastation that comes from learning about history. There is an endless amount of history to learn. Sometimes it is empowering, and sometimes it is so painful and violent that it is difficult for anyone to bear. The Giver's imagery helps readers imagine how exhilarating and excruciating it would be to be barraged with all of society's historical memories and have no one to discuss them with. And the fact that readers, like the Giver, have access to information and experiences Jonas lacks—an example of dramatic irony—underscores the unique difficulties of Jonas's role.

Jonas has never been sledding. He has never even been confronted with a historical memory. He wants to follow along with what the Giver is saying, but the imagery is lost on him. The irony of this moment is what prompts the Giver to give Jonas his first memory, a simple memory of sledding through snow. The fact that the Giver must start so small indicates just how profoundly the Community has altered the human experience for its citizens. This scene should not be mistaken for an argument that sledding is the most basic human experience and that anyone living in a climate without snow cannot be a full person. Rather, sledding represents a simple childhood experience the Community has taken away from its citizens for the sake of ease. The Community tries to keep people safe and happy, but in so doing it keeps them from experiencing both the ups and downs of the world. Jonas has a huge job cut out for him: he is to be the Giver's replacement, shouldering the weight of all the world's memories. Before he can take this task on, he must learn a whole slew of basic sensations so that he can make sense of the world he is to remember.

Jonas's father is a Nurturer. He was given this Assignment at 12 years old because of his natural talent as a caregiver. The Community has forgotten the feeling of love, but Jonas's father clearly feels something like love or at least devotion toward babies and young children. When Lily asks for her stuffed elephant, her mother tells her she is almost too old for it by Community rules. Her father, however, fetches it for her without a word. His soft spot for young children is what brings Gabriel into Jonas's life. Gabriel is on the path to be Released because he has greater-than-average care needs. Jonas's father applies for special permission to bring him home for a year to prepare him for adoption. This practice stretches the Community's rules. The family stretches the rules even more by naming Gabriel. Jonas's parents impress on him and Lily not to repeat the name outside the family, but Gabriel is more than a case number to all of them. They do not want him to be Released, even if the Community deems this outcome to be for the best.

It is not until Chapter 19 that Jonas realizes what fate truly hangs in the balance for Gabriel, and that the Community has been maintaining its stable population by way of eugenics and state-sanctioned murder. Jonas would be disturbed to see anyone killing a baby. However, his Nurturer father is perhaps the person he would least expect to harm a child. The situation is ironic as well as tragic: the citizen whose affection for babies has earned them the title of Nurturer should be protecting babies, not executing them for the simple crime of being the smaller of two twins. The trash chute evokes a metaphorical comparison between the baby and a piece of garbage. Jonas's father can go immediately from treating a child like the most precious thing in the world to killing it and tossing it in the trash. This metaphor reinforces the situational irony and helps Jonas see just how deeply the Community has damaged its citizens' sense of their own morality.