Full Story Synopsis: The Giver

SPOILER ALERT!
The Giver

There is a society where people live a very different life than us. A boy named Jonas has grown up in a world where jobs are assigned to people and those who cannot follow the rules are ‘Released’.

As Jonas grows up he faces many changes to his body that he doesn’t understand. Things start to change from the apple he had to the girls hair he hung around.

When the time comes for Jonas to have his job assigned he is skipped over at the ceremony. At the end the counsel, the people who hold law over the community, apologize for the skip, for which they are forgiven, and then state that Jonas is being given a job that only one other holds. He is to be the Receiver and will work to with the mysterious Giver.

At his first day he meets the Giver, an old man with a drawn face and knowledgeable eyes. He explains to Jonas that he is able to receive memories from him of a world outside of their own and to hold the memories so that the towns people do not find out.

To ‘receive’ the memories all the Giver has to do is release them from his own memory and pass them on to him. He starts first by showing him happy things such as feelings like happiness and joy. He starts to see colours, which is explained that no one else is able to see.

He starts to slowly have feelings for the red headed girl he used to hang around to which his parents offer him ‘the pill’. This pill takes away all desire he holds towards others leaving him as emotionless as everyone else.

As the memories continue to come in the Giver decides it is time to show him a bad memory, as not all memories are good. He is shown pain as he experiences what broken arm would feel like in a memory. This scares him but he continues on.

From that moment forward he learns of loss and what the meaning of life it. He knows what it means to die, which he did not know previously. After this is done the Giver asks him if he would like to know what it means to be ‘Released’.

He watches excitedly as his father brings in an infant that has been chosen to be released. His excitement turns to horror as his father injects the baby and it becomes still before he wraps it in a blanket and sends it down the chute.

Horrified that his father and town have been murdering children and elderly for years he demands an explanation. The Giver explains that the people do not know what death means. For them it is just another job.

The Giver tells Jonas that the previous Receiver, a girl his age, could not handle the sad memories and had requested to be Released when she found out. It saddens the Giver to the day.

Jonas returns home to find out from his father that they are having trouble with a bay boy and that he will be staying at the house for a while. While there Jonas realizes that he has the potential to be a Receiver when he accidentally passes a memory along to him, which he has never been able to do with anyone else. But to his horror he finds out from his father that he is planning on Releasing him because he cannot behave away from the house.

Unable to accept that they will kill a child that he has grown so close to Jonas and the Giver make a plan to smuggle both boys out of the country where Jonas will take the baby to a family that can take of him.

Jonas asks the Giver to come with them but he says that he must remain behind because when Jonas gets far enough away from the community his memories will come back and cause confusion to the towns people. So with regret Jonas leaves in the back of a truck leaving the Giver behind.

From the truck Jonas and the baby travel in the cold snow for long distances knowing pain and hunger the whole way. Jonas tries to make things easier by pulling on warm memories to give to the baby to keep him alive in the cold but it becomes harder the longer they move.

Eventually, as they are both reaching the last strength there is, Jonas sees a sled ahead of him atop a snowy hill. Like the first memory he ever had he boards the sled and he and the baby slide towards a warm house and family.

The way it leaves off it is unsure if Jonas really made it to safety or if he and the baby both died.

THE END!