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/lit/ - Literature

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569549 No.569549 [Reply] [Original]

The Giver, alt. plot interpretation:

A boy who does not have many noteworthy friends (and may therefore be a loner) is selected from his elementary school grad class by a politically powerful, but otherwise lonely old man. 'The Giver' conducts 'lessons' with 'The Receiver" in complete, unrecorded privacy and forbids him from telling anybody about them. He is told that he can't run away, otherwise something absoutely ridiculous will happen, and hurt everybody he knows (essentially, they will all experience 'lessons'). The lessons themselves arouse incredibly vivid and intense hallucination sequences, many of which are so excruciating that 'The Receiver' requires pain-relief meds afterwards. As the novel progresses, he becomes more and more distant from his friends and family.

Eventually, 'The Giver' makes a plan to get the youth 'Elsewhere', but the boy is forced to take his baby brother and get him the fuck out before his dad kills the infant. In the wild, he imitates 'giving' on his little brother over and over until it stops feeling good. They freeze to death, probably nowhere near a hill.

>> No.569556

I always assumed the ending was supposed to be them ascending to Heaven, but there was a sequel or something?

>> No.569569

I remember reading it in Middle school and hating it.
I should probably pick it back up though.

>> No.569579

Alt. plot interpretation?
That sounds like the plot as it normally is to me.

Well, I haven't read it in 10 years, but this is exactly how I remember it.

>> No.569581

>>569556
No it was just suppose to leave you hanging where you decide whether they lived or froze to death.

And there are 2 sequels. Gathering Blue(sucks) and the Messenger(It's alright but sucks compared to the giver)

>> No.569633

I figured he and his brother died and the vision of the house at Christmastime was the final, fleeting Giving ability, used to comfort both of them.

>> No.569687

>>569581
To be fair The Giver wasn't to good itself

>> No.569696

I read this in Year 9 and all I can remember that it felt weirdly "American", as vague as that term sounds. It's weird.

>> No.569720

>>569687
Yeah, that might be so, but i personally loved the story.

>> No.569730

this book is utter garbage.

>> No.569751

I had to read it in Grade 8. I remember disliking it when I read it, but over the years as I understood what it meant, I started liking it more.

I'd say it's a noob version of 1984/Brave New World

>> No.569786

>>569549
I don't know about the main character "giving" to the child, But I certainly thought they both froze to death

it's a tough world, people die

>> No.569792

child molestation
cannot unsee