My Reading Log
The
Giver
by: Lois Lowry
Sixtenive
Readers
Discussion
Director: Guanzon, Hilly Rose
Vocabulary Enhancer: Cabesas, Cassandra Joyce
Literary Artist: Mariano, Jona Belle
Connector: Saplot, Rutchell
Character Captain: Cacho, Diayanara Rose
Passage Picker: Rabago, Iriss Joy
Summarizer: Bantilan, Daisery
Vocabulary Enhancer: Cabesas, Cassandra Joyce
Literary Artist: Mariano, Jona Belle
Connector: Saplot, Rutchell
Character Captain: Cacho, Diayanara Rose
Passage Picker: Rabago, Iriss Joy
Summarizer: Bantilan, Daisery
Our discussion was
started at the peaceful afternoon in the front of university gymnasium.
Students were busy practicing and preparing for the fast approaching
intramurals.
Miss Hilly Rose Guanzon, our discussion director started it and she
threw five thought provoking questions and these are the following:
1.
Do the
members of the community ever have their own free will? When do those happen?
2.
Why do Jonas able to transmit memories to
Gabriel when he couldn’t with others?
3.
If you
were in Rosemary's place will you ever do the same? Do you think its bravery or
cowardice of her?
4.
How
was the concept of family unit in the story differ from the concept of family
we are living with?
5.
What is your insight about the ending of the
story? Do you think they have really escaped from their society or was it just
Jonas' hallucination?
In answering the
questions, almost all of us have the same answers. For the question number one,
all of us agreed that the members of the community only have their own will in
choosing the work that they wanted to do during their free time. They are the
one who decide if which organization they would want to spend their free time,
either it is on taking care of the olds, helping in taking care the infants and
such.
For
question number two, our answers were divided into many ideas, some of us have
the same answers and some other members have also their answers. My self, Jonna
Belle Mariano (literary artist) answered that Jonas can transmit memories to
Gabriel maybe because they are related to each other or maybe because they are
really brothers because in Sameness the infants were given to different couples
who have no children yet, in this fact there must be a chance that Jonas and
Gabriel were came from same mother. On the other hand, some of the members
agreed that maybe Gabriel has the capability in becoming the next Receiver that
is why Jonas can be able to transmit the memories to him because only the
chosen ones can have the capability in receiving the memories and Gabe has the
one.
For
the question number three, still the same situation in the question number two,
our answers were divided into two. Some of us answered that maybe Rosemary is
brave to face the Release, knowing that she knew that she will be going to die
she still chose to be released. Some of us answered that considering the fact
that she is the Receiver and she can’t handle the pain in receiving the
memories then she chose to be released, maybe she is coward. Maybe if I were in
her place, I will continue to receive memories rather than being released
because my community has chosen me to be their next receiver and it’s an honor
for me to be the one. Receiving the memories would be painful but being
released is much painful and the fact that she didn’t even tried to receive the
painful memories.
In
answering the question number four, we all agreed that there are many
differences between the family concept of the community in the story and our
family concept of the community we are living with. In the story, their family
concept is different because they were not really related to each other because
their children were not their real child. Also they have rules which can cause
losing of their rights. They don’t produce their own food but were only given
to them by the higher committee. Most of all, they can’t feel love towards each
other and they do not know the feeling of being loved by their love ones. On
the other hand, we all agreed that the family unit we are living with is the
perfect one. There is love within the family members and we have the rights to
express love to others. We can make our own decisions and have all the chances
to do what we wanted to do.
The
last question made us all really think hard. At first we really don’t know what
to answer. Some of us answered that maybe it is just Jonas’ hallucination.
Maybe because in the real world they are really (Jonas and Gabriel) in the
situation of starving, just sleeping in the street and likes that is why he
imagined all things. Somehow, some of us answered that maybe they really
escaped from their society and really experienced those things; the starving
and their hiding from the chopper of their society.
Next
stop, other members have shared their works and discuss it.
Characters
List
by Diayanara Rose Cacho
1. JONAS- the
main character of the story. He is quiet but intelligent and courageous boy.
Everything started to change in his life when he turned 12 years old. He was
selected as the Receiver of Memory- the most honored task to be given in the
community. As the receiver, he was obliged to take all memories from the Giver
and to sacrifice form every worst feelings from different time and happenings.
He started to feel unusual feelings particularly cherishing and loving someone
after he took special sessions with the Giver. As the day passed by, he became
timid towards his family because he found his new life very different from
other. When he found out about his father’s secret doings as a nurturer, he
became brave to run away from the community for he was very thoughtful, for
Gabriel’s sake.
2. The Giver-
the old man who was the Receiver before Jonas from long time ago. He was
respected because the committee of elders trusted him most. He was a simple and
kind man. He genuinely taught and guided Jonas as their journey goes on. A lot
of new things changed Jonas’s life from the memories and feelings he gave. He
was the one who convinced Jonas to run away because he was concerned for
sacrifices and dangers which wait along with their journey if it will
continues.
3. Jonas’s
Father- he is the Nurturer. A typical head of the family. He is diligent in his
obligation but he has mysterious yet ruthless sides
4. Jonas’s
Mother- she was a prominent position in the Department of Justice. Because of
her work, she barely has time to spend together with her family but she still
gave her best to do her duties as the mother.
5. Lily-
Jonas’s little sister who is very cheerful. She turned 9 at the same time Jonas
became the Receiver.
6. Gabriel- the
baby who was taken care by Jonas’s family. He was brought home as Jonas’s
companion in sleeping when he started visiting the Giver. Jonas also realized
that they have similarities when Gabriel was capable of receiving memories from
him. When he found out that his father euthanizes babies and olds in the
Community, Jonas ran away together with Gabriel at the end part of the story.
7. Asher- one
of Jonas’s friends. He was the Assistant Director of Recreational. The
community knows him as fun-loving or humorous boy. However he always made
mistakes in speaking that worried the Community some times.
8. Fiona- one
of Jonas’s friends. She was chosen as the Caretaker of the Old. Jonas started
to take pills when her mother knew that he was having erotic dreams about
Fiona. Jonas had special feeling towards her however, Fiona seems unaware of
how he feels and only sees him as her dearest friend.
9. Rosemary-
the Receiver before Jonas who failed with her quest. The Giver said to Jonas
that she was the one he loved most and he confessed that he was his daughter.
10. The Chief
Elder- she was responsible for giving obligations to Jonas and other children
in the community. She was also the voice or head of all the elders. Her
decisions must be followed within the community
THE GIVER
(summary)
By: Daisery Bantilan
The giver is written from the point of view of Jonas, an
eleven-year-old boy living in a futuristic society that has eliminated all
pain, fear, war, and hatred. There is no prejudice, since everyone looks and
acts basically the same, and there is very little competition. Everyone is
unfailingly polite. The society has also eliminated choice: at age twelve every
member of the community is assigned a job based on his or her abilities and
interests. Citizens can apply for and be assigned compatible spouses, and each
couple is assigned exactly two children each. The children are born to
Birthmothers, who never see them, and spend their first year in a Nurturing
Center with other babies, or “new children,” born that year. When their children
are grown, family units dissolve and adults live together with Childless Adults
until they are too old to function in the society. Then they spend their last
years being cared for in the House of the Old until they are finally “released”
from the society. In the community, release is death, but it is never described
that way; most people think that after release, flawed new children and joyful
elderly people are welcomed into the vast expanse of Elsewhere that surrounds
the communities. Citizens who break rules or fail to adapt properly to the
society’s codes of behavior are also released, though in their cases it is an
occasion of great shame. Everything is planned and organized so that life is as
convenient and pleasant as possible. Jonas lives with his father, a Nurturer of
new children, his mother, who works at the Department of Justice, and his
seven-year-old sister Lily. At the beginning of the novel, he is apprehensive
about the upcoming Ceremony of Twelve, when he will be given his official Assignment
as a new adult member of the community. He does not have a distinct career
preference, although he enjoys volunteering at a variety of different jobs.
Though he is a well-behaved citizen and a good student, Jonas is different: he
has pale eyes, while most people in his community have dark eyes, and he has
unusual powers of perception. Sometimes objects “change” when he looks at them.
He does not know it yet, but he alone in his community can perceive flashes of
color; for everyone else, the world is as devoid of color as it is of pain,
hunger, and inconvenience. At the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is given the highly
honored Assignment of Receiver of Memory. The Receiver is the sole keeper of
the community’s collective memory. When the community went over to Sameness—its
painless, warless, and mostly emotionless state of tranquility and harmony—it
abandoned all memories of pain, war, and emotion, but the memories cannot
disappear totally. Someone must keep them so that the community can avoid
making the mistakes of the past, even though no one but the Receiver can bear
the pain. Jonas receives the memories of the past, good and bad, from the
current Receiver, a wise old man who tells Jonas to call him the Giver. The
Giver transmits memories by placing his hands on Jonas’s bare back. The first
memory he receives is of an exhilarating sled ride. As Jonas receives memories
from the Giver—memories of pleasure and pain, of bright colors and extreme cold
and warm sun, of excitement and terror and hunger and love—he realizes how
bland and empty life in his community really is. The memories make Jonas’s life
richer and more meaningful, and he wishes that he could give that richness and
meaning to the people he loves. But in exchange for their peaceful existence, the
people of Jonas’s community have lost the capacity to love him back or to feel
deep passion about anything. Since they have never experienced real suffering,
they also cannot appreciate the real joy of life, and the life of individual
people seems less precious to them. In addition, no one in Jonas’s community
has ever made a choice of his or her own. Jonas grows more and more frustrated
with the members of his community, and the Giver, who has felt the same way for
many years, encourages him. The two grow very close, like a grandfather and a
grandchild might have in the days before Sameness, when family members stayed
in contact long after their children were grown. Meanwhile, Jonas is helping
his family take care of a problem newchild, Gabriel, who has trouble sleeping
through the night at the Nurturing Center. Jonas helps the child to sleep by
transmitting soothing memories to him every night, and he begins to develop a
relationship with Gabriel that mirrors the family relationships he has
experienced through the memories. When Gabriel is in danger of being released,
the Giver reveals to Jonas that release is the same as death. Jonas’s rage and
horror at this revelation inspire the Giver to help Jonas devise a plan to
change things in the community forever. The Giver tells Jonas about the girl
who had been designated the new Receiver ten years before. She had been the
Giver’s own daughter, but the sadness of some of the memories had been too much
for her and she had asked to be released. When she died, all of the memories
she had accumulated were released into the community, and the community members
could not handle the sudden influx of emotion and sensation. The Giver and
Jonas plan for Jonas to escape the community and to actually enter Elsewhere.
Once he has done that, his larger supply of memories will disperse, and the
Giver will help the community to come to terms with the new feelings and
thoughts, changing the society forever. However, Jonas is forced to leave
earlier than planned when his father tells him that Gabriel will be released
the next day. Desperate to save Gabriel, Jonas steals his father’s bicycle and
a supply of food and sets off for Elsewhere. Gradually, he enters a landscape
full of color, animals, and changing weather, but also hunger, danger, and
exhaustion. Avoiding search planes, Jonas and Gabriel travel for a long time
until heavy snow makes bike travel impossible. Half-frozen, but comforting
Gabriel with memories of sunshine and friendship, Jonas mounts a high hill.
There he finds a sled—the sled from his first transmitted memory—waiting for
him at the top. Jonas and Gabriel experience a glorious downhill ride on the
sled. Ahead of them, they see—or think they see—the twinkling lights of a
friendly village at Christmas, and they hear music. Jonas is sure that someone
is waiting for them there.
__Age Does Matter__
By Jona Belle P. Mariano
I live in the world
where everything is provided
The rules are strict
and no one is exempted
People of my age were
doing the same
Sameness is the world
that I’m trying to say.
When I was born, I
was sent to the center
Together with other
babies and we nurtured there
The Nurturers fed us
and taught us to walk
Until the age of one
and we have to move.
Ceremony for the Ones
is very exciting
They will give us
names that we’ll forever bring
The Ones will be
sending to different families
Who were needed a
child in order to be happy.
At the age of three,
dream telling began
And I have to tell
them the dream I had
Four, five, six, I
have to wear a jacket
That fastened down
back as a sign of interdependence.
I got my
front-buttoned jacket at seven
And it is a first
sign to be independent
At the age of eight,
I’m no longer a child
Co’z my comfort
object will no longer on my side.
All the females under
the age of nine
Their hair ribbons
should be neatly tied
I can no longer wait
to be at nine
Co’z the bicycle I’m
wishing will all be mine.
I have to be serious
at the age of eleven
I have to volunteer
for the hours remain
At the age of twelve
will be the last ceremony
And they will give an
assignment that would suit to me.
This is our life in
the world of Sameness
You have to follow
the rules they’ve made
Now that I knew
everything, I want to go somewhere
Where everything is
in normal and it is in Elsewhere.
Vocabulary
Enhancer
(Cassandra Joyce Cabesas)
1. Sheepish- adjective
embarrassed or bashful, as by having done something wrong or foolish.
like sheep, as in meekness, docility, etc.
2. Whimpered- verb (used without object)
to cry with low, plaintive, broken sounds.
verb (used with object)
to utter in a whimper.
noun
a whimpering cry or sound.
3. Jaunty- adjective, jauntier, jauntiest.
easy and sprightly in manner or bearing:
to walk with a jaunty step.
smartly trim, as clothing:
a jaunty hat.
4. Indolence- (indolent)adjective
having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion; slothful:
an indolent person.
Pathology. causing little or no pain; inactive or relatively benign:
an indolent ulcer that is not painful and is slow to heal.
5. Quizically- (quizical) adjective
odd, queer, or comical.
questioning or puzzled:
a quizzical expression on her face.
derisively questioning, ridiculing, or chaffing.
6. Crease- noun
a ridge or groove produced in anything by folding, heat, pressure, etc.; fold; furrow.
a wrinkle, especially one on the face.
7. Kinks- noun
a flaw or imperfection likely to hinder the successful operation of something, as a machine or plan:
There are still a few kinks to be worked out of the plan before we start production.
8. Tufts-noun
a bunch or cluster of small, usually soft and flexible parts, as feathers or hairs, attached or fixed closely together at the base and loose at the upper ends.
9. Jarred- verb
to have a harshly unpleasant or perturbing effect on one's nerves, feelings, thoughts, etc.:
The sound of the alarm jarred.
to produce a harsh, grating sound; sound discordantly.
to vibrate audibly; rattle:
The window jarred in the frame.
10. Wisp- noun
a handful or small bundle of straw, hay, or the like.
any thin tuft, lock, mass, etc.:
wisps of hair.
Passage Picker ( Iriss Joy Rabago )
“We gained control of
everything but we need to let go of others…”
-
The Giver
We can control to keep things we want to stay in our mind but we must
not expect that we can be able to keep those treasures (memories) forever
because some of them are not meant to be kept in us forever.
Connector
( Rutchell Saplot )
As
I read the Lois Lory’s novel The Giver, I can relate its story to another novel
entitled Divergent where in the story
of The Giver in the age of 12 they were assigned to their own assignment in the
Ceremony of 12 based on their ability and their intelligence. Some will became
a Doctor, an Engineer, a Nurturer, a Receiver and other work that fit on every
individual based on their long observation. The most crucial assignment is to
become a Receiver and to be chosen to be a receiver you must have the
uniqueness and intelligence which is seeing beyond what you can see and just
like in the novel Divergent when they reach the age where they can handle a
faction, they were given a test, an aptitude test that will determine their
ability and intelligence and also their future. Some will be part of the
Abnegation, Amity, Erudite, Candor, Dauntless and a Divergent but the worst
function is to become a Factionless in the society. Both novels have a one
system or government which controls and determine their role in the society.
But the ambience of the story can be related to another novel entitled The
Hunger Games because the color of the atmosphere is dull and chaos. The ending
of the story just like in the Divergent both the main character of the story
has their mission unaccomplished, both became a rebel in their society because
they both know that there is something wrong in their society and they want
change, both ending of the story travel to go out in their boundary and both
aim for hope in the other side of the boundary.
