The Giver Discrimination
One of the first moments when Jonas encounters something familiar to us, the readers, but totally unfamiliar to him is the moment when the apple changes in midair. Not only is the moment significant as the first time we see Jonas experience something totally new, but it presents an interesting challenge to both the reader and the writer: at this early point in the story, Jonas has not yet begun his training, and so he does not expect unusual things to happen to him. When the apple changes, Lowry must communicate the quality of its change without using any vocabulary or ideas that Jonas would not already know. She cannot tell us directly that there is no color in Jonas’s world, since the entire story is told from Jonas’s perspective: he does not know what color is, so he does not know that color exists. Lowry has to show us somehow that something is missing from Jonas’s world, so that we recognize the “change” that Jonas witnesses as the restoration of the missing quality.
To accomplish this, Lowry places subtle clues throughout the story that call attention to the absence of color. When Lily describes the newchild’s eyes, for example, she mentions that they are “funny” like Jonas’s, without making any mention of their color. Jonas’s meditation about his own eyes continues for a long time without any mention of their color, only of their shade, something that might strike us as slightly unusual. When Jonas takes note of all of the physical qualities of the apple after he has seen it briefly change, he mentions size, shape, and shade, but never the color. This clue is extremely subtle, since “shade” can be a synonym for “color.” The discordant element here is Jonas’s statement that the shade of the apple is “nondescript” like his tunic: we assume the apple is red, and few people would call red “nondescript.” In using subtle indications like these, Lowry allows us to participate in Jonas’s bewilderment at the apple’s change—we stretch our imaginations wondering how an apple could change—and at the same time prepares us for the Giver’s revelation that Jonas is beginning to see color.
To accomplish this, Lowry places subtle clues throughout the story that call attention to the absence of color. When Lily describes the newchild’s eyes, for example, she mentions that they are “funny” like Jonas’s, without making any mention of their color. Jonas’s meditation about his own eyes continues for a long time without any mention of their color, only of their shade, something that might strike us as slightly unusual. When Jonas takes note of all of the physical qualities of the apple after he has seen it briefly change, he mentions size, shape, and shade, but never the color. This clue is extremely subtle, since “shade” can be a synonym for “color.” The discordant element here is Jonas’s statement that the shade of the apple is “nondescript” like his tunic: we assume the apple is red, and few people would call red “nondescript.” In using subtle indications like these, Lowry allows us to participate in Jonas’s bewilderment at the apple’s change—we stretch our imaginations wondering how an apple could change—and at the same time prepares us for the Giver’s revelation that Jonas is beginning to see color.
