When he tells his parents, his mother says they are natural feelings called Stirrings, and that Jonas must take a pill to stifle them.Ī few weeks later, at the annual ceremony, Jonas's friends are assigned jobs that seem to fit them perfectly. That night, Jonas has a dream about bathing naked with Fiona. Jonas asks what happens when someone is released, but no one knows.

A woman named Larissa tells him an old man was recently released in a beautiful ceremony. The next day Jonas does required volunteer hours with his friends Asher and Fiona at the House of the Old. When Jonas's father brings the baby home, Jonas notices that Gabriel has pale eyes like him, an unusual trait. Jonas's father, a Nurturer who cares for newborns, shares his concern over a baby to be named Gabriel who is not growing fast enough. The old and the sick are 'released,' which the community believes means sent to live 'Elsewhere,' outside the community.ĭuring family time, Jonas shares his uneasiness about the upcoming ceremony, where he will be assigned his job. Everything serves a purely practical purpose-to serve the common good of the community and minimize conflict. Everyone looks similar in skin color and dress. Sex and love are prohibited, being different is shameful, and families are dissolved when the children are grown. The committee names all babies and chooses every person's career. A committee of elders matches spouses and assigns them children born from women whose only job is to give birth. There is also no choice, and real emotions are nonexistent. Sometime in the future, an 11-year-old boy named Jonas lives in a seemingly perfect community in which there is little pain and little crime.

The giver lois