Our+World+Vs.+Jonas's+World


 * The Giver Journal 1 Question 4 **

In the book __The Giver__ by Lois Lowry, There is a boy named Jonas who lives in a world very different then ours. His world is a Utopia. This means that everything is perfect, such as a war less world with no disagreements, awkwardness, or mistakes. Although there is nothing bad happening in his world they must follow a lot of rules to make this place a Utopia. In fact, whenever they make a mistake they are required to say a standard response; however, our world is not like this at all.

According to Lois Lowry, in Jonas's world everything is perfect. To us something seems very weird, so weird that none of us would even consider living their life. One of the things they do is get a number. When they are born they are assigned a number not a name. In December of the year, after they were born they are assigned a name and they are also assigned a parent. In this utopia, parents are only allowed to have one boy and one girl. Usually the parents don't get two children assigned to them at once. The reason this doesn't happen is because the parents must first apply for a child. Then the elders who are highly respected and have great authority come around to the house of the people who apply for a child and monitor them. If they aren't worthy of a child then they will be denied of the child. The children grow up and soon they turn twelve. When they turn twelve, not only is a lot expected of them but they are also assigned a job. The elders carefully monitor all kids to see what they take the most interest in and in December when they turn twelve, they get the job that best suits their interests. Later in their life they will become elderly and due to the fact that they do not experience death in their community, they release the week and elderly. They have a big ceremony and at that ceremony, they tell their whole life story. At the end of the ceremony they are taken into a room and are never seen again.

In our would absolutely nothing is perfect. To us it is impossible to have a world like Jonas's where everything is perfect. No one would get along and half the things they do don't make sense. For example, if we had to get a job at 12 then we would be nowhere near as prepared for a job as we would be if we went to college. If a kid were running a company then it would be a disaster. If we were to stop counting our age after 12 like in the author's utopia, then we wouldn't know if we were old enough to drive. To Jonas that is not a problem because they don't have cars, but if we had to ride bikes everywhere then it would take forever to get where we wanted. Lastly, if we were to apply for kids it would definitely not work out. This is because there would not be enough elders to monitor everyone applying for a kid, because there are so many people in our world. Although it world be nice to have a world like Jonas's it's just not realistic, and to some, this is not even a utopia.