The Giver Vocab
This is the community’s system where differences are removed or controlled.
Answer: Sameness
A society that seems perfect, peaceful, fair, and safe is called this.
Answer: Utopia
What must people use carefully and exactly in Jonas’s community?
Answer: Precision of Language
Who trains Jonas to become the next Receiver?
Answer: The Giver
At the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is not assigned a regular job. What is he selected to become?
Answer: Receiver of Memory
This is Jonas’s ability to notice things other people cannot, such as color.
Answer: Capacity to See Beyond
A society that seems controlled, unfair, frightening, or broken underneath the surface is called this.
Answer: Dystopia
Why does the community give children Assignments instead of letting them choose jobs?
Answer: To control people’s futures and keep the community organized.
What is the first memory Jonas receives?
Answer: Snow / sledding down a hill
What does Jonas begin to see that others cannot?
Answer: Color, especially red
Jonas is selected to become the next __________.
Answer: Receiver of Memory / Receiver-in-Training
At the beginning of the novel, Jonas’s community seems like a utopia because people have food, safety, jobs, and order. What detail makes it seem less perfect?
There are strict rules, little freedom, and people can be released.
People do not choose their own jobs, families, or futures.
The community controls emotions through rules, rituals, and pills.
People are expected to follow orders without questioning them.
What rule does Jonas receive that shocks him because it goes against everything he was taught?
Answer: He may lie.
Why does Jonas need to receive painful memories?
Answer: Memories give wisdom, and the Receiver must understand pain to advise the community.
What does Jonas learn release really means?
Answer: The person is killed.
What does Release mean in the community at the BEGINNING of the novel?
THEN, what do we realize as we continue our reading?
Answer: At first, release sounds like someone is being sent away from the community.
Later, Jonas discovers that release really means the person is killed.
What makes Jonas’s community seem like a utopia at the beginning of the novel?
Answer:
The community seems safe, organized, peaceful, and predictable. Everyone has food, shelter, jobs, and rules to follow.
Why are Stirrings treated with pills?
Answer: The community wants to stop strong emotions and desires.
Name one painful memory Jonas receives.
Answer: War, hunger, sunburn, broken leg, pain, loneliness, loss
Who was the failed Receiver-in-Training before Jonas?
Answer: Rosemary
This word means strong feelings or desires that begin as children grow older.
Answer: Stirrings
How does The Giver show that “perfect” does not always mean good?
Answer:
The community looks perfect because it is safe and orderly, but people are controlled and cannot fully feel, choose, love, or understand the truth.
Why are choices dangerous in Jonas’s community?
Answer: Choices could lead to mistakes, conflict, individuality, love, desire, or rebellion.
Why is Jonas’s training lonely?
Answer: He cannot discuss his training with others, and no one else understands the memories.
Why is Jonas horrified when he watches the release of the twin?
Answer: He sees his father kill the baby and realizes release is death.
A child breaks an important rule and is corrected publicly. Which word best matches this situation?
Answer: Chastisement
How does the novel show that too much control can be dangerous, even when it creates safety?
The community avoids pain and conflict by removing freedom, memories, love, color, choice, and truth. It looks safe, but people lose what makes them fully human.
How does the community control people without making them feel controlled?
Answer: It uses rules, rituals, polite language, Assignments, pills, public announcements, and Sameness so control feels normal.
Why does receiving memories make Jonas different from everyone else?
Answer: He gains real emotions, wisdom, pain, color, love, and truth, while the rest of the community remains unaware and controlled.
Why does Jonas suddenly leave the community with Gabriel?
Answer:
Because Gabriel is going to be released, and Jonas knows that means Gabriel will be killed