ENGL 1301:007 Fall 1999
Tim Morris, University of Texas at Arlington
Lois Lowry's novel The Giver asks a provocative question: would you accept a world where you felt completely emotionally secure, where all economic and social problems were solved, where all major decisions about your life were made for you? Would you accept such a world at the cost of passion, unpredictability, and the ability to see colors (color sense being, in both The Giver and Pleasantville, a powerful metaphor fo being able to experience a range of emotions)?
Well . . . probably not, even if I didn't add that you would be ritually executed for infringements of the law, for failing to live up to the physical standards of your community, or for growing old. The question as I've phrased it above isn't all that interesting: "Of course not," you'd answer, maybe after a second or two of reflection.
The Giver therefore can't be saying "what if" such a community existed. It's saying that such a community already exists, that we live in it. It says that our choices are as radically limited as those of Jonas and his peers. At some level, not necessarily in all the literal details of the novel, we live in the Receiver's community.
Pleasantville offers more hope. Its sitcom-embedded alternate world has an alternative: 1990s "reality." The closed-off colorless world of the film is seen as in the past, marginalized, and changeable for the better. The residents of Pleasantville can be brought to their senses, can evolve. But it too is saying that our lives may be as flat and limited as those shown on 1950s television.
Respond to my comments on The Giver and Pleasantville with an essay that uses specific details from both film and novel. Engage the central theme of security vs. freedom in each work.