[FUN WITH READING 2018-20233B] The Facade of Beauty

20233廖昱霖 (LIAO, YU-LIN)

[BOOK PROFILE]
TITLE OF THE BOOK: The Giver

NAME OF THE AUTHOR: Lois Lowry

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1993

ISBN: 978-0-00-757849-8

The Facade of Beauty

It is a story about the darkness that the boy discovered in his community. The community is cut off from the rest of the world, and people here all lived in happiness－except the Receiver. The Receiver knew everything in the world, he/she bore the pain that others didn’t know, and the boy was chosen to be the Receiver. He discovered lots of things he hadn’t known before, and he finally decided to escape from the community.

There were countless rules and laws in the community. They are asked to speak precisely and use correct vocabularies; everyone had one job, and the job of each one was chosen by the Observer; children who grew too slow or elders who were too old would be released. All in all, people in the community had no choice. The boy called Jonas had a special talent, and he was chosen to be the Receiver, who would be told everything by the Giver. The Giver had wisdom, and he/she would pass on to the Receiver his/her wisdom. Both the Giver and the Receiver tolerated the secrets that couldn’t be told to the neighbors. Before Jonas is selected to be the Receiver, he had thought that he lived safely, peacefully within the community. There was no war, no hunger and no pain. However, he discovered dark secrets when being the Receiver. For instance, the behavior which was so-called Release is actually mercy killing. The perfect community which he thought before had shattered. Finally, he decided to undertake a journey to escape from the nightmare. There was no explicit end of what happened eventually. The story ended up with the beautiful scene in Jonas’ journey.

The story overturned my thought. Most of people thought that utopia was the paradise which everyone was yearning for. However, I changed my mind now. If utopia’s peace was caused by the rules, it was actually a hell. No one had choice to choose what jobs they want to do, what kinds of people they want to be. How sad it was. Utopia, the real one, was brought about by everyone’s unity, virtuousness which evolved from our hearts. Although it seems difficult to achieve, actually, it might not be achieved forever, we just have to do our business and make the world better.