In The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas’s controlled community works to prevent world problems yet simultaneously restricts the people’s freedoms through the use of job assignments ,structure of the day, and lack of memories. His community controls how each of these aspects work and are used. All three have both pros and cons which work together to keep his town at peace.

One aspect of Jonas’s controlled city is that he and his community are given job assignments. On the positive side job assignments prevent the people from becoming bored. For example, it is said “... The substitute Laborers ,would be given a different holiday, took over all necessary tasks: nurturing, food delivery, and care of the Old”(130). Job assignments prevent people from …show more content…
This allows the people always have something to do. It is said “. Today is a declared unscheduled holiday.” “Jonas and his parents , and Lily all turned in surprise and looked at the wall speaker from which the announcement came from. It happened so rarely...”(130).The structure of the day allows people to always have something to do because the entire family is completely surprised by the announcement. They are shocked because of how rarely they have a day off from their jobs. But the con of the structure of the day restricts the freedom of doing something new. On page 68 there is a list of Jonas’s rules for his new job, The Receiver, that he is expected to follow everyday. The structure of the day restricts the freedom of trying new things because he no longer has time to hang out with his friends, and his routine is restricted to only 8 things each day. No more, no …show more content…
The lack of memories prevents pain and hurt. For example, “It hurt,” he told the man, “and I couldn’t get the word for it.” “It was sunburn,” the old man told him (86). The lack of memories prevents feeling pain because Jonas is experiencing a type of pain that he has never felt before. The things that cause pain are gone from his community; he can’t ever get sunburned. Because of climate control certain injuries never to happen due to the fact they don’t have some climates. On the other hand lacking memories restricts all of the great memories and happy time from the past. To prove this, it is stated “But I want them!” Jonas said angrily “it isn’t fair that nothing has color!” (97).This is proof that lack of memories restrict the great memories because Jonas has just learned about colors and he finds it unfair that no one can see the reds, blue, greens etc. He finds it amazing to see different colors not just shades of grey and black. It makes him excited and happy to see the bright shades, but knowing that no one else can see them because of the Elders causes him