I was impressed by Daphne Knouse's reading response of 'The Giver' because I have read this book many times and she goes a lot into depth about the purpose and moral questions of the book. 'The Giver' is about an eleven-year-old (Jonas) who discovers that the world he knows has many more injustices and secrets than he had previously known. Jonas finally experiences emotion and color. The rest of his town, and even world, is deprived feeling emotion and learning the history of the dystopian civilization. Daphne Knouse discusses the dilemma of giving up all emotions and depth for happiness and peace. One of the most interesting statement she makes is that these traits, free thinking with depth and intelligence as well as emotions, is what gives us our humanity. With this idea, Daphne suggests that without this ability a person would be rendered as stupid and thoughtless as an animal. She writes, “We find it so interesting to imagine worlds in which our understanding of the world shrinks, because our analytical and emotional intelligence is so much of what defines us as a species.” She goes on to further explain that this is one of the reasons, she thinks, that the world appreciates fantasy books. For the fact that these worlds can exist and let us question the reason we are human, can further our own society and let us be thankful and aware of our freedom to think and feel.
However, I disagree with her idea that happiness and serenity can exist in the society of “The Giver”. I think that in the book, there is the appearance of a happy and peaceful society, while what is actually going on is a civilization of people trapped in a life without happiness or peace, because these are things that are some of the thoughts and emotions that these people would have, if they could have the ‘emotional intelligence’ that Daphne mentioned they are lacking.
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