Al Shammari 1

Talal Al Shammari
English 113B
Professor Spitler-Lawson
11 May 2016
Project Text Essay Final Draft
Word Count: 1308
Language of The Giver
Numerous philosophers and writers have been thinking about the possibility of
building an ideal utopian world as well as the threat of creating another totally opposite world
full of control and restrictions. One of the writers interested in the dystopian perspective of
social development, which is the opposite to utopia, is Lois Lowry. Her novel The Giver
presents the future where people live an artificially created ideal life which appears to restrict
their real human nature. Thus, this paper aims at analyzing the critical elements of the novel
as well as contrasting them with the modern realities expressed by the language means.
Moreover, it discusses the issues of control and freedom as critical parts for safe and normal
functioning of any society. The given analysis allows stating that our contemporary society
values freedom but may have a perspective of losing it due to misuse of the language means.
Therefore, attempting to create a life filtered from threats and worries, modern people may
experience social patterns which are presented in The Giver such as harming original human
nature and democracy.
The benefit of science fiction genre is that its authors invent and discuss the aspects
which may become critical for the society in the future stimulating the readers reflection of
implications of their actions. Thus, The Giver reviews the society of the future which may be
characterized as ideal from the start because its individuals live long and healthy lives
without wars and conflicts (Lowry). However, as the reader indulges in the atmosphere

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created by Lowry, one notices odd features which lead towards reflections about the
correctness of the decisions made by the leaders of this society. The inhabitants of the future
aspire to achieving Sameness as the main benefit of their lives having no color, emotions,
feelings, climate, and memory. Therefore, its representatives were satisfied with their reality
because they had no other options of life for comparison.
Furthermore, the only individuals capable of having emotions and bearing the past
memory of their people are the leaders of the community who transfer their memories to
specially selected individuals. Jonas, an 11-year old boy, is that special person who, unlike
his counterparts, has no benefits in rejecting his memory and strives for releasing the whole
palette of colors, feelings, and emotions to the society. Lowry states that Jonas found that he
was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their
lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on (Lowry 99). Analyzing the
novel thoroughly and comparing it with the modern society, one may think that there is no
connection; however, the comparison of specific realities may reveal it.
One of the aspects which requires analysis in order to discover a specific link between
the realities of The Giver and the perspectives of the development of the modern world is
language. The author gives a hint about this element because the theme of language is
considered to be one of the crucial points in the novel. For instance, characterizing Jonas, she
states that he was careful about language. Not like his friend, Asher, who talked too fast and
confused the things, scrambling words, and phrases until they were barely recognizable
(Lowry 3). Moreover, language lessons play a pivotal role for his society because the
inhabitants are learning using euphemisms instead of stating real characteristics of their
environment. In addition, this reality of the world is aware of the notion of language
acquisition which is of special importance to children as future full-fledged citizens of the
community. In this respect, Lowry states that precision of language was one of the most

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important tasks of small children. (Lowry 55). Therefore, one may conclude that
euphemisms allowed transforming the reality through language by means of concealing
inconvenient phenomena from the masses.
Undoubtedly, the above-mentioned aspect is present in the modern society which can
be revealed with the analysis of specific political speeches or journalists reports. No wonder
that pursuing their aims these people may omit some crucial facts replacing them with more
appealing words to the public. Here one can notice the disadvantage of these innocuous
expressions. Thus, according to Pravdivtseva and Bulavin euphemism is defined as the
device for neutralizing the negative connotation of the aspects, ideas or facts that are
unpopular in society (Pravdivtseva et al.). In fact, their usage in public speeches has been
connected with specific social and historical processes such as decolonization, emergence of
feministic and sexual minorities movements, and others (Pravdivtseva et al.). Hence, the
society has been neglecting these subjects in order to preserve particular conservative views
in such a way using the language as a shield for cognition. This characteristic is approved
with the results of the research conducted by Neal who revealed that the manner of reporting
different event influences the judgments of the audience (Neal). Thus, during the discussion
and description of rape crimes, the audience tended to support the point of view of the
speaker who attempted to present oneself more trustworthy using euphemisms (Neal).
Additionally, a similar effect was discovered when people participated in taboo topics such as
gangsterism, drug trafficling, prostitution, AIDS and HIV, injury, and others (Brandt).
Therefore, one can clearly realize that people attempt to protect their trustworthiness or the
other positive features by means of hiding undesirable facts using different substitute words
and characteristics. Explaining the nature of this phenomenon, the experts state that this
powerful linguistic tool is embedded deeply in the language, which is the cause of its centurylong usage in communication (Altakhaineh et al.). Consequently, people got used to hide

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harsh realities with the help of language means which is particularly observed in public
speeches and writings. For instance, scholars claim that politicians hide the perspective of
applying force by the expression interrogation techniques or the perspective of invasion by
the words reestablishment of power and others (Pravdivtseva et al.). Therefore, public
speeches and writings demonstrate the natural feature of languages, which can produce a
harmful effect in case of being used as a cheating instrument for the society.
However, euphemisms also have some advantages while revealing another aspect of
the social life such as a taboo or restriction of discussion of specific topics. Taboos are
culturally determined and present in every language which includes the option of their
discussion with the help of euphemisms (Temelkovska). Consequently, the positive purpose
of using euphemisms is that they allow discussing the prohibited topics without the danger
for the speaker to break a taboo. However, it is evident that in case of abuse of these means
by politicians and journalists the society becomes misleaded and may support harmful
initiatives such as terrorism or Nazism. In the result, people should pay attention towards the
hidden truth and recognize it in order to provide democratic control of legal and ethical
norms.
Summarizing the presented information, the paper concludes that the novel The Giver
describes a perspective of abuse of power of language with the aim of creating a society
endangering democratic and human ethic principles. Thus, a common tool used by the
practitioners of this method is euphemisms that hide undesirable information and
characteristics from people. However, whereas casual euphemisms may allow individuals to
avoid punishments or critique from the supporters of specific norms, their misuse by media
and politicians may have an adverse effect on the society. The typical examples of this
situation is concealing the perspective of invasion of other countries or breaking the
democratic principles. Therefore, the society should monitor the use of language by

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politicians and journalists in order to resist the perspective of endangering the principles of
humanity and democracy. Evidently, we need to control the language use of people who have
the power to influence us in order not to appear in a dystopian community similar to the one
described by Lois Lowry.