The Giver 14

Study Guide Questions for Ch. 14

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Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Fear, loneliness

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What happened to Jonas during his ride on the sled this time?

2. What did Jonas ask for when he came out of the memory and what was the answer?

3. What did Jonas tell his father when he was asked whether or not he was “feeling well?”

4. What did the Giver do for Jonas, “in his kindness,” to make his training more bearable for him? 

5. What had been proposed by some in the community “some years ago” which the Giver had advised against?

6. What had happened not too long ago which caused great fear within the community?

7. According to the Giver, why don’t all the people share the memories?

8. How were things going with the baby, Gabriel?

9. What “release” did Father say that they would “probably have to make very soon?”

10. What was Jonas’ conception of what might happen when a person was released from the community?

11. What did Jonas do, unintentionally at first, while trying to sooth Gabriel when he became fussy at night?

12. What did Jonas decide he would not do?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why was Jonas not permitted to have any pain-killing medicines?

2. Jonas realized that his family had never known pain and it made him feel “desperately lonely.” Why did that realization have this effect on him?

3. What was it about the fact that the rule (about not sharing the memories with everyone) went “back and back and back” which suggested to Jonas that it could not be changed?

4. Jonas’ Mother suggested “maybe it would be for the best” if Gabriel were released because “the lack of sleep is awfully hard for me.” What might we infer about her character from this statement?

5. Why would a birthmother having twins mean one of the children would have to be “released?”

6. Why was Gabriel able to receive a memory from Jonas when Father and Lily were not?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Jonas asked the Giver, after receiving a terrible memory of starvation, “Why do you and I have to hold these memories?” Do you think it is critically important for us to remember the awful things that have happened throughout history? What might be the consequences of not remembering? How does one go about acquiring historical memory since we cannot receive it the way Jonas did in the story?

2. Given the reasoning offered in the story about limiting the population of the Community to avoid the possibility of starvation, do you think Governments have the right to impose a limit on families concerning the number of children they may have? What are the reasons one might offer both for and against such a law? Would you support or oppose such laws? Why?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Proverbs 11:14. How should we relate this teaching of Scripture to our present reading?

2. Read Genesis 1:26-31 and Psalm 127. How should these (and other passages of Scripture) impact our thinking about the present reading and the second Rhetoric question?