The Giver by Lois Lowry

Published 1993 · 43,485 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction

How hard is The Giver to read?

The Giver scores 59 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
The novel introduces a unique lexicon of community-specific terms like 'Release,' 'Sameness,' 'Nurturer,' and 'Stirrings,' which require initial assimilation. However, the general vocabulary remains accessible and direct, reflecting the community's emphasis on 'precision of language' rather than obscurity, placing it above a child's vocabulary but well below literary fiction with extensive allusions.
Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
Lois Lowry employs a straightforward, declarative prose style with sentences of moderate length, prioritizing clarity and narrative flow. While not overly simplistic like a child's diary, the syntax rarely features complex subordination or extensive nested clauses, making it easily navigable for its target audience, similar to '1984' in its directness.
Abstraction: 72 out of 100
While grounded in a concrete narrative, *The Giver* delves deeply into abstract philosophical concepts such as the value of memory, the nature of freedom versus security, and the necessity of pain for true emotion. Jonas's journey and his explicit discussions with The Giver explore these profound themes, requiring the reader to engage with complex ethical and societal questions, akin to the philosophical debates in 'Brothers Karamazov'.
Information density: 62 out of 100
The narrative is dense with the intricate rules, rituals, and specialized roles of Jonas's community, requiring the reader to absorb a new social structure. This information load is further intensified by the contrasting memories of a past world, introducing a rapid succession of new concepts, emotions, and historical events, making it more demanding than a typical plot-driven novel.
Narrative indirection: 60 out of 100
The narrative, told from Jonas's innocent perspective, initially presents the community's euphemisms (e.g., 'release,' 'Elsewhere') at face value. The reader must infer the true, darker meanings as Jonas's understanding evolves, such as the revelation that 'release' is execution. This gradual unveiling of a sinister reality beneath a placid surface requires constant re-evaluation, placing it above *1984*'s direct exposition (35).
Symbolic density: 68 out of 100
The novel is rich with symbolic meaning, where 'Sameness' represents the suppression of human experience and emotion. Colors, snow, and hills symbolize the vibrant world lost to control, while the river acts as a boundary and a path to the unknown. The comfort objects (stuffed animals) highlight the community's artificial and superficial sense of security. This density is more pervasive than *To Kill a Mockingbird* (45) but less abstract than *The Great Gatsby* (75).
Ironic distance: 70 out of 100
A strong ironic distance is established through the community's language, which uses benign terms to mask horrific practices. For instance, the 'Ceremony of Release' is presented as a practical or celebratory event, but the text reveals it as euthanasia, creating a stark contrast between what is said and what is truly meant. This gap between surface and underlying meaning is comparable to *The Great Gatsby* (70) in its simultaneous critique and portrayal of a flawed society.
Resolution withholding: 78 out of 100
The novel concludes with significant ambiguity regarding Jonas and Gabriel's ultimate fate. Jonas hears music and perceives warmth as they descend a hill, but whether they reach a literal 'Elsewhere' or succumb to the elements is left open to the reader's interpretation. This deliberate lack of definitive closure forces the reader to actively construct the meaning of their journey, placing it higher than *Lolita* (65) where the plot's aftermath is known.
Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
The Giver maintains a largely linear and chronological narrative, focusing on Jonas's first-person limited perspective. The story unfolds without significant timeline jumps, multiple narrators, or experimental formal elements. While the transmission of memories is a unique plot device, it does not disrupt the straightforward progression of events, making its structure highly accessible, similar to *Beach Read* (28).

How The Giver is regarded

The Giver holds a literary regard score of 72 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where The Giver sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (78 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Giver scores 68 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.3. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
He did not feel brave at all. Not now.
Symbol: Mythical (archetypal)
He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now.
Mythos: Romance iii (The Quest) (romance iii)
Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill.
Genre: Romance + Anatomy
From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.

Where the story of The Giver takes place

  • The controlled community, an unnamed settlement of Sameness, the main setting
  • The road Elsewhere beyond the river, wilderness to the snowy hill

5 things that are true of The Giver, with the passage for each

  1. At the Ceremony of Twelve, the Chief Elder skips Jonas's number in the sequence of Assignments.

    She skipped me, Jonas thought, stunned.

  2. Jonas's instruction sheet includes the rule that he may lie.

    8. You may lie.

  3. The old man who transmits memories to Jonas tells him to call him 'The Giver.'

    “Call me The Giver,” he told Jonas.

  4. Jonas watches a recording of his father injecting a twin newborn and dropping the body down a chute.

    He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing.

  5. The Giver reveals that Rosemary, the Receiver-in-training who failed ten years earlier, was his daughter.

    “Her name was Rosemary,” The Giver said.

Scenes in The Giver that Frye would name

38 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. The pivotal recognition that 'release' means killing breaks the community's vocabulary.
Pathos, untitled
Then he went limp. He head fell to the side, his eyes half open. Then he was still. The twin's sacrificial death is the novel's central pathos and the revelation of release.
Agon, untitled
On his knees, unable to rise, Jonas tried a second time. The flight culminates in a physical struggle up the snowbound hill with the starving child.
Agon, untitled
It was as if a hatchet lay lodged in his leg, slicing through each nerve with a hot blade. The training's first real ordeal is transmitted pain, the contest stage of Jonas's initiation.
Pathos, untitled
The boy sighed. His head fell back, his lower jaw dropping as if he had been surprised by something. The dying soldier in the war memory is a death scene Jonas takes into his own body.
Sparagmos, untitled
Horses lying on the ground shrieked, raised their heads, and stabbed randomly toward the sky with their hooves. The battlefield memory is a scene of mass dismemberment and carnage.

Books that share these scenes with The Giver

About the author

Lois Lowry