Character Analysis Essay
In The Giver by Lois Lowry, the main character, Jonas, goes through many changes like how
night is to day. Three events that specifically help his character develop are when he starts to see red in
the apple, stops taking his pill for The Stirrings, and when he is shown what release actually is. These
changes are important because they all start to shape and form his character in the book. Another reason
they are important is because all these events show that Jonas isn’t a regular character, he changes a lot
throughout this book. These are the three most important events that I think help him develop the most
through the book.
The first strong event is when Jonas starts to see color in the apple. He has said that the apple has
changed, it changed for a split second in mid air. This helped develop Jonas because it made him wonder
about the apple and himself in general as well. This event has given has given him an uneasiness about
the incident and leading why he had taken the apple with him. It also has lead to if there was something
wrong with his being because he had seen something peculiar in the apple. Jonas became more inquisitive
as a character from this event.
The second strong event is when Jonas had stopped taking the pill for The Stirrings. The reason
why I picked this one was because he had said that something inside him from the memories told him not
to take the pill. This has changed him because it meant that he has gained some wisdom from the
memories. The memories had given him the wisdom about the real world, how it was before, how
everything was so different back then. All these memories had told him deep down that the pills weren’t
good, they were bad to take, it had blocked something in him. This event caused Jonas to become more
thoughtful about his life. It also caused him to become resentful of everything that the pills had prevented
him from feeling and everything the community prevented him from experiencing.
The third strongest event was when Jonas was shown what release really was for the first time,
with the Giver. This has changed him because the horror of seeing his own father kill a newborn was
sickening, so Jonas broke down into tears because of this, he could not believe his own father was killing
newborns. For example, it had said that something inside Jonas had felt a ripping sensation within, the
feeling of terrible pain, which was lead to him braking down into tears and saying things in a sarcastic
tone. This made Jonas change even more from the happy boy he once was to a sad boy. Another way this
has changed him was that this has lead him into making a plan, a plan to escape this community and
escape into Elsewhere. For example, Jonas and The Giver were making a plan on how to escape but The
Giver has to stay, Jonas was a bit devastated but he went anyway and took Gabriel. Even thought Jonas
was afraid of breaking the rules before, discovering what release meant made him very brave. He realized
that breaking the rules was something that he had to do. Another example is that Jonas and Gabriel did do
Character Analysis Essay
the plan, which was to escape when the ceremonies were going on and his mom would think he was with
Asher and Asher would think Jonas was with his parents.
In this order it is least to greatest in the events, leading the third paragraph to be the strongest
because Jonas had really broke down and was in tears, to where he had made a plan to escape. The second
paragraph was the second strongest because it was about how Jonas had stopped taking the pills for The
Stirrings which was from the memories. The first paragraph is the least strongest which was when Jonas
had seen something in the apple and the apple had has color in it. All in all, these events were strong to
my understanding because all of them had changed Jonas in some shape or form. This is why I thought
these three events were the strongest out of the other events in the book.