Name
Gr.
#
The Giver
Letter to the Giver worksheet
Identify a lesson about
life the Giver taught
Jonas
Suffering- n. the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
Giver, you taught me about the history of suffering in the world. Suffering is the
condition of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
Describe an
example/moment found
in the world that
demonstrates the lesson.
(You can use Jonas’s
memories or your own
experience.)
You once gave me a memory of war that was the strongest, most terrible example
of suffering I have experienced. I was in the midst of a battlefield and had just
witnessed the death of a young soldier, who cried out to me in pain and thirst.
Noise continued “all around: the cries of the wounded men, the cries begging for
water and for Mother and death. Horses lying on the ground shrieked, raised their
heads, and stabbed randomly towards the sky with their hooves….” I lay there “in
the fearsome stench for hours, listened to men and animals die, and learned what
warfare meant.”
Explanation of how the
example demonstrates
the lesson.
It was a horrifying, awful experience, and I, too, was near the point of wishing for
death, just so it would end. War is the extreme example of suffering, in which all
efforts are made to end the life of your enemy, regardless of who gets in the way.
Every feeling in war, whether emotional, physical, or psychological, is painful. In
fact, the whole point of war is to inflict so much of pain and suffering and death
upon your enemy that they give up and surrender.
Reason why the lesson is And what I learned, Giver, is that suffering has existed on this planet for a long
so important to know.
time. That it is part of being alive. And that we, as humans, most often inflict it on
each other. It is important to know that suffering exists, not because we should
seek to suffer or cause others to suffer, but to know what forms of suffering we
can eliminate and what forms we cannot.
An expression of
gratitude to the Giver for
teaching this lesson and
how it has changed you.
Thank you for this lesson, Giver, for now I know just how much suffering human
beings can force upon each other. It has taught me that, although I do want to
change our Community, we must be sure that change does not come from the
devastating havoc wreaked through war.