The Giver Topic Tracking: Choice
Chapter 4
Choice 1: People in the community rarely make choices on their own. Much of their lives are pre-planned and organized, always decided for them, but volunteer hours are an exception. One can choose where he will spend his volunteer hours. On the last day of his volunteering, Jonas thinks to himself that he has always liked being able to make this choice.
Chapter 6
Choice 2: Every aspect of one's life such as one's spouse, children, and job is decided by the Committee of Elders. Because all choices regarding an individual are so carefully thought out and decided, Jonas finds it hard to believe that anyone would want to be released from the community.
Chapter 11
Choice 3: Choices were made long time ago to do away with things like snow and hills. Sameness was chosen. When Jonas says that he would like things like snow and hill every now and then, The Giver explains that they don't have the power of choice over such things.
Chapter 12
Choice 4: Talking about colors, The Giver explains that when people chose to go to Sameness, they made a choice to live without things such as colors. This way, they were able to control many aspects of their lives, but at the same time, they had to give up certain things too. Choices had been made to relinquish other choices.
Chapter 13
Choice 5: As time passes, Jonas is able to see different colors, but only momentarily. He becomes frustrated and angry because he thinks it is unfair that there are no colors in the community. Without things like color, people cannot make choices. The Giver agrees, but also suggests that it might be dangerous to allow people to make choices. They might end up making unwise ones.
Choice 6: The Giver explains that the Elders are seldom willing to make changes in the community. This is because they like their lives to be predictable and well-planned. They have chosen to have their lives this way.
Chapter 14
Choice 7: When Jonas suggests that everyone should share memories so that one person wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of carrying them alone, The Giver says that the choice is not theirs to make. The decision to have a Receiver of Memories was made a long time ago, and it is not something that can be easily changed.
Chapter 16
Choice 8: After having been given the memory of death and warfare in which he watches a boy die before his very eyes, Jonas does not want to return to the Annex for his training. But he also realizes that he does not have the choice in the matter. He has been selected to become a Receiver.
Choice 9: Jonas makes a deliberate choice to stop taking his morning pills that treat the Stirrings. It is his first time making a choice of his own regarding a matter that has already been decided by the community.
Chapter 19
Choice 10: The Giver tells Jonas that he had watched Rosemary during her release. During the release, she had chosen to inject herself.
Chapter 20
Choice 11: To Jonas who is confused and stunned to have learned that "release" is actually murder, The Giver explains that people in the community live that way because their lives have already been decided for them. Choices and decisions have already been made for them.
Chapter 22
Choice 12: For a moment, Jonas thinks that perhaps he has made a wrong choice to leave the community. He is starving and cold, on the verge of giving up. But he quickly thinks that if he had stayed, Gabriel would have been killed so there really hadn't been a choice to make. He couldn't have let Gabriel be killed.
