Brave New World: 5

THE GIVER

Lois Lowry's 1993 soft science fiction novel, "The Giver", is very similar to this book in many ways. Both involve a remade, "better" society in which the government has complete control over its peoples. At a young age, the children in this place are given a job they must do for the rest of their life. One job in this society is "birthmother". There is a certain amount of mothers who have three children each year. This is somewhat similar to Huxley's idea of having one uterus create tons of children. Pain and suffering are eliminated just like the "soma" does in "Brave New World". In Lowry's novel, Jonas recieves the job of "Reciever or Memory" and is allowed -even though it is a great burden at first - to know what happened before this society was built. Jonas is very similar to the character of Bernard. Jonas is given all the knowledge, but I feel as if Bernard is going to have to discover it all on his own and is partially there already.

However, the two books could be contrasted. In "The Giver", there are families, whereas, in Huxley's, no one really even knows what a family is. But the main difference that stuck out to me was the fact that sexual activity is not only frowned upon, but is stamped out in "The Giver". In contrast, "Brave New World" is very heavily centered on sexual activity and promiscuity.

Because I can now see the similarties between these two books - "The Giver" being one of my favorites- I am more open minded about where this book could be going.