The Giver: Foreshadowing 3 key examples

As Jonas and Asher tossed the apple back and forth, Jonas remembers, it momentarily looked different to him before turning back into the same apple it had always been. He has difficulty describing the qualities of the apple in midair. He is more specific with his imagery once the apple reverts to its "unchanged" self. He remembers how it felt once it landed in his hand, "a perfect sphere." He remembers perceiving its color as "the same nondescript shade, about the same shade as his own tunic." This language is precise in its own way, but it is nonetheless a strange way to describe the color of an apple. Apples can be any number of vibrant colors, including red, pink, yellow, and green. The classic image of an apple is usually bright red. It is possible that Jonas is wearing a bright red tunic, or a pink, yellow, or green tunic that matches the color of the apple. However, none of these colors seem very "nondescript," except in that Jonas literally has trouble describing them. Instead of naming any colors, he refers to "shades," a term used in color theory to describe varying amounts of gray. He only seems able to describe objects' color by emphasizing how dark they are compared to other objects. His vision is like a black and white film.

This passage draws the reader's attention to the fact that color has so far never come up in any of the book's descriptions. The Giver is full of imagery from the very start. In Chapter 1, for example, Jonas meditates on the sensations he is feeling to determine whether "frightened" is the right word to describe his emotion. In the midst of all this imagery, it is easy not to notice the lack of color in the book. Jonas's memory of the apple in Chapter 3 is the first moment when it becomes apparent that Jonas is missing something so vital to the human experience as color. His brief glimpse of the apple as something other than a "shade" of gray foreshadows not only the fact that he will soon learn to see color, but also that he is destined to see the world in a way that diverges from the mainstream.

Jonas has just learned about love through the Giver's favorite memory of a family's Christmas celebration. The new feeling is so profound and feels so good to him that he wants to know why his family has never talked about it. He is disappointed by his parents' response. The disappointment is unsurprising—after all, it seems callous for parents to lecture their child about why it is inappropriate for them to say that they love him. What is surprising is the lie. Jonas has always been a rule-follower. The few times he has broken the rules, he has quickly confessed and accepted the consequences. The new rules Jonas is given when he becomes the Receiver indicate that he is allowed to lie for the first time in his life. Still, he is so uncomfortable with dishonesty that he has avoided doing so up until now. The fact that Jonas lies to his parents in this moment indicates that the feeling of love is more important to him than his sense of honesty and loyalty to his parents. His work with the Giver is starting to change his core values.

The sentence "It was his first lie to his parents" foreshadows the fact that Jonas will continue to be dishonest with his parents, especially when love is involved. Jonas's ultimate betrayal of his parents' and community's trust comes in Chapter 21, when he kidnaps Gabriel in the middle of the night. Jonas's parents inform the family over dinner that Gabriel will be released (i.e., killed) in the morning. Jonas's father has stretched the Community's rules as far as they will bend to save Gabriel from this fate; Gabriel still needs a high level of support to sleep through the night, so he has been deemed too great a drain on Community resources. Jonas has realized that he loves Gabriel more than he respects the rules of the Community. He also loves his father too much to allow him to surrender Gabriel to be murdered. He waits until dark and then steals away with the baby to spare everyone a moral disaster. Jonas's "first lie" foreshadows his maturation into an independent thinker who is willing to do what is right even if it goes against the beliefs he has been taught.

The river has always represented the danger beyond the borders of the Community. Children in the Community learn no clear distinction between "Elsewhere" as a vague place beyond the river and "Elsewhere" as the place old people eventually go when they are released. To leave the Community by crossing the river and to die are essentially the same thing. A little boy named Caleb drowns in the river before the start of the novel. Caleb's death in the waterways that lead "Elsewhere" reinforces the idea that exile and death alike are the end of meaningful existence. The river is something to be avoided.

Through his work with the Giver, Jonas has also come to see the river as a metaphor for life-giving connection. He realizes that there is an entire world "Elsewhere," beyond the Community's horizon, and that there is more than death to be found there. In a literal sense, to be caught in the river's current might be to drift toward "oceans and mountain lakes and streams that [gurgle] through the woods" like nothing Jonas has ever seen in real life. Jonas's memories of all these waterways are awash in "light and color and history." In a metaphorical sense, to jump in the river would be to jump into the current of history and human experience that runs through all these memories. Jonas is coming to see that avoiding the river may be safest, but it is also deeply isolating.

The way Jonas thinks of the river as a metaphor for connection foreshadows his choice to leave the Community at the end of the novel. Jonas's departure is not an abandonment, but rather an attempt to save his people. Their isolationism, both from history and the outside world, has led them to morally corrupt practices. The strongest example of this corruption is that they murder children who don't seem like they will be useful enough to justify their needs from society. Jonas believes that by crossing the river, he can turn it from a border into a waterway that reconnects the Community to "an Elsewhere from which it came, and an Elsewhere to which it" can go. In so doing, he hopes to restore the Community's underlying sense of humanity.