The Giver takes place in a futuristic, utopian society. The society has done away with all concepts of difference creating a sameness that allows all the inhabitants to live in peace. The community is free from violence, crime, anger, and even pain, however, they are also void of passion, happiness, color, music, love, and all other positive emotions. At the age of 12 every member of the society attends a raffle-esque ceremony where they are assigned a job. The protagonist is a young boy who around the age of 12 who is given the job of Reciever. The boy, Jonas, is clueless to what that entails. He soon finds out that the Reciever is the person charged to recieve all the memories of the past given to him by the Giver. Before the utopian society was created, the people decided to give all the memories to one man incase they would ever come in handy. Shortly after his coming of age ceremony Jonas is sent to work with the Giver. Jonas is shocked when he begins to recieve the memories. He witnesses color for the first time. Along with this he feels pain, starvation, war, as well as happiness, love, and beauty. The entire plot comes to a climax when Jonas confronts a huge moral problem, whether it is worth the suffering in life to also witness the beauty in life. Near the end of the book the Giver dies and Jonas becomes the official memory holder. Jonas' final decision is to run away and in so doing he returns the Utopian of Sameness back to its original state, with pain and suffering but also color, music and love.

Jonas faces a serious moral dilemma in the Giver. He had to decide whether or not the evils of humanity and life outway the good and beauty inherent in humanity and life. The "utopian" society "perfected" life by dissolving individualism and the spice that makes life great. The people and surrounding area was designed to fit into the ideal of sameness. Only a few decades ago, Communist Russia attempted to do this to their people on a smaller scale. Russian Communism tried to take all the individuality and differences out of society to allow for a utopian society. However, like the society in the book, the result was bleak and colorless. Jonas has decide whether the end (no war/pain) outways the means (destruction of beauty and individuality). In the end he chooses to free the society of sameness and I agree with his decision. I agree not only in this situation but in most situations of does the ends out way the means, my answer being no. Unless the means are something very minor and the ends great then its against natural law.