Son

Gabe, who is mistakenly called Abe in Claire’s thoughts for the first several years of his life, is Claire’s son. She is separated from him after he is born. Gabe has Claire’s curly hair, linking him to his mother, but he also has the same pale blue eyes as Jonas, suggesting perhaps they have the same paternal lineage. After Gabe is born, he is issued the number 36 to indicate that he is the 36th child of the fifty born in that calendar year to the community.

Gabe is troublesome as an infant; he never sleeps and is described as failing to adjust by the Council of Elders. As an infant, Gabe screams a lot and generally provides a lot of trouble for the workers at the NC, although one male nurturer—Jonas’s father—takes a special interest in Gabe. Due to Gabe’s failure to adjust, the Council of Elders decide that he should be killed, at which point Jonas abducts him and brings him to the village of outcasts. When Jonas relates this information to the gangly and tall teenage Gabe, Gabe finds amusement in his misbehavior. Gabe “liked the idea of being troublesome. It seemed to give him a certain superiority” (273). Whereas Claire only rebels as a result of her maternal bond with Gabe, Gabe seems to be born with a rebellious streak. He embraces his differences and is single-minded in their pursuit. He does not seem to care what other people think of him, even as his friends mock his boat-making project. Gabe is dedicated and perseverant regarding things that he himself finds important; he only decides to dedicate time to his studies once he decides that schoolwork is important because he realizes how much Mentor cares about his students. Much like Claire, Gabe is also defined by his longing for a relationship. For Gabe, knowledge of his past is inextricably linked to his quest for family; he is single-minded in his pursuit of answers. However, this dedication also makes him lonely and breeds a kind of innate secrecy.

Gabe is also marked as possessing a unique kind of gift: he is able to put himself into the bodies of other people, experiencing life and existence exactly as they experience it. However, this “power made him nervous. He finds veering tiring, painful, and a little frightening. So though he tested it now and then, seeing if it was still there […] he rarely called it into full use” (270). Gabe is very secretive about his gift—which is essentially the embodiment of empathy—and seems to innately know that with great power comes great responsibility. He seems much more mature than his peers, perhaps resultant from both his gift as well as his unique history. However, if Claire can be associated with the Virgin Mary, then Gabe is implicitly associated with the figure of Jesus Christ within the Christian mythos. Indeed, Gabe becomes a kind of savior for his people when he uses his gift to defeat the Trademaster and vanquish evil. Gabe is also repeatedly associated with water, thereby further cementing his positionality as a kind of Messiah.

Jonas is the son of the nameless nurturer; both Jonas and this nurturer take a special interest in Gabe. The protagonist in the first novel, The Giver, Jonas plays a limited role in Son. The audience knows from context clues that Jonas is different from all of the other people in his old community; like Gabe, he seems to have been born a rebel. Instead of a regular assignment, he is assigned to the Giver when he is 12 so that he can record all of the community’s history. However, upon receiving these memories, he learns that the Council of Elders plans to kill Gabe, with whom he has formed a special bond. In order to prevent Gabe’s murder, Jonas abducts the boy and eventually takes him to the village of outcasts. In Book 1, however, the only mentions of Jonas are through the fleeting perspective of Claire, who remarks that Jonas “seemed different now […] He seemed somehow troubled, she thought, and that was rare in a youngster” (108). Indeed, the audience knows that Jonas is troubled because of the knowledge the Giver is imparting upon him. However, an aspect of this troubled nature also stems from the fact that Jonas, like Claire, refuses to take the pills provided to the community, although for different reasons. Jonas’s keen sense of his own emotions allow him to bond with Gabe and necessitates their escape from the community.

Once Jonas leaves his old community and finds the village of outcasts, he is immediately recognized as being different. When his future wife, Kira, first meets Jonas, she thinks, “It was the first thing she noticed about him: the piercing blue eyes, and the way he had of seeming to see beyond what was obvious” (278). Indeed, Jonas does see beyond, as he is able to picture where other people are by focusing his energy on them. This ability to see the larger picture, to extend his knowledge outside of himself, might be responsible for the village’s decision to make him Leader at what seems to be a fairly young age. Jonas possesses a kind of quiet and reflective critical thinking that makes him a natural leader. However, in Son, Jonas mostly serves as Gabe’s mentor, the closest thing he has to a father figure. By the end of the book, Jonas seems to have settled down into his family life, although he still helps put Gabe on the path to his destiny. In this way, Jonas symbolizes wisdom, serving as an advisor to Gabe.

Alys is the village’s midwife and healer; she gathers herbs. She is described as “toothless and wrinkled though with piercing eyes and a sharp tongue […] [she] was childless herself but had been midwife to many and was no stranger to damaged young […] Alys had always yearned for a daughter and felt that the sea had sent this one to her” (136-37). Alys is old, possibly the first old person that Claire has ever met. In Alys, Claire sees the reality of age; Alys walks with her back hunched, foreshadowing Claire’s own aged appearance in Book 3.

There are many similarities between Claire and Alys, especially considering that Alys is childless, alongside the implication that Alys is and has possibly always been unable to have children. Even though Claire has only recently become infertile, the similarities between the two women remain. Both Alys and Claire also suffer from the tragedy of impossible love, as Alys loves Benedikt and Claire loves Einar. In many ways, it seems as though Alys exists to foreshadow who Claire will become, as Alys seems to be an older version of Claire. Indeed, Claire effectively becomes Alys in the last section of the book, although Claire later returns to her youthful self. In this way, Alys shows the definition between age and youth and the wisdom that can come with years of living an incredibly difficult life.

More than anything, Alys exists as Claire’s advisor. When Claire decides to climb the cliff to seek out her son, she confides in Alys. Claire “had told Alys of her plan. No one else knew. Claire thought of Alys as the calmest person she knew, the person who had seen the worst of things over her long life” (211). Alys exists as Claire’s confidante as well as her teacher, as Alys must help Claire learn and relearn the many things she either forgot or never learned in her old community. Alys patiently teaches Claire about life and is the mother figure that Claire never had. Claire knows that Alys loves her unconditionally, even if she worries about Claire successfully completing the climb, and wishes that Claire would stay safely in the village. However, Alys never forces her opinions on anyone, especially not Claire, and understands the power that comes from being a free spirit. In this way, Alys represents the gentle and ever-loving mother that Claire never had growing up, a confidante with whom Claire shares her most intimate secrets and pains. Alys serves as Claire’s advisor in the same way that Jonas serves as Gabe’s mentor: both Alys and Jonas only really exist in the novel to serve these two main characters.

Einar is a young man who is roughly the same age as Claire. Much like the complications that arose during Gabe’s birth, Einar’s mother suffered from complications during Einar’s birth and died as a result. He feels responsible for her death, especially because his father hated Einar for killing his father’s beloved wife. Einar’s father abuses Einar, and Einar grows strong in spite of his father’s cruelty. He grows so strong that he is referred to as Fierce Einar and decides he must leave the village in order to escape his father’s cruelty. He is the only person in the village to successfully climb out using the cliff: “Fierce Einar had climbed out successfully but returned, embittered by what he had encountered at the top” (135). Mystery enshrouds Einar, who becomes aloof after the Trademaster cuts off his feet in anger because Einar will not make a deal with the Trademaster, although the audience only learns this much later, towards the end of Book 2.

Einar is marked by his failure to leave the village, both psychologically and physically, after he becomes Lame Einar: “His failures had made him a recluse, but people remembered the vulnerable boy he had once been. Though he had stolen from his father, they forgave him that; his father had been a harsh and unjust man” (160). Einar represents the vulnerable position that people have in terms of their relationships. Because of his father’s abuse, Einar is left crippled and alone; he is deeply embarrassed at his failure and is always very hard on himself, often forgetting how courageous he was to escape his father in the first place.

Once Einar develops a relationship with Claire, he begins to show his true colors. Claire comes “to trust Einar, his wisdom and caring, deeply” (227). Einar represents the idea that people are not always what they may seem to be, as Einar is a deeply caring and emotional individual, despite seeming to be aloof. He cares deeply for everyone with whom he has a relationship, even his sheep, and is proud that he has never lost one of his flock to wolves. Although originally silent and unknowable, Claire develops a relationship and even falls in love with Einar after she gets to know him. Einar demonstrates how people can grow when they are involved in a loving relationship, even if they have experienced unknowable tragedy and cruelty previously in their lives. Einar proves that love can conquer anything, even tragedy and pain.