The Giver

The Giver is an old man who has been the Receiver for many years. He has a beard and the type of unusual, pale eyes that Jonas has. The Giver transmits memories to Jonas by laying his hands on the boy’s back. The memories include recollections of long ago, when life was more varied than it is in the homogenized, carefully designed community they both inhabit. The Giver once had a wife and daughter, but he has lost them both. His wife now lives with the other Childless Adults while he spends his days in his dwelling, experiencing memories over and over. His daughter, Rosemary, began training for the Receiver role a decade earlier but did not succeed. The Giver views this as a failure on his part. After glimpsing the pain and horror some of the memories contain, Rosemary asked to be released from the community. The Giver watched a recording of her release and has never fully recovered from the experience.

The Giver is careful to give Jonas pleasant memories along with the terrible ones and makes sure to serve as a sounding board for the boy’s feelings. He also introduces concepts that were once foreign to Jonas, such as love. The Giver tells Jonas that he loves him much like he loved his daughter. Together Jonas and the Giver devise a plan to get Jonas out of the community and make this society a better place to live. The Giver prepares Jonas for this escape by giving him memories of strength and courage.

Rosemary trained to become the Receiver about 10 years before Jonas began his training. Like Jonas, she was selected for the role by the Committee of Elders. Unlike Jonas, she was the Giver’s daughter. She and Jonas share some qualities important to the Receiver role. They are both bright and eager to learn, and both have the unique quality to "See Beyond." Like the Giver, they both have light eyes, which are uncommon in the community. Jonas wonders if Rosemary failed to become the Receiver because she lacked bravery, but he learns that she may have been one of the bravest people of all. When she decides to be released from the community, she performs the release procedure on herself. This action is so horrible that the Giver cannot stand to witness it. The Giver hopes to see Rosemary again once Jonas escapes the community and the residents learn to deal with memories and feelings.

Jonas’s mother and father are the heads of his family unit. The community’s elders decided that they should be spouses and assigned them two children: Jonas and Lily. Jonas’s mother works for the Department of Justice and is depicted as a very smart, rational, and no-nonsense woman who cares about status and reputation. Jonas’s father works at the Nurturing Center, where he cares for the community’s babies. He is depicted as a more gentle, quiet, and sensitive type of person. Both of Jonas’s parents tend to follow the rules and emphasize the importance of obedience and order. However, Jonas learns that his parents—especially his father—aren’t quite what they seem once he begins his Receiver training. His world is turned upside-down when he realizes that his father kills infants deemed unfit for life in the community, and that he does so with almost no feeling.

Lily is Jonas’s sister. At the beginning of The Giver, she is about to turn 8. Lily likes babies and thinks she might want to be assigned the job of Birthmother or a Nurturer. She sometimes subverts the community’s rules about rudeness by giving a blunt assessment of a situation. From time to time, Lily sheds light on the unfairness, complexity, or strangeness of a situation by asking a question or making a simple observation. For example, she points out that Jonas and Gabriel have the same kind of "pale eyes" (20), an unusual trait in the community they call home.

Gabriel is a sweet and curious baby boy Jonas’s father cares for at the Nurturing Center. At the start of The Giver, Gabriel is not growing as fast as he should. He also has trouble sleeping through the night, something that is expected of children. Children who don’t achieve these goals are deemed unfit and then released from the community. Jonas’s father knows that Gabriel is in danger of being released, so he requests permission to bring the baby home each night for additional care. Gabriel’s condition improves in Jonas’s household, and the child soon begins walking, talking, and reaching other developmental milestones. He continues to struggle with sleep until Jonas intervenes, giving him pleasant, calming memories that the Giver has shared with him. Jonas and Gabriel develop a special bond throughout the book. When the community decides to release Gabriel after a year of extra nurturing, simply because he is a restless sleeper one night, Jonas knows he must save the baby he has come to love so dearly.

Fiona is Jonas’s friend and classmate. She is also an Eleven who’s about to become a Twelve at the start of the book. She is a gentle, caring girl whose favorite place to volunteer is the House of the Old. At the Ceremony of Twelve, Fiona gets assigned to work at the House of the Old. Jonas has his first "Stirrings," or sexual feelings, in a dream about Fiona. He also learns about colors when he starts to perceive that her hair is red. Most members of the community cannot see color, but Jonas begins seeing flashes of red shortly before he receives his job assignment. These flashes are an example of seeing beyond. Jonas also grows disillusioned with Fiona when he discovers that she is learning to release elderly people and does so with little feeling, as his father does with babies.

Asher is another friend and classmate of Jonas’s. He is a cheerful child who is lots of fun to play with, and he sometimes struggles to use language precisely. Jonas worries what job assignment Asher will receive since he doesn’t seem serious about anything. He is relieved when Asher is assigned to lead recreation activities, but this assignment causes conflict when Jonas joins a war game that bothers him. When he asks Asher to stop playing it, Asher doesn’t want to because he doesn’t see what’s wrong about it.

The Chief Elder is a community leader who is elected every 10 years. She helms the Committee of Elders, which makes rules and decides the fates of the community’s residents. The Chief Elder announces the job assignments at the Ceremony of Twelve and leads rituals such as the murmuring used to remove a person from the community’s memory. She is also one of the people who reminds community members of rules, values, and expectations. For instance, she reminds the crowd about the importance of precise language use and standardized behavior during her speeches at the Ceremony of Twelve. She says that Receiver is the most honored role in the community. The Chief Elder and other members of the Committee of Elders ask the Receiver for advice when making decisions about things they haven’t experienced. Although the Receiver is technically part of the Committee of Elders, he is separated from them most of the time and is rarely called upon to provide advice. This is one reason the Giver thinks that he has no power to change the community’s rules and customs. Another reason is that the other community members—including the committee members—do not experience memories and have a very different relationship to feelings than he does.