Precision of Language

Throughout the dystopian novel The Giver there is a heavy emphasis among the community on the importance of “precision of language”, which is one of the major ironies of the novel. In their effort to promote clear communication of ideas the community initially appears to share the same values as your typical ELA teacher. I recall my Shakespeare professor once chiding me for being too wordy and advised me to be more sparse yet precise in my use of language. However, the precision of language valued by the community is an effort to maintain order and what they refer to as “sameness”. The society of the story’s protagonist Jonas is extremely strict and highly controlled with rules that govern all aspects of life including the use of speech. This Orwellian world is reminiscent of the dystopian classic 1984 with the fictional language known as “newspeak” similarly controlled by the state. Both “newspeak” and “precision of language” share similar aims and characteristics which include elimination of concepts like individualism and a more simplified vocabulary and grammar. The tension that the precision of language creates is exemplified in the opening of the novel when Jonas tries to find the correct word to describe his emotions as he approaches the Ceremony of Twelve. This is an important moment in the lives of children in the community who will be assigned a career and begin their lives as adults. Jonas colors the opening with a somber tone by describing his feeling as “frightened” but quickly rejects the word as incorrect in favor of the word “apprehensive”. The community also makes use of euphemisms to describe the killing of the infirm or euthanasia using the word “release” to deceptively disguise the real meaning. The use of the word “release” has a much softer connotation than the actual act of violence that it really is – the words “killing” or “murder” are more accurate descriptions. The novel The Giver is an excellent reading for a middle school ELA class as it provides the perfect segue into a discussion on the importance of precision of language. The use of language is tied directly to our description of emotions that the omission of a particular word can result in the omission of the emotion. This is best exemplified in The Giver when Jonas is ridiculed by his parents for asking if they love him to which they respond by saying the word is too general and therefore meaningless. The omission of a single word by the community has resulted in the loss of this emotion by his parents. The concept of precision of language can be carried over into writing which is skill that needs attention, especially by teens who are known for their redundancy and overuse of certain adjectives and verbs.

The Value of Dystopia

After finishing The Hunger Games and The Old Man and the Sea I had a hard time choosing which book to read next. At first I leaned more towards traditional literature used in secondary level ELA courses – novels like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Outsiders immediately came to mind. But having read these stories as a teen I didn’t feel quite the same amount of motivation or thrill one might feel picking up a completely new, and more contemporary, fictional work. While at the public library I did a Google search on popular books for teenagers and randomly picked the book The Giver by Lois Lowry. The book is a recipient of the John Newberry Medal and another dystopian novel that differs from other works in the same genre such as The Hunger Games and Feed which prompted me to ask the question what can we learn from this particular fictional genre. It seems that the school environment is not the place to spend much time on a direct critique of society, culture, and politics. The regular subjects are more intent on teaching students what is, rather than what could be. We study history to learn about the past in order to have a better understanding of the present. Science and math are subjects that focus on what is known and further breaks this down into answering why this is. As previously mentioned, English language arts allows some leeway to teach values indirectly through a reading and analysis of literature. The dystopian genre allows us to look at culture or technological forces in the modern world, and to imagine and test these forces when taken to their logical extreme. For example, the novel Feed by M.T. Anderson follows the course of current cultural trends which has seen an inclination towards materialistic hedonism and moral degeneration as institutions that have long held together the social fabric, i.e. religion, family, and education are slowly eroded. The book allows readers to imagine a type of world where values such as dignity, self respect, and human self-worth appear essential to our sense of humanity. In some of the older dystopian novels like Fahrenheit 451 we can see near-accurate social predictions such as our obsession with security and the mass media come to fruition sixty years later. The novel The Giver begins in what appears to be a futuristic utopia where conflict and suffering have been eliminated from society and people live in a state of organized harmony. As I’ve gotten further into the novel it is becoming clear that such a seemingly ideal state has its downfalls. For example, the world in which the protagonist Jonas inhabits is a monotonous existence devoid of color, choice, and emotion. With pain and suffering completely eliminated people haven’t the slightest inclination of what pleasure is as they have nothing to compare it to. The joys of pleasure lose their value when one is unable to remember a time when they felt pain. The dystopian genre forces students to look at the present in ways they might not have ever thought about before and definitely has a place in an English language arts class.