What do we know about Asher in the Giver chapter 2

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The Individual vs. Society

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Jonas's parents try to relieve his concerns about the coming Ceremony of Twelve. Father talks about many of the Ceremonies he has experienced, describing them in only positive terms, and triggering pleasant memories for Jonas as well. The Ceremony of One, for example, is the time when each of the 50 or so newchildren born every year receives a name and is assigned to a family. It is a time of great joy, and Jonas remembers when his own family "acquired" Lily after his parents' application for a girl was approved. At the Ceremony of Nine, all children are officially given their bicycles, which they will continue to use throughout their lives. The Ceremony of Twelve, just ahead for Jonas and his friend Asher, is the last and most important of the ceremonies. At this ritual, individuals are given the Assignments—their adult role in the community.

The Assignments are made by a group known as the Committee of Elders, the most important of whom is called The Receiver. The Elders are the community leaders; they are also responsible for choosing the individuals that make up each family unit and for establishing the rules by which everyone lives. Jonas's parents reassure him that the Elders carefully consider the skills and temperament of each person before making an Assignment. Father, for example, had shown an aptitude for working with little ones since he himself was very young.

Jonas is still worried, though, because he doesn't know himself what he would really like to do. He also thinks about people who are assigned to the night shifts because they have been evaluated as being less skilled than others. He worries about his friend Asher, who does not have any serious interests and might not receive a good Assignment. He is again reassured by his parents, who tell him that he needn't be concerned and that there are few times when people have been disappointed with their Assignments.

Jonas's parents caution him, though, that the Ceremony of Twelve signals a time of great change. Most people don't track their ages after that point, and individuals tend to lose touch with their old friends as they develop new connections with people in their Assignment groups. Training replaces play and recreation, which, Mother assures Jonas, becomes much less important. Jonas feels better after the talk, but realizes that he still has no sense of what his own Assignment will be.

Analysis

In Chapter 2 readers begin gaining greater insights into Jonas's community as the boy's parents talk to him about the changes he will encounter when he becomes a Twelve. Jonas eagerly absorbs these new bits of information. But for readers, many of those same details are vaguely disturbing and add to the subtly ominous mood that Lois Lowry began building in Chapter 1.

Much of the chapter focuses on the annual December Ceremonies, which are perceived by Jonas and his family as happy, festive, and important occasions. Behind these accepted rites of passage, though, are somewhat darker realities. For example, the description of the Naming Ceremony makes it clear that while families may be caring and supportive, the individuals in each family unit are determined by committees and chosen according to strict criteria. There is also a quick reference to the fact that before the Ceremony of One, newchildren are raised separately by Nurturers. They are identified by numbers, not names, and are assigned to families only if they have not been "released." The meaning of this word is still not clear, though readers may pick up on sinister overtones, given the earlier use of the word to describe a form of punishment.

The Ceremony of Twelve also seems to have an unsettling side. It is the last and most important of the annual rituals, but there is also the implication that it marks the official end of childhood. Friendships dissolve, and the focus shifts to training and work for the good of society.

Other details reinforce the strictly regimented structure of the community. The fact that children are not allowed to have bicycles until they are Nines is odd, as is the detail that each child is assigned one specific "comfort object" that is then taken away and officially recycled at the Ceremony of Eight. The objects, like elephants and bears, are called "soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures," not stuffed animals, because the word "animals" has a different meaning in this society; the creatures themselves apparently don't exist in reality.

The most important revelation of the chapter, though, is that society is run by leaders called the Committee of Elders. The group appears to have absolute authority over its citizens, carefully observing and evaluating individuals on an ongoing basis and dictating what happens in their lives. Although citizens can appeal the decisions of the Elders, the appeal process never results in actual change and appears to exist only to create the illusion that people have some say in what happens to them or how the community is run. Although there is no suggestion by Jonas's parents that the Elders are anything by wise and good, readers gradually realize that the citizens have very little freedom and are almost completely under the control of one governing group.

We are introduced to Jonas, the eleven-year-old protagonist of the story, as he struggles to find the right word to describe his feelings as he approaches an important milestone. He rejects “frightened” as too strong a word, recalling a time when he had really been frightened: a year ago, an unidentified aircraft flew over his community—it was a strange and unprecedented event, since Pilots were not allowed to fly over the community. As Jonas remembers the community reaction to the event, we learn more about the society in which he lives. It is extremely structured, with official orders transmitted through loudspeakers planted all around the community. As a punishment, the pilot was “released” from the community—the worst fate that can befall a citizen. Jonas decides he is apprehensive, not frightened, about the important thing that is going to happen in December. Jonas and his society value the use of precise and accurate language.

At dinner that night, Jonas’s family—his father, mother, and seven-year-old sister Lily—participate in a nightly ritual called “the telling of feelings.” Each person describes an emotion that he or she experienced during the day and discusses it with the others. Lily says she was angry at a child visiting from a nearby community who did not observe her childcare group’s play area rules. Her parents help her to understand that the boy probably felt out of place, and she becomes less angry. Jonas’s father, who is a Nurturer (he takes care of the community’s babies, or newchildren), describes his struggles with a slowly developing baby whose weakness makes it a candidate for release. The family considers taking care of the baby for a while, though they are not allowed to adopt him—every household is allowed only one male and one female child. We also learn that spouses are assigned by the government. Jonas explains his apprehensiveness about the coming Ceremony of Twelve—the time when he will be assigned a career and begin life as an adult. We learn that every December, all of the children in the community are promoted to the next age group—all four-year-old children become Fives, regardless of the time of year when they were actually born. We also learn that fifty children are born every year. The ceremonies are different for each age group. At the Ceremony of One newchildren, who have spent their first year at the Nurturing Center, are assigned to family units and given a name to use in addition to the number they were given at birth. Jonas’s father confesses to his family that he has peeked at the struggling newchild’s name—Gabriel—in the hopes that calling him a name will help the child develop more quickly. Jonas is surprised that his father would break any kind of rule, though the members of the community seem to bend rules once in a while. For instance, older siblings often teach younger siblings to ride bicycles before the Ceremony of Nine, when they receive their first official bicycles.

Jonas’s parents reassure him that the Committee of Elders, the ruling group of the community, will choose a career for him that will suit him. The Committee members observe the Elevens all year, at school and play and at the volunteer work they are required to do after school, and consider each child’s abilities and interests when they make their selection. Jonas’s father tells him that when he was eleven, he knew he would be assigned the role of Nurturer, because it was clear that he loved newchildren and he spent all his volunteer hours in the Nurturing Center. When Jonas expresses concern about his friend Asher’s Assignment—he worries that Asher does not have any serious interests—his parents tell him not to worry, but remind him that after Twelve, he might lose touch with many of his childhood friends, since he will be spending his time with a new group, training for his job. Then Jonas’s sister Lily appears, asking for her “comfort object”—a community-issued stuffed elephant. The narrator refers to the comfort objects as “imaginary creatures. Jonas’s had been called a bear.”

Analysis

At the beginning of The Giver, we have a difficult time figuring out the setting of the novel. We do not know what it is that Jonas is afraid of—from the reference to unidentified aircraft, we might think that he lives in a war zone. When we find out that it is against the rules for Pilots to fly over the community, we know that Jonas lives in a community that is different from our own, but we do not know at first how different it. Lowry allows the small details about life in Jonas’s community to build up gradually into a more complete picture.

Read more about the novel's setting.

Initially, the picture we get of Jonas’s society is positive. From the emphasis on precision of language and the considerate, careful way in which Jonas’s family shares its feelings, we learn that his society values the clear communication of ideas. We also know that members of the community pay attention to each other’s feelings and try to solve each other’s problems in rational, reassuring ways: the family helps Lily to control her anger and encourages her to feel empathy for visitors in unfamiliar surroundings, and they resolve to help their father take care of a struggling baby. The community must be very safe and peaceful indeed if the only time Jonas can remember being frightened is when an unidentified plane flew over his community.

Read more about why Lowry tells the story from Jonas’s point of view.

Some aspects of life in the community are startling, but they are easily explained. The loudspeakers transmitting orders to the people in the community are somewhat unsettling—the idea of a disembodied, faceless authority with the power to control many people’s actions is reminiscent of police states and dictatorships. At the same time, it is a convenient public address system that was able to reassure many frightened people. The fact that the government chooses people’s spouses, jobs, and children for them is also unsettling, but the picture we get of Jonas’s family life is full of tranquility and comfort—the system obviously works pretty well. We know that the society is extremely orderly and peaceful, and that everyone has a job that he or she enjoys and can do well. There seems to be very little competition in Jonas’s community. Jonas is not hoping for a desirable or prestigious position, just one that he will be able to do well. In general, the society seems to be an almost perfect model of a communist society, one in which everyone in the community works together for the common good and receives an equal share of the benefits of living in the community.

Read more about rules and control as a theme.

However, the discordant notes remain, highlighted by Jonas’s description of himself as “frightened” at the beginning of the book. Even though he immediately rejects the word as inaccurate, its appearance in the first sentence of the novel colors the mood of the first several pages. Since Jonas seems so comfortable with the more unusual aspects of his society, we begin to think of them as normal, but at the same time his fear at the beginning of the story makes us slightly wary of totally accepting them. We are more likely now to notice that the society’s rules, though they are meant to help its citizens, limit personal freedom. We are also more likely to pick up on the ominous meaning of release—the punishment given to the pilot who accidentally flew over the community. Why would an accident be given the most serious punishment in the community? What does release actually mean? The word usually has a positive meaning, but in this context it is negative. In the tension between the two meanings, Lowry hints that everything in the society might not be exactly how it seems.

Read more about release as a motif.

By the end of Chapter 1, though Jonas has decided he is not frightened, he has decided that he is apprehensive. Having accepted that Jonas likes living in his community with his family, we have grown less frightened and more apprehensive with him. However, we have the feeling that, just like Jonas, the entire novel is on the brink of an important change. Jonas’s apprehension is a kind of foreshadowing that gets us ready for the idea that the whole society he lives in might be reaching an important milestone very soon, just as Jonas awaits the important milestone of the Ceremony of Twelve.

Read more about how Lowry uses foreshadowing to create suspense.