How The Giver Ends *SPOILER*

Jonas lives in a world where everything is seemingly perfect. No emotions: fear, pain, love. Things will never get out of hand and everyone will stay safe and sound. There are rules that people have to live by for their own protection. Then, when Jonas gets assigned as the receiver of memories, his life and everything he knows changes. The Giver passes memories to him, both good (riding on a sled, having family, celebrating Christmas with all the colourful lights) and painful ones like death and war. As he gets more familiar with his job and what burden he has to take on, he makes a decision that everyone should know the truth. He learns that if he leaves his community, the memories will return to all the people. So, he escapes to find Elsewhere with a child (Gabriel) who he has already passed some memories to. At the end of the story, Jonas and Gabriel are freezing and on the edge of starvation after their long and tiresome journey. Jonas finds a sled waiting for him at the top of a hill, rides down it, sees a brightly lit house and hears music coming from that direction. He is certain he's finally made it, but perhaps it is just an illusion?

This ending represents a dilemma because nowhere in the ending does it say that Jonas and Gabriel finally get rescued. Some people may want to to be that Jonas gets rescued by the family he finds, and that after his long travel, it's all been worth it. But, neither does it say that they did not make it or didn't survive. Others may not like the usual happy endings and that Jonas didn't survive. When he said he thought he saw that house and he heard music, it was all just in his head. Different people interpret this ending in all sorts of ways.

Most people would prefer a more optimistic ending to this story: Jonas gets found and rescued by the people in the house he finds, and they all live happily ever after. Don't you think it's too coincidental that, at the end he "finds" a sled WAITING for him? That directly at the bottom of the hill, Jonas finds a house that a family is celebrating something? After the entire journey, the story just ends like that, so abruptly? I think that he was probably just having delusions. Perhaps he passed out from the cold and was dreaming of good memories. The sled ride, the house where it was going to be warm inside, with family members celebrating and enjoying being with each other, the music, the colours. I don't think it was real. I think Jonas and Gabriel don't make it through. But for the community that they escaped from, where the people finally received the memories, both good and bad, they will continue on. The people will eventually learn to deal with the memories with the Giver's help, that they'll live like we do now. I don't think that the author would leave such a good story with everyone living happily. I'd want Jonas and Gabriel to leave, for the sake of their "utopian" community.