When Jonas begins recieving memories from the Giver, he doesn't always have the words to describe what he experiences and feels.
Provide an insightful explanation to the question: Can an idea exist without the words to express it? How does their "precision of language" act as another form of oppression for the community?
22 comments:
I do believe an idea or feeling can exist without an exact phrase to describe it. The 'Precision of Language' rule is a form of oppression in the community because the citizens of the community are not being allowed to experiment with all of the word possibilities and combinations that they are capable of. The word 'love' was said to be an inadequate word to describe what Jonas discovered. Love is a natural occurence and for the community to be deprived of the word that holds so much meaning is a definite oppression of thought and feeling, not to mention individuality. Everday we are overcome with feelings and thoughts that we aren't able to describe; however, we can still express them with action.
I think that an idea can't exist with no word for it, but I think that an action can. When someone has an idea for something they generally have a name for it. But when you're acting on something you don't always know what it's called. Those are things are learned.
The precision of language holds people in the community back by not giving them names for things. When Jonas sees his father kill the baby he knows what it is because he has the memories of war and death. His father has no memory of death and no one has taught him of it. The elders want to keep conflict and pain away from the community and they do it by using precision of language and teaching it to the community members at young ages.
Tracy Anderson
you cant feel something if you cant describe it. just like jonas's father when he "released"(killed) the newborn child. his father didnt know that killing the newborn was bad, he thought it was just normal, because the comunity had brain washed him into thinking it was part of life.
-Bryttani Knopp
Yes I think an idea can exist without words to express it. For example the idea of love is a topic that is somewhat difficult for some people to describe with words. Love is something you just know, you can't describe it, it's just there and when you feel it you know. The precision of language is another way for the community to express themselves by making sure that nobody "lies" about how they're feeling. For example Jonas said that he was starving. He got chastised for using this word. Jonas was not staring, he was hungry.
Jonas and the community had all been raised differently then the regular people today. They had been sheltered by the real life and some words and ideas would never be thought of before. The reason is they have or never will experienced these feeling or ideas. They dont know any better.
No i don't believe that an idea can exist if you don't have any words to express it with. Why do I believe this? Well in the book The Giver, Jonas recieves memories and in these memories is feelings such as love and joy. Jonas never knew what these feelings were before he became the reciever. If you dont have a word to express your feelings then everything will just be the same, which is the way it was in Jonas's community. They can still feel these things but it just becomes an inconvenience not a feeling. The precision of language also acts as another oppression on the community because familys can't feel love, joy, happiness, and warmth. Therefore each and every family feels the same things. These people are not free they are all the same. - Jenn
An idea cannot exist in their community without words to express it. This is because their community is so rule bound that if someone had a idea, but didn’t express it to other people to get feedback if the idea was good or not, they would be keeping the idea to themselves and that would be breaking the rules. The precision of language acts as another form of oppression in their community, because it doesn’t allow them to say exactly what they want.
I think that ideas can work without something exact to describe it. But we learn to make names for things we feel. It helps us relate words to ideas we have so we wont forget them. An example is, when jonas's father releases a newchild, he knows it is no longer living. It becomes motionless in his arms and there is no sign of life in the newchilds limp body. We can also express ideas with actions.- Austin Rhoten Period 3
In my opinion I do believe that an idea can exist without having the words to express it because when the Giver was giving Jonas memories like when it was Christmas with the family around. He said it was a warm feeling but he couldn’t get the word for it. The Giver then said “love,” but it was a new word for Jonas so he basically went along with it and learned what love was. Also it was like when Jonas’s father releases people from the community because he thinks it’s ok to do, but Jonas knows that it’s wrong and that it’s killing a person. Jonas knows this because of previous memories like warfare when the boy was almost dead. He knew that his father releasing the people was wrong but he couldn’t confront him because it would be usurpation (crossing the line).
--Kayla Corpron
I think that ideas can work without something exact to describe it. But we learn to make names for things we feel. It helps us relate words to ideas we have so we wont forget them. An example is, when jonas's father releases a newchild, he knows it is no longer living. It becomes motionless in his arms and there is no sign of life in the newchilds limp body. We can also express ideas with actions.- Austin Rhoten Period 3
i think there can be a idea of a feeling becuese there would be a feeling that its there even if theres not a word for it. like people feel feeings ever day that we cant exsplan cuse when wer'e growing up know one teachs us feeling we just figger it out as we get old .like laughing do people controll when they laugh if theres sumthing funny there just going to. an ababy will cry when its upset ever if it dousent know the wordso it know the feeling. pain we know what the feeling is cuse if we get hurt wer not going to laugh wer going to be hurt. so i think we can feel feelings with out a name.
When you are experiencing an emotion the first thing you find yourself doing is putting a word, or words to describe it. Somehow in doing this, it seems to inhance the emotion and prove it as nearly 'exsisting'. When Jonas in given the memory of 'love' he experiences a feeling he's never had before. He can't quite put the word to it, but knows there is something there. Without knowing it exsisted before, it was obressed in the community because no one knew it exsisted, and there for could not name it, or maybe not even know how to feel it.
-Danika schiele-
i think that you can not have feelings without a way to express it. the "Precision of language" rule in the community is a way to try to keep everyone from having feelings and knowing what those feelings mean and do. i think that having feelings is a good way to express yourself because people see things differently than each other. jonas felt the word "pain" and he had never felt that before. without pain in life i think it would be boring.
I think this argument can go both ways, because its possible for there to be an idea without being able to feel it. Such as the idea love, even though they dont really know what love it, they have to feel the lighest of it because if they didnt love each toher they wouldnt all be so close and get along so well. and the family units is just like a normal family except there not really related. But they all care about each other dearly and feel a piece of love for each other. But then again When Jonas's father releases people, everyone in the community believes that these people go elsewhere when they are released. but after Jonas experienced death when the Giver gave him the memory of warfare, Jonas knew that when he watched his father release the twin, that he killed him. But to Jonas's father he wasn't doing such a thing because he didnt even know what it was.
An idea can easily exist without words to express it. The quote "a picture is worth a thousand words" is an example why. The community strives so much to be normal, words, like starving, love, and death are words not so familiar as they should be. Ideas can have so many feelings and emotions, if one were not as informed with more powerful words it would seem almost impossible to try and make sense of them. The Precision of Language acts as another opression because it is another 'rule' that neglects the true value of words. If the people of the community cannot use powerful, deep, meaningful words they are limited to the way they can describe their true feelings. It's another way to make everything stay in order.
A memory can exist without the words to express it. If someone told you to imagine a feeling of jumping out of a plane and falling from the sky, you could probably imagine it without knowing the word skydiving. For example, when Jonas was given the memory of love he knew what it was. He felt the warmth and happiness of it even though he did not know or understand the word love. In this society precision of language is a form of oppression because it helps to control the community. This probably helped the society acquire sameness because once the word love lost its meaning; people did not have to use it anymore and it no longer made sense in the new community. If people start to lose a sense of true happiness and true sorrow they will eventually forget about the feelings that go along with words like love and hate. This makes an easy job for the community elders to control the society. For example, in the book the community sometimes took drastic measures just to make sure people used the right words for things. Like Asher saying smack instead of snack.
An idea can easily exist without words to express it. The quote "a picture is worth a thousand words" is an example why. The community strives so much to be normal, words, like starving, love, and death are words not so familiar as they should be. Ideas can have so many feelings and emotions, if one were not as informed with more powerful words it would seem almost impossible to try and make sense of them. The Precision of Language acts as another opression because it is another 'rule' that neglects the true value of words. If the people of the community cannot use powerful, deep, meaningful words they are limited to the way they can describe their true feelings. It's another way to make everything stay in order.
I believe that an idea can’t exist without words. If we are not told how something works or what it is we never have those concepts. In The Giver the people have to concept of death or love because they have never been taught these words. Yes, love and death are there and can be experienced, yet the people don’t truly know what these mean. They have no word for death and it has never been described to them, it simply just does not exist in their minds. Death is still something that is there, but they never know what it is until they die. Same with all words that Jonas has to learn that are new. For example, words like snow, sled, and deeper things like love. It may be there, yet they don’t know it exists so it doesn’t exist in their world. The precision of language makes the people be more naïve to what is going on. They are not allowed to say certain words. When Jonas asks if his parents love him, they correct him and say that that is not the right word to use. Jonas should ask if they enjoy him or are proud of his accomplishments. The people in the community can’t express who they are or what is going on without being ridiculed into using the “right” word.
I feel this topic could be agrued both ways because yes it is hard to try and describe a feeling to someone eveb though you have never felt it before but in the same sense you can try your best to describe love to someone because everyone has felt love for something in there life like maybe your first bike, dog, and your family. Feelings are snot something you can just describe that well if you have never felt them thats why in the novel the Giver jonas has never felt these pain before until the memory was given to him and he never wanted anyone to ever fell that pain again. Before he felt this he never would havebeen able to describe this to anyone.
Ideas can exist without the words to express it. Yes it’s an impression inside of people that comes before words with precision of language people are not free to develop that inner impression. There not allowed to develop words for those impressions. They have to fit them into word forms that already exist and are acceptable.
I do believe an idea can exist without the words to describe it. For example, with Jonas and his family they all love each other but they do not use the word love to describe the feeling that they have for one another, but the feeling still exits. And when Jonas's dad must "release" the young children, the idea of death is there, but in a different sense, then the negative way we see it in our world. Sometimes we become excited with emotion and are unable to describe it using words, but we are still able to show how we feel through our actions.
I think that some ideas dont have proper words to describe them. You really have to think about some of the in-depth ideas that we encounter in our conciousness that we cant decribe with a word. I think that the members of the community in The Giver are chastised for colorful word choice because they will never experience the definition... Such as "starving" in a Utopian society is an impossible sensation, so why would a person that is mearly hungry adjectate on that idea? Another idea is "Love". I'm alomost positive everyone in our modern society has experienced the idea, so we put a word with it.
-Jake Andrews
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