The Giver's Gift

When I was in seventh grade, my English teacher made us read this book titled The Giver. Now, I am not sure if anybody has read this book before or not so I am going to provide the gist. This novel written by Lois Lowry is about an utopian town that takes preliminary steps to rid one of pain. Any kind of pain. The protagonist in this book, Jonas, is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory in his town. "As Jonas receives the memories from the previous receiver-the 'Giver'- he discovers how shallow the people in his community have become." In fact, the community retains the process of eliminating pain or emotion by using pills. To them, emotions, mainly romantic love and sexuality is a dystopian. They refer to these feelings as "Stirring." I mean they believe that love will cause pain and it should therefore be eliminated. So, when you think about it every human being in this town does not experience the emotion of LOVE. What's a world without love???
Well, in my English class, we decided to hold a debate on whether or not our world should be loveless. Without picking my team or side, my teacher put me in the group where we had to convince him that our world should be loveless. Arguing a point that you don't feel passionate about proved to be quite a challenge for me. However, I was able to come up with pretty good reasonings and win my case. I remember saying that love causes more trouble than contentment. Love is the one who drives two couple to get married and love is the one who betrays them and leaves them stranded. A child all alone, loveless. Love always results in hatred. In any case, when you think about it, this is true. However, I certainly did not feel passionate about any of my arguments. Then again, life is not always fair! Love is strong and love is beautiful. I could not possibly imagine a world so weak without love.