23
stands apart from the community when he is chosen to become the new Receiver of Memory.
The society lives without memories of past life. The memories and experiences cause pain and terrible discomfort for the community. Since Jonas has
been transmitted the memories from the giver, Jonas realized that lives needs memories. Since he knew the meaning of a ‘release’ for children and elders, Jonas
plans to escape from the community forever with his brother, Gabriel. In the end of the novel, he saw the first memory on the top of the hill and the ending is not
clear whether Jonas and Gabriel died or found a new place. The ending of the novel is up to the reader’s interpretation.
B. Approach of the Study
The writer uses the psychoanalytic approach in analyzing the character development of Jonas. According to Lois Tyson in Using Critical Theory: How to
Read and Write About Literature, Life is filled with emotional ups and downs, and our hard times as well as our happy times play an important role in our
personal growth. As psychoanalytic theory tells us, we all encounter life-events, as we grow up, that shape our psychological development, and these early
experiences tend to play out in our adult lives Tyson, 2011:81. This statement has certain relation with the character of Jonas in the end of the
story, when he finally decided to escape from the family. Even though he realizes that he does something risky, but he has such psychological motives behind it.
24
Since psychoanalytic also deals with psychological side of a person, it concerns about the psychological problems which are a natural and unavoidable
part of being human. It is important to try to identify and understand them because, according to psychoanalytic, that’s how people can begin to heal those
problems. Thus, psychoanalytic approach is used to examine the relation between mind and behavior that underlies the character development of Jonas, and the
reason why Jonas finally decided to leave the community.
C. Method of the Study
The study is conducted based on written source from books and articles. Besides, the writer also gains information related to the topic of the analysis by
some articles from the internet. Therefore, the method of the study is library research.
The main source of the study is the novel titled The Giver by Lois Lowry. While the secondary sources are books and articles mostly about character and its
development, since the writer wants to analyze the character development of the main character in the story. Some other theses, books or articles about the related
studies and related theories are also used by the writer to conduct a complete analysis.
There are some steps taken in analyzing the novel. The first step is reading the novel to examine the main character, Jonas, and to get the idea of how the
character is described in the novel. By reading the novel, the writer also tries to understand the content of the work.
