초록·
키워드
오류제보하기
The Giver, written in 1993 by Lois Lowry, who is renowned for his young adult novels, was filmed in 2014. From the beginning, this film casts a black and white mood to make everything obscure and equivocal. Anything such as houses, trees, and roads is full of soundless gray tones. Even everyone in this community wears a white uniform so that they cannot be distinguished from each other. Jonas, the protagonist, lives in a special community where there can be found no discrimination, violence, disease, and so on. This can be called a posthuman society, which seeks for human enhancement by genetically superior elements. This special community has another name for a utopian society. Its members are provided an equal and identical family and economic conditions. They are allocated members for a family, not a genuine father, a mother and children. From posthuman perspectives, people can be enhanced in body and mind by being created as posthuman beings. For this a posthuman society seeks a better social condition composed of empowered/enhanced human bodies by selecting superior genes. Through the human enhancement of the body, this kind of society is searching for a utopia. Their ultimate dream is an idealistic society for humans where there is no deprivation, discrimination, illness, war, etc. In particular, by guaranteeing no crimes or unemployment, a utopian society can realize the embodiment of humanism.
In this study, Alfred Adler’s community feeling and Laozi’s Relationship Theory are adopted to investigate this community where Jonas and Fiona live. First of all, Adler’s concept is analyzed for how importantly this community puts emphasis on this so as to hold their political ideology. This community comprises genetically superior beings. If not, they should be eliminated in the name of Mission Discharged. That means genetically unhealthy babies assumed should be killed. Under this situation, only one memory bearer is chosen for human history. Unlike other members, he succeeds to human memories through his senior memory giver. Among various human experiences, sensuous ones evoke the relationship between human and nature, significance of closeness to nature, humans in nature converging human memories. In this vein, Laozi’s and Alder’s perspectives are appropriately employed to analyze this text. Laozi’s Taoism underlines the importance of relationships between members. Up close to nature, he focuses on the nature and the importance of water. According to Laozi, water could absorb and cover everything naturally without revealing water itself. In this vein, Jonas who determines to save Gabriel, a weak baby, plunges himself into a waterfall. This try means others’ memories inscribed are not enough to lead a life as a subjective human; actual experiences are needed in order to overcome the boundary between utopia and dystopia.