Yes, I understand all that, but please would you tell me what really happened?Īn earlier reference is the acceptance speech for the Newberry Medal, an award that Lois Lowry received for The Giver in 1994, part of which also talks about the meaning of the ending. I like to leave it that way so that each reader can use his or her imagination and decide what is happening. 'Ambiguous' means that it can have different explanations. The FAQ page of Lois Lowry's homepage used to address this the most clearly, before she revised it between 20. In this answer I'd just like to add some some quotes where Lois Lowry directly confirms that she has indeed intended to write an ambiguous ending. Standback's answer already tells you how the ending of The Giver is deliberately ambiguous. So, whether or not the sequels 'determine' the meaning of the ending of the book, is also up to you :)

However, I believe The Giver was originally written as a standalone book (the next one was written seven years later), and certainly stands as one. Gathering Blue (published in 2000) only gives an ambiguous hint that Jonas has survived and arrived into the town where the sequel takes place but in Messenger (2004) and Son (2012) this is made explicit, and Jonas appears as a speaker character. Which you consider more likely is your own interpretation.Įventually Lowry wrote additional books in the series, where Jonas has clearly lived. Either they found a haven, or they died you don't know for certain. It's also possible that there's nothing there, and this is Jonas's final, comforting delusion immediately before collapse.

It's possible that he does see, or hear, something, and is responding to it deliriously. So a lot of Jonas's certainty and excitement here are entirely unreliable. Similarly, his sudden certainty that 'they were waiting for him and they were waiting, too, for the baby' is obviously not a rational one - even if it is true, Jonas has no way of knowing it.

The 'sense that he heard music behind him' - probably impossible - 'but perhaps it was only an echo' is a fairly strong implication that Jonas cannot really tell what he is seeing or hearing. However, in Jonas's weakened state, this vision is not entirely reliable - and elements of the paragraph make him less reliable yet. He and Gabe slide down through the snow to them, in the hopes that they will reach the community on time, be taken in, and nursed back to health. The immediate description is that Jonas has found another pocket of civilization - and that this one is characterized by joy, music, singing.

The giver book 2