How it all started

Summary 

      The story is about a boy named Jonas, who was just thinking about one thing: The Ceremony of Twelve. This is a special ceremony in which "The Elders" decide which kind of ocupation people will have. When he gets home he and his family start to talk about what were they feeling. Jonas admits he is no feeling good, and decides to explain his feelings with one word: apprehensive. He is insecure because he doesn't want to be chosen to do something he doesn't like. 

        

   Jonas' parents decide that they need to talk in private. They tell him that the elders always will be sure to give that person the thing is going to be best for him/her. Jonas' dad talks about how he have always liked the "newborn" and the elders noticed that and that is why he is a nurturer. At that moment Jonas realized there was no real good reason to be scared or insecure, because elders will help him to be what he needs to be. Jonas remembers one day that he was playing with his best friend, Asher, and they were trowing an apple back and forth in recreation period. He remembers when he threw the apple to  Asher, and he thought he had seen the apple change, just for an instant.. He brought the apple home nd started to make it "change" again, but he couldnt. Jonas and his family started narrating their dreams they had, and when Jonas told what he had dreamed, his mom said that he har his first "stirring" and that he needed to take some pills to stop having that, but Jonas tried to grasp back the strange feeling ¡s he had felt, but the stirrings were gone.

Quotes

         "After Twelve, age isn't important. Most of us even lose track of how old we are as time passes, though information is in the Hall of Open Records... What's important is the preparation for adult life, and the training you'll receive in your Assignment." (17)

        This make me really reflect on how the society on the book is a lot different than the current one. It shows how those people are used to see how people at a very young age start to prepare to be ready for their adult life, and do difficult choices and the right things. It kind of surprises me how a boy like Jonas is "not ready" for something like this even though he is incredibly smart. 

         "For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure." (2)

           This shows how it matters a lot what other people think of you, you can be a great person but if you treat badly others they will not care what other people say, only what they think. A single mistake can change completely how people think of you.

To conclude... 

        Jonas needs to know that be insecure is not going to help in any way, and that he always needs to trust people with more expirience than him, like the elders, which are always going to help him and do the right thing to make him happy.

The new Reciever of memory

Summary

          The ceremony of Twelve came, Jonas and his family were ready to go to the auditorium, after they got there, Jones went through the crowd to be with his group. Before the ceremony started both Jonas and Asher agreed that whatever the Elders decide they will be okay, and it is going to be the best choice for them. The ceremony began, and they started to call the people to go to the stage in order, by using the number originally given when they are born, adn Jonas was waiting until they call number nineteen, which was his number. When thy called Asher, he quickly walked to the stage, and the Chief Elder made a short speech and then she assigned Asher the Assistant director from recreation. Then they called the next numbers,and afterthe next numbers,and after number eighteen, they called number twenty. Jonas was really nervous and confused, he thought that maybe they had made a mistake, but he knew the Chief Elder make no mistakes. They had called everyone but him. The Chief Elder apolagized to everyone, especially to Jonas, because she knew he made everyone nervous. She called Jonas to come into stage, and told everyone he had not been assigned to anything, but he has been selected. He had been selected to be the new "Reciever of memory".  He got a folder in which they had written the new rules he had to follow. Most of them didnt really surprise him, but the final one was not very simple to follow. "You may lie". That was the last rule. The next day he presented hiomself where he needed to go, and he entered his new room. He saw a man sitting in a chair watchiong him, and Jonas recognized it was the old Receiver. He told him that his job is to tranmit all his memories, from the past. The memories of the whole world. The Reciever explained how he shapes the future by 
re-expiriencing the memories. He talks about snow, sleds, and other things, but Jonas doeasn't understand. The Reciever makes him lie in bed and makes him relax. He says he's going to transmit the memory of snow. 

 Quotes 

  "But when he looked out across the crowd, the sea of faces, the thing happened again. The thing that had happened with the apple. They changed. He blinked, and it was gone. His shoulder straightened slightly. Briefly he felt a tiny sliver of sureness for the first time." (64)

      This was exactly what had happened with the apple, when Jonas and Asher were playing in recreation period. The Chief Elder had said that this was an ability that she didn't understand, and that it was the capacity to see beyond. That was basically what made the elders start to think that Jonas could be the new Reciever of memory, and that is why it is important. 

  "Simply stated, although it's not really simple at all, my job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me. Memories of the past." (77)

      The old Reciever told this to Jonas when he was trying to explain what the function of the Reciever was. It was to transmit the memories of the whole world, even before the people started to control the society in that way. And it was for a reason. Everyone doesn't know this, but the Reciever. 

To conclude....

      Jonas has been selected to be part of the most important assignment in the community. His training will be very difficult, there will be physical pain, in a kind that he has not yet expirienced. We know that the old Reciever failed training with the last apprentice to be the Reciever. He can transmit the memories from the past that only knew him and his ancestors.