Symbols are used in many different ways. For instance a stuffed animal is very important to a little kid, it provides comfort and companionship. An American flag is very important to a war veteran, to a veteran a flag is almost like a symbol or leadership; the flag represents the country they fought and died for. In The Giver Lois Lowry uses symbols to show meaning and to make connections to characters.

Lowry uses symbols to get her point across without saying it in plain, or bold words. “ The top of the hill seemed so far away, and he did not know what lay beyond” (Lowry 177). The hill represents something very big in this part of the story. The hill in this instance represents a big obstacle or a let down. It would kind of be like you working very hard at your project and getting a bad grade on it. Jonas and Gabriel had been traveling for a long time through rough and nasty weather and thought they were almost there when they came upon the huge hill. They knew it would take a while to get over it and even more so that they would have to stay in the nasty weather. This mad Jonas’s hopeful spirits deflate; he was trying so hard to make it to “the beyond” yet obstacles just kept on coming.


Lowry uses symbols to make things more interesting, like for instance, she uses memories to represent feelings and emotion. She uses the symbol, memories because she really wants to make the reader think more or challenge him or her. Another symbol she uses is Gabriel. Gabriel gives Jonas the will or the hope to move on through all the struggles along the way.
“When will he be released?” “First thing tomorrow morning. We have to start our preparations for the naming ceremony, so we thought we’d get this taken care of right away” (Lowry 165).
Gabriel was going to get released the next morning so if Jonas didn’t take him on the trip he would have been killed.

Symbols affect characters greatly. Without symbols the book would be plain and boring and there would be nothing to think about. An example of this is Gabriel gives Jonas hope because if he can survive than so can Jonas. Also memories give Jonas strength. He is a receiver so if he has memories than he can partially give the feelings off to someone else. Like when Gabriel was cold and Jonas thought off warmth and touched Gabriel and he became warm. “ Did he still have the strength to give? Could Gabriel receive? He pressed his hands onto Gabriel’s back and tried to remember sunshine” (Lowry 175). Jonas can give off memories, meaning if he thinks off memories he can think of something and give the feelings off to them.

Symbols are used for many different reasons. They can be used to represent many different feelings and important ideas to characters. Even today in society, everyone has at least something in there life that can be represented by a symbol that’s important to them. Symbols are very important because to some people they base their whole entire lives based on those important symbols.