When the community went over to uniformity, its painless, warless, and emotionless state of serenity and harmony, it deserted all memories of unpleasantness such as grief, conflict, pain and sentiment. These memories, however, are not allowed to disappear totally for the sake of preventing the community from making past mistakes, so the Receiver must bear the pain. Jonas obtains both the positive and negative memories of the past, from the existing Receiver, a very wise older man who asks Jonas to call him the Giver.
Memories are conveyed from The Giver to Jonas through the laying of hands. As the Giver places his hands on Jonas's bare back, piece-by-piece society's recollections are received. Through the reception of memories from the Giver-memories of pleasure, pain, of bright colors and severe cold and warm sun, of anticipation and terror, hunger and love-he realizes how insipidly empty life in uniformity really is. The memories alone enlighten Jonas's life making it richer and more meaningful, and he wishes that he could give that identical feeling to his community members and the people he loves. Unfortunately, through conforming to uniformity to obtain what they believe to be a peaceful existence, the people of Jonas's community have lost the capability to love him back or to understand Jonas's ability to feel such deep passion. .
Since they have never actually experienced suffering, the people of the community also lack the ability to appreciate any real joy in life, and the lives of individual people, like Jonas, lack any importance except the assignments for which those people are responsible. In addition, no one in Jonas's community has ever had the ability to make choices using his or her free will. As Jonas begins to realize this and become aware of the setbacks these deficiencies may cause he grows more and more perturbed with the members of the community, and is encouraged solely by the Giver, who has shared Jonas's sentiments for many years.
