It’s better to know the truth even if it’s painful. Because if you know the truth then you can decide what is right and wrong for you, not following orders or sameness in your community like in The Giver. Even if the truth or memories are painful, they help us know better for the future or how to improve our communities. In the book, the counsel of elders go to The Giver for guidance to know what not to do like in the past.

One reason why the truth is better, is because in The Giver when they release their old or if there’s twins and they can’t have the same of something, they have to release one twin, because they can’t have sameness, so they do a releasing ceremony. They say that they’re prepared and sent to elsewhere, when they actually just kill them. However, because they don’t know the truth and have the memories to know what’s really happening, its just procedure, but the Giver and Jonas feel its wrong to just give them a needle and send them down the trash chute. The everyday citizens don’t know the truth or reality behind their actions.

Another reason to have the truth known is that if we all don’t hold our memories, someone else will have to. Not only memories, but the pain and emotions that go with the. One person can’t or shouldn’t hold all the memories, experiences of the past and future, it’s too much and eventually that person won’t be able to hold it all and to share the knowledge.

The final reason the truth matters is that truths might be hard to understand, like when Jonas finds out about the releasing, but once you know the truth, (even if it’s hard) you can move forward to help you, your family and community. Jonas decided to leave his community bringing Gabe, a baby, along to save him from being released. Once they reached the outer boundary, the memory’s would return to the community and they would know the truth, even the painful ones. Yet Jonas still went, and now the citizens of his community can decide right and wrong for themselves or at least know the truth.

Even though its painful, it’s better to know the truth rather than to keep it hidden. Sameness might be easier but part of being human is knowing the good and the bad. It’s better to know the truth.

” overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant. Finally, when he knew that he could bear it no longer and would welcome death himself, he opened his eyes and was once again on the bed.

The Giver looked away, as if he could not bear to see what he had done to Jonas ” forgive me,” he said. ”

The Giver p.g. 120