As the Receiver-in-Training, Jonas learns a little bit more about the history of humanity by each memory given to him. In chapter 16, he learns about grandparents and families who love each other enough to want to spend their whole lives together. This is a new concept because once Jonas and his sister Lily grow up and get their own family units, they will never see their father and mother again. But when Jonas receives...
As the Receiver-in-Training, Jonas learns a little bit more about the history of humanity by each memory given to him. In chapter 16, he learns about grandparents and families who love each other enough to want to spend their whole lives together. This is a new concept because once Jonas and his sister Lily grow up and get their own family units, they will never see their father and mother again. But when Jonas receives a memory about Christmas time and the whole family is giving and opening presents, he experiences a closeness that they don't have in his society. The Giver has to tell him that it is called love. After thinking about the memory for a little bit, Jonas says that love doesn't seem "very practical" because the older people (grandparents) might not have been taken care of as well as they are in Jonas's community (125).
As Jonas searches his feelings about this new concept of love, he admits that he liked the feeling and thinks it would be nice to have grandparents in his life. On the other hand, he feels that his community has things more organized. He noticed that life seemed "dangerous" back then, too. The Giver asks Jonas to elaborate, so he says the following:
"Jonas hesitated. He wasn't certain, really what he had meant. He could feel that there was risk involved, though he wasn't sure how. 'Well,' he said finally, grasping for an explanation, 'they had fire right there in that room. There was fire burning in the fireplace. An there were candles on a table. I can certainly see why those things were outlawed'" (126).
The above passage shows that the risk Jonas was speaking about wasn't necessarily about love, per se, but the fact that the family behaved dangerously because they had fire and candles in the room. He also feels that the grandparents might not have been taken care of as well as his community takes care of the elderly; so, he may have felt there is a risk being taken with their lives by staying with family or taking care of themselves. At this point, though, Jonas still doesn't have enough experience or understanding upon which to base such conclusions.
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