The Giver

The concept of release is introduced early in the novel, during Jonas's anecdote about the Pilot-in-Training who mistakenly flies over the community. The concept is continually and mysteriously mentioned without sufficient explanation until nearly the end of the novel. The mysteriousness of death and Elsewhere echoes the uncertainty about death that humans face during their lifetime. Multiple kinds of release are explored in the novel. The Old are released at the end of a long, fulfilled life, and citizens such as Roberto are often joyful at their Releasing Ceremony. Meanwhile, those who make significant mistakes or break the rules, such as the Pilot-in-Training, are summarily executed. The punishment appears overly harsh and adds to the community's dystopian aura. Furthermore, in the cases of Gabriel and the twin, some are executed for no reason at all except that it is inconvenient not to do so. Jonas finds the latter category of killings to be the most offensive of all because they truncate entire lives. Jonas finds such outrages particularly heinous because he has developed an increased appreciation for individual human life due to his received memories.