The Giver: Chapter 15

The color-coded bars in this section make it easy to track the themes throughout the work. Each color corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart. For instance, indicates that all five themes apply to that part of the summary.

Summary Analysis Themes

The next day The Giver is in terrible pain, and he asks Jonas to take the memory he is having. He gives Jonas a memory of a war, a battlefield and men injured and dying. In the memory, Jonas is a young man who gives another badly injured solider water and then stays with the other soldier as he dies. Jonas is himself injured, and the pain he feels is horrifying. Afterward, The Giver is repentant and asks Jonas to forgive him, although they both know that The Giver didn’t have the strength to carry the memory himself any longer.

The war scene shows Jonas the best and worst of humankind. Just as the young man cares for the injured soldier, Jonas is himself caring for The Giver, courageously taking on The Giver’s troubling memory in order to spare him pain.