I believe that Lowry is attempting to emphasize to her readers the importance of dealing with issues in life and the importance of memories. Events shape our lives, both the good and the bad. In order to experience a balanced existence, one needs to have experienced both hurt and happiness. In The Giver, the idea of a perfect world is that no one should know pain, lonliness, sickness, or any feelings that resemble anything less than an idyllic life. Thinking about my own life, for example, I can't imagine that I could possibly appreciate the happy events in my life--family, friends, loved ones, births--without the opposite--loneliness, loss, and death--to compare these events to. Many people bemoan sad or tragic events in their lives, and I believe that Lowry's point in this book is to allow the reader a glimpse into a perfect or idyllic world to see that many times appearances can be misleading, and not everything is as it seems. In other words, hard times are necessary in order for us to appreciate good times. I believe that this is her reason for for sending Jonas on his quest at the end of the novel, he is in search of a real life, with both the good and the bad.
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