Summary
Just as the family practices a telling of feelings at
night, they tell their dreams in the morning. Jonas usually does
not have a dream to tell, but this morning he has a vivid one: he
dreamed that he was in the steamy bathing room at the House of the
Old, trying to convince his friend Fiona to take off her clothes
and allow him to give her a bath. He remembers feeling a strong
“wanting.” After sending his sister off to school, Jonas’s mother
tells him that the feelings he is having are his first Stirrings,
something that happens to everyone when they get to be Jonas’s age.
She gives him a small pill as “treatment” and reminds him to take
his pill every morning. Jonas recalls that his parents take the
same pill every morning, as do some of his friends. He also recalls
hearing announcements made over the loudspeakers reminding children
to report their Stirrings for treatment as soon as possible. Jonas
is pleased to have grown up enough to have to take the pills, but
he tries to remember the dream—he liked the feelings it gave him.
However, the pill works quickly, and the pleasures of the dream
are gone.
On the first morning of the Ceremony, Jonas and his mother
and Lily discuss some of the milestones that children achieve each
year—at age seven they get a jacket that they can button themselves,
at Eight they begin to volunteer, at nine they get bikes and girls
no longer need to wear hair ribbons. At the first Ceremony, the
Naming, Jonas’s father sits with the other Nurturers, holding the
newchildren to be named that year. Gabriel, although he does not
weigh enough or sleep through the night well enough to be assigned
to a family, has not been released yet—Jonas’s father has gotten
a year’s reprieve for him because their family is taking care of
the faltering newchild. In order to do this, each member of the
family signed a statement promising not to get attached to Gabriel.
One of the babies named at the Ceremony is a “replacement child”
named Caleb. He has been given to a family whose four-year-old son
Caleb was “lost” in the river. When he died, the community performed
the Ceremony of Loss, chanting his name more and more softly until
it seemed to fade away. Now, welcoming the new baby, they chant
it louder and louder in the Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony, which
is performed only if a child is lost, not if it is released. The
other ceremonies proceed—on the second and final day of the Ceremony,
the Nines get their bicycles (everyone cringes when a clumsy child
knocks his into the podium, since his clumsiness reflects on his
parents’ guidance), the Tens’ hair is cut. At lunch the Elevens
discuss their upcoming Assignments, speculating on what they will
do if they get an unsatisfactory Assignment. If a citizen feels
that he or she does not fit in with the community, that citizen can
apply for Elsewhere and disappear, but Jonas cannot imagine a person
feeling that he or she did not fit in, because the community is
so well ordered. The Committee of Elders weighs each decision carefully,
painstakingly matching adults who applied for spouses to the appropriate
spouse and placing newchildren with the appropriate families. Jonas
trusts the Committee to give him an appropriate Assignment.
Analysis
Jonas’s mother’s reaction to his Stirrings and the Murmur-of-Replacement
ceremony for the baby Caleb are strong examples of the society’s
rejection of strong feelings. Jonas’s parents recognize the wanting
in his dream about Fiona as the first stirrings of the sexual urges
that accompany adolescence, and his mother gives him a pill that
puts a prompt stop to them. Notice that there is no real shame attached
to sexuality in Jonas’s society. His dream troubles him because
it is unusual, but he is so used to being entirely honest with his
family that he tells them all the details of the dream right away,
without thinking twice. However, this kind of honesty is only possible
because of the limited information each member of the community
possesses about life: Jonas has no reason to be ashamed of his sexual
feelings because he knows nothing about sex. No one in his society
has sexual urges, since they take the pill, so there is no possibility
of perverse sexual desires or sexual misconduct. Topics like sexuality,
represented by Stirrings, and death, represented by release, are
not mystified in Jonas’s society as they are in our own. Instead,
they are dealt with so simply and directly that it does not occur
to the citizens to think about them. This probably helps the community
to run more smoothly, since the passions that sex and death inspire—lust,
jealousy, frustration, and grief—would distract the citizens from
their daily work for the community and lead to more selfish relationships
or even conflict.
The Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony is similar to the treatment
for the Stirrings. The emotion of grief is subdued in an artificial ceremony
in the same way that human sexual urges are subdued by an artificial
medication. Instead of allowing Caleb’s parents to experience real
sadness and pain at the loss of their son, the community encourages
them to accept another child named Caleb as a replacement, as if
the two children were entirely interchangeable. Note that there
is no mention of the word “death”—Caleb has only been “lost.” It
is possible that the word death is unknown in the community. On
close examination, we realize that the Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony
serves the community in the same way that the repression of sexuality
does: it de-emphasizes relationships between individuals in the
interest of strengthening the individual’s ties to the community.
If the community thinks of individuals only in terms of their contribution
to the community, ignoring the loss of a particular child, citizens
will be less likely to form intensely close ties to other individuals.
Ties like these could cause citizens to act in their own interests
or the interests of their loved ones if those interests ever came
into conflict with the interests of the community as a whole. Sexuality
can sometimes function this way, too, forging strong, irrational
ties between sexual partners.
The Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony is also noteworthy because
of its ritualistic, cultlike qualities. Jonas’s community, while it
relies highly on logic, precise language, and technology, also relies heavily
on ceremony and figurative gestures. The Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony
is based on the metaphor of the community receiving the name of
Caleb back into its collective memory, almost as if the citizens
were engraving the child’s name onto their group consciousness.
The experience of many people chanting together with one voice has
a powerful psychological effect: it becomes much easier for those
people to think of themselves as indistinct from the community.
Throughout history, group chanting or singing has been an effective
tool to maintain individual loyalty to a group and to prevent dissention.
Examples are saying a pledge of allegiance and speaking in a group
prayer, and the technique is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes.
In analyzing the Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony, we realize that
the members of the community are tied to each other not only by
their common goals and interests, but by powerful, pseudo-religious
ceremonies and traditions.
