REVISED 1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions or moral values.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, highlights contrasting values. The society in which Jonas lives in is designed perfectly, with the residents being protected from most physical and emotional pain. Jonas's abilities that result from him being the new Receiver of Memory contrasts sharply with that of his society's. This not only causes alienation, but it also makes a statement about the value of knowledge and feelings.

Upon being selected for the most important of jobs, Jonas begins to learn about the memories that his society has repressed. He quickly finds that there are occasions of pain, such as a broken leg on a hill, and moments of joy, such as soaking up sunlight on a beach. The fact that the society in which he lives has transferred the job of remembering to one person is an alarming statement. Firstly, the diction itself uses the word 'job.' This is a generic term, one that holds little capacity for human connection and acts as a relegating agent. It also implies the division of duties much as the residents are separated from connection with others. Secondly, the reader is forced to look at the possibilities of how exactly this fictional society got to the point of 'Sameness,' with hardly any variation or unpredictability in its residents and their lives. The implication of gradualism means that the society once was fairly normal and slowly made decisions that stripped away such dangers as overpopulation, familial conflict, food shortage, and conflicts because of color. It's impossible not to examine the values of real-life society in contrast to this generic world.

Jonas's difference from that of his peers quickly alienates him; he sees truths of the world which others are not aware of, which creates a contrast of values. The reader identifies with the protagonist, and in the process realizes the limitations imposed by the society. The society does not know that it is crucial to humanity to experience differences in the individual; to feel the depth of love; feel pain to show that an individual loved and cared at all. Jonas knows all these concepts because of his difference, and it is there that the reader is meant to see the basic difference in values.