Truman vs. Jonas

Books and movies have many differences and similarities between them. People around the world compare books with movies, all the time; they compare their plots, characters and settings. In some situations there are books and movies that are the same. In our class we read a book called ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry. When we finished reading and analyzing that book, we watched a movie that had many similarities and differences with our book. ‘The Truman Show’, directed by Peter Weir, was the movie that we watched. In our situation we were able to compare easily the book with the movie, because they had a similar idea: being controlled. Nobody likes being controlled by anybody, especially when you learn that you whole life has been a lie. In my essay I will compare Jonas’s and Truman’s emotions, the plot, and the clues that they get.

Jonas’s and Truman’s emotions change when they realize what’s truly happening. Jonas and Truman are both very strong characters, they never hold their emotions back. When Jonas learns the truth about his community and about his father’s job, that it was to kill innocent babies, Jonas doesn’t express the anger for his father to him or to anyone else; he expresses his real emotions to his only friend, the Giver. On the other hand, Truman expresses his emotions to the whole world, even though he doesn’t know it. Both Jonas and Truman have the need to share the truth with other people. Jonas asks his parents if they love him, or when he puts his hand on his friends’ backs and asking them if they can see anything different. Truman tries to share some of the clues he got with his friend, he wants someone to understand him. Jonas is not allowed to have stirrings, the need to like, and attract the opposite sex. So he has to take a pill that stops the stirrings, but when Jonas becomes the Receiver he doesn’t take the pill anymore. However Truman is allowed to experience stirrings and to have sexual intercourse with his “wife”. They both want to go away from their community, to explore the rest of the world. Truman is looking for traveling, while Jonas is asking questions about release, about Elsewhere and many other things. Jonas wants to go, after he receives the memories, and he realizes how awful their community is, and when he watches the tape where he sees his father killing a young baby and pretend that everything is all right. On the other hand, Truman wanted to go since the beginning of his life.

Although, Jonas’s and Truman’s plots are similar, at the same time they differ in many ways. In both situations, someone knows what Jonas and Truman are doing. In Jonas’s situation his parents know what he is doing or thinking, by telling his dreams in the morning and the feelings that he experienced that day during the evening meal. However Truman’s situation is even worse. People watch him around the world 24/7. There are 5000 cameras in Truman’s community and everyone knows what he is doing and where he is. In both communities, the family units are arranged, and couples don’t fell in love and get married. In Jonas’s community the couples are chosen by the Elders and in Truman’s community they are only pretending, since they are all actors. Truman was adopted by a company, from the orphanage that he was. While, Jonas was adopted by parents. The Giver, the Elders, and Jonas are the only people in Jonas’s community that know that their world is “fake”, and they know the real truth. Yet, in Truman’s community he is the only one that doesn’t know what is going on. Jonas and Truman don’t know where they are going when they leave their community. Jonas and Gabriel search for the Elsewhere with Jonas’s bicycle. And Truman took a boat and left without knowing where he is going or what he will find.

Similarly, Jonas and Truman get clues often, but it’s hard for them to understand and accept the truth. Truman accepts the world he lives in, because he sees everyone else living the same way. In the same way, in Jonas’s community everyone accepts their world and doesn’t ask many questions. Jonas and Truman don’t have a real relationship with their father, or mother. Truman and his wife don’t have a real relationship between them, since it’s her job to be his wife and she is only pretending. They prevent Jonas from finding the real world by having all those rules that are about everything. And Truman is blocked, every time he wants to leave, by cars getting in his way, by people stopping him and by the fake newspapers that say their country is the best place to be. Jonas gets many clues at a younger age than Truman. When he knows that nobody actually knows what release means, he gets a little suspicious and he wants to know. Also when he sees the apple changing color, when he throws it up in the air, he wonders what’s going on. As well as Fiona’s hair change color. Jonas knows the real truth when he receives the memories and that’s when he gets a lot of clues. Truman’s first clue, was when he had dated a girl he liked, and she liked him to, so she told him that everything is a lie, his whole life is a lie, and that people watch him all the time. Or when he saw a light bulb falling from the sky. One day as Truman was changing channels on the radio he heard someone saying that Truman had turned left and actually Truman was turning left, so he knew that something very weird was going on. When Truman had went to the beach, rain started falling, but it was falling only on him and nowhere else, that made Truman suspicious. Also he entered a building and went to the elevator, but as the doors of the elevator opened there was no elevator, there was a lady sitting in a room and there were tables with food for the actors. And finally the fact that he couldn’t go to Fiji in any way made him more curious than ever. Truman had discovered not only the truth, but he got the clues at an older age than Jonas.

Everybody reacts in a different way when they learn that their life has been all a lie. These two characters that I compared, Jonas and Truman, reacted in a similar way. I described the tree most important topics of Jonas’s and Truman’s situations, their emotions, the plot of their story and the clues that they get. I enjoyed reading The Giver and watching The Truman Show and I found them both very interesting.