Depending on how you want to examine the story, the climax
comes after Jonas has learnt the "truth" about his society and the way that the tightly
controlled nature and rules and regulations are reinforced by the euphemistically named
punishment of "release," which is actually death. Having learnt this, and then having
decided to work hard to try and change his society, there is a sudden break in the plot
at the beginning of Chapter Twenty-One, indicated by the following
paragraph:
But
that evening everything changed. All of it--all the things they had thought through so
meticulously--fell
apart.
Jonas was "forced to
flee," in the words of the novel, because of the imminent "release" of Gabriel. The love
that Jonas has for Gabriel and the way that he has been sharing memories with Gabriel
has created a bond between them that Jonas cannot simply ignore. This is what leads to
his escape and the kidnap of Gabriel from the community and their subsequent flight into
unknown territory and the highly ambiguous ending as they sled downwards into an
uncertain and unknowable future.
No comments:
Post a Comment