The Truman Show and The Giver: A Comparative Analysis

By looking into the movie 'The Giver' and the tv show 'The Truman Show', it tends to be inferred that both the main characters worked for freedom and tried reaching to the real world. freedom can be destroyed by the use of control. Governments control everything by making the rules and decisions for everybody. no one is allowed to make choices and everyone must conform to the rules. The Truman show informs a documentary-style film that shows the life of the main character named Truman Burbank. although his life is fake, and he has no clue that his life is being shot, He turns into the star of the TV program. Although the Truman show is an entertainment tv program if you look deeper interesting questions will arise, the first concept I noticed is the meaning of freedom. Are you still free if you were controlled by others? when referring to freedom I would begin with the person's right to many choices, they need to take liability or responsibility for their actions in making decisions and choices. This was an effective means for controlling Truman and restricting him to Seahaven and constraining his decisions.

However, the giver also addresses larger concepts about limiting freedom and controlling. A giver is a place where everything is perfect.No one in this society understands anything about true pain, fear, depression, and no one makes choices. when sameness was created all community choices were made in the distant past. when Jonas discovers memory, he notices it is essential for human comfort to choose from.no one suffers the consequences of making wrong choices, but sacrificing the freedom of choice, pleasant life is required for community members.one of the main differences and similarities in both the show and the movie is the life of the main characters Jonas from the giver and Truman Burbank and their surroundings. The first way that shows some similarities about characters is, that community focused around Jonas and Truman, who were both controlled, in Jonas community the elders believe that the safer way for people to live is by controlling the citizens, which I think is a bad thing to do because controlling everything such as, removing their emotions, color, and memories. Not to mention, but the only person who had felt since he was born was Jonas but he didn't realize, this what makes him a special and important character in his society. Proof of this is when Jonas understood that Gabriel, his fake baby brother was soon to be released and it was somehow wrong so Jonas tried to help Gabe in many ways so he can't be killed.although, also Truman was lacked with many major human rights.

Such as, Truman was stuck in a set that looks like a huge prison since he was born, Truman didn't have any freedom in his life until he revolt. Additionally, Truman and Jonas realized that their community isn't perfect as it seems to be so they were both very curious to know what was happening around them. Jonas asked the giver what would happen if he got lost in the river as the child did a long time ago, then the giver responded “if you were to be lost, in the river Jonas, your memories would not be lost with you.memories are forever” this shows that the giver reminds Jonas that if he died his memories will not be lost and will be given to the community. As well as, Truman realized that everything is not perfect when he noticed the same people moving around his neighborhood. Together with, when he tried to escape from the island and go to Fiji but the producers and actors stopped him in many ways.on the other hand, Christoff the creator of Truman's show manipulated everything around the Truman world, he paid people to act.

For example, what to say or where to go. While in the giver, everything is real, there were no paid actors, people were just natural living a normal life, but the only thing that they were banned from is telling lies. They can speak about their feelings. but, they didn't have any emotions as it was removed. As a matter of fact, the giver and the Truman show setting have a lot in common. The giver is the story that takes place in the future, with a bland, simple, and plain community.in fact, this community doesn’t seem all that different from our world, they have houses, schools, and child care centers. what makes this community suspicious is that it has no war, no pain, and no diseases like hunger. In Truman's show, Truman lives in America, but because his life is a lie, therefore, a huge set is made for him to live which he knows as a Seahaven island.by its master-planned community Truman believes he is living his perfect life where colorful houses are arranged neatly. The first similarities in both the giver and the Truman show are climate change.

In Truman's show, Christof controlled the climate unexpectedly, he monitored when the sun rises and when it sets, when it rains and when it shines. the giver is known as sameness, where they had to give up certain things and exchange it, so when sameness started all essentials were eliminated such as snow and sunshine.on the contrary, in the film the Truman show, Seahaven island tend to be more beautiful than the real world because of the bright color which makes the place attractive, so Truman is trapped in a huge colorful set which seems much more beautiful in reality. while the giver, color was taken away from the society, only the giver and the receiver have the ability to see colors, the reason color has vanished in this society is by the concept of sameness, which allows everyone to be equal. Last but not least, the conflict between the two movies is most important to discuss.

The first conflict was when Truman and Jonas tried to escape from their community until they succeed, while they are leaving they are in situations between life and death. Jonas had difficulties with heavy snow and Truman with the dramatic waves. Jonas escaped by sneaking into the child center and take Gabriel with him and went to the elsewhere. Truman escaped because he wants to go to Fiji and find his true love, although he was afraid of water he tried to conquer his fear and continued sailing till he reached to the end of the set. The other major conflict in both communities is that Jonas and Truman went missing. When Jonas and Gabriel escaped, the community did a ceremony for their loss where all the people in the society attempted this ceremony, and have sent some planes in the elsewhere to go and look for them. Apart from this, people were surprised when Truman went missing although his life is all watched. All of the actors started searching for Truman, they walked together started looking all around the set, the tv show had trouble and got canceled when Truman got lost.

At the same time, the conflict in the Truman show was between Truman and his wife, while the conflict in the giver was between Jonas and his best friend Asher. Asher knew that Jonas will escape and go to the elsewhere but Jonas ended up hitting asher so he would be free, while in the Truman show the conflict was between Truman and his fake wife Meryl, Truman notices that the marriage was fake when looking at their marriage photo, and also how Meryl acted weird in front of Truman. The issue was resolved by Meryl wanting a divorce when traumas seem to go crazy. In conclusion, I believe that it is better for society to give people freedom of choice. limited choices and limited freedom were all proved in the giver and the Truman show. I learned the effects of controlling someone's life as much as they did in the two films can greatly affect how a person is. It's important to let someone live their life freely and make their own decisions and not be controlled by anyone.