People just try and get by in their day to day lives. Trying to understand that in the real world fighting, poverty, unemployment and hunger are just part of our everyday lives. It makes us wonder if a Utopia has ever or will ever exist. In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry the community in which Jonas lives tries to prove that statement wrong. The only problem is that the slightest difference and the community could panic and turn from a utopia into just another community. The ideal holding this together is people often choose Idealism over Realism because the truth is often cruel and frightening.
In the society people try and block out what is unordinary to try and live a “normal” life. It says in the text “Frightened was the way he felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft flew over the community” (Lowry 1). This is a perfect example because not only did it say frightened in the text after the community saw the aircraft they went back to their normal lives like nothing happened, even though they knew they saw the aircraft but they did not question and went back to whatever they were doing.
Another thing in the community that shows this is when everyone had memories. When the Giver is telling Jonas “Everyone had memories. It was chaos” (Lowry 104). The quote has a very important message in it. It says that even though the people had the chance to know what was going on; to see the world differently but they did not want to have the other memories like war and poverty. These memories frighten them that it might happen to them.
The final example is when; Jonas walks from the Annex to the playground where he meets Asher. This is when Jonas tells Asher “You had no way of knowing this… but this is a cruel game…Jonas sighed. It was useless” (Lowry 134). This quote shows one aspect and it is that the community is oblivious to what war really is. This means that they have never had any kind of conflict.

Conflict in the real world is a part everyday life. This book proves that people in general hide from what they do not understand. The people are afraid of what they don’t understand and get scared. In the end, Jonas getting memories, learning about release, the outside world and most of all leaving the community; all of this equates to this. The society that tried to prove that there will be a Utopia turned into just another community.