DECONSTRUCTING HUMAN BEINGS’ NATURE IN LOIS LOWRY’S THE GIVER

This study aims to deconstruct the nature of human beings in the novel The Giver written by Lois Lowry. This study is a qualitative research which applies Jacques Derrida’s theory of Deconstruction in its analysis. As suggested by Derrida, Deconstruction attempts to observe the contradiction of meanings that are produced within a text. In The Giver, human beings are depicted in two contradictory images. Sometimes, they possess human beings’ nature which, according to Plato, consists of reason, irrational noble, and irrational ignoble. In some other time, they do not have those three features of human beings’ nature. In conducting this study, the writer observes the notions of absence, the binary opposition, the inconsistency, and the ambiguity that appear in the text. The writer found that when human beings lose their nature of human beings, they tend to behave more like robots because they do not have rationality, emotion, and desire anymore. This condition is considered to be the ruin of human beings’ soul and therefore should be avoided. This view on human beings can be seen as a warning for the readers to be aware of themselves as human beings and to make sure that they do not lose their nature of human beings