Spoiling the Ending of "The Giver"

The Giver is a book we read as a class for Language Arts. The book talks about a boy names Jonas who lives in a what seems to be Utopian world. In what he knows as home, everyone is given rules to follow and things to do, no one objects the orders of the Elders; everything is under control.

At the coming of age he is assigned to one job which will change his life completely. With the help of The Giver, Jonas receives the truth through memories, those of pain and love which only The Giver possesses. The life he used to know- with no love, no war, no pain, no color- is now nothing compared to the hard truth.

Now this Entry I am writing is suppose to be about analyzing the ending and what I think of it. I would say that the ending of this book can have several different meanings, and it is only one's opinion, not a definite. Way back during Chinese New Year when I had picked up and finished this book, I couldn't make sense of the ending. In the last chapter it describes the unbearable cold as Jonas and his "little brother" Gabriel pass through the snow, now fighting the will to give up. Throughout his escape from his community, he looses slowly all the memories he had received which would go back to the people. By the end of the book, the two boys are so weak and vulnerable the snow could take them down any moment. I thought that the ending may seem too coincidental, the thought of his first memory being exact to the last event which ends the book. A sleigh waiting for him on top of the hill which he then slides down on with Gabe in his arms is just like what he experienced in the very first memory he received in the Givers room.

I would say he died from the cold, even though I would like to believe that he survived the weather and was brought in by the singing family at the bottom of the hill. But in this case I lean toward the negative side. I suppose that the coincidence symbolizes something the author was trying to say. My interpretation would be that when your so close near to death your memories flash through your head, and that the first ever memory he had was the one he saw last. The singing... was a memory he wanted to own; "For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing."

Of course, this is what I think, not what I know; and I may have completely misinterpreted what the author was illustrating. Sorry to the people who wanted to read the book, I just spoiled the ending.