Son | ||
Author | Lois Lowry | |
Genre | Young Adult, Science Fiction | |
Release Date | 2012 | |
Series | The Giver Quartet | |
Pages | 393 | |
Movie Adaptations | None |
Son is the last novel in The Giver Quartet, and it is set over the time period of all of the previous books. It has two protagonists, Claire and Gabriel, her son.
Son[]
Son is the fourth and last book of The Giver quartet. In it, Gabriel, the baby Jonas brought from The Community, is one of the two main characters. His mother, Claire, is the other. The book is split into three parts. They are called Before, Between and Beyond.
Parts[]
Before[]
In the first part, before Claire is an assigned Birthmother in the Community where Jonas grew up. She gives birth to her first child at age 14, but complications during labor necessitate delivery by Cesarean. Three weeks after giving birth, Claire reports to the birthing unit office and is reassigned to work at the Fish Hatchery. Before she leaves, she inquires after the baby she delivered, and the officer informs her that the baby is healthy, accidentally informing that the child is male and Number Thirty-Six in his year. She retains curiosity for her son as she begins work at the Fish Hatchery, and begins casually volunteering at the nurturing center to see him. There, she grows fond of her baby and felt a deep bonding towards him. As a Birthmother, she was instructed not to take the pills, and the matter was overlooked in her reassignment. These pills prevent stirrings, particularly love.
Claire is told that Gabriel is going to be killed due to his failure to thrive. Before she can do anything, Thirty-Six is saved and taken away by Jonas. Claire attempts to follow them on a shipping vessel where she'd talked to a member of the crew before, but the boat soon encounters a strong storm and is shipwrecked.
Between[]
The storm washes her up to a little village on the coast, with a cliff. This is where the second section begins. Although Claire lost her memory temporarily due to amnesia, she regained it slowly and eventually. Along the way, she befriends Alys, the midwife who cared for her, and Einar, another man. Einar trains her to climb the cliff and tells her that she must accept the evil Trademaster's deal, or he will harm her dearly, like Einar.
After successfully scaling the cliff to get out of the village, she meets Trademaster as expected. The Trademaster wants her youth in exchange for her finding her son Gabriel.
Beyond[]
While daily life goes on at Village, Claire, now an old woman, observes Gabriel from a distance. One day, she talks to Jonas about her past history. He is very shocked, and Gabriel does not believe it when they tell him the true story about his parents and his past. However, he eventually realizes that the story is true, and is told by Jonas to face Trademaster because he has a gift called veering--essentially going into a person's thoughts and seeing things from their perspective. He uses this gift to see that Trademaster feeds on the misery of others, after refusing his offers, and uses this against him. Gabriel tells Trademaster of all the people he had harmed who are now happy once again, and Trademaster, who was never human, disintegrates. Claire, who had been dying, is young once again. The book finishes with Gabriel walking down the path home.