My English teacher from 10th grade swore the ending of The Giver was happy, so I reread it last night just to be sure and wow she got it completely wrong

She kept saying the sled at the end meant he found a real home and snow, but I think that fading music and the ambiguous glow just means he froze to death, which is way darker than she ever admitted, anyone else have a teacher who totally misread a famous ending?

2 comments

2 Comments

christophermorgan3d ago

My 11th grade lit teacher tried to convince us that Jay Gatsby throwing all those parties meant he was secretly a generous philanthropist who wanted to help the community. The guy's whole deal was trying to impress a married woman and he ended up floating face down in a pool. Some teachers really just pick the nicest possible explanation and run with it, facts be damned.

claire_campbell2d ago

Whoa, hold on, I think that teacher was actually onto something weird but it's not the obvious reading. Here's an angle nobody talks about. Gatsby's parties were basically a giant, desperate publicity stunt aimed at one specific person, not the community. He was trying to get Daisy's attention by being the most talked-about guy in town, so it wasn't random generosity, it was a targeted social media campaign before social media even existed. The irony is that the very people he was trying to impress with his money and fame are the ones who abandoned him when things got real.