In Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the protagonist who receives memories is named Jonas.
Jonas is a 12-year-old boy living in a carefully controlled community organized around “Sameness.” At the Ceremony of Twelve, the Elders select him for the rare and demanding role of Receiver of Memory. The current Receiver, whom Jonas comes to call the Giver, transfers memories of the world that existed before the community eliminated pain, war, strong emotion, color, and much personal choice.
Jonas first experiences pleasant memories, including snow, hills, and sledding, but he later receives memories of hunger, violence, and suffering. This knowledge gives him a perspective that the rest of the community lacks and forces him to question whether safety and order justify surrendering freedom and emotional depth.
Asher is Jonas’s friend, while Gabriel is the vulnerable infant Jonas tries to protect. Kira is the protagonist of Lowry’s later companion novel Gathering Blue, not The Giver. The book was published in 1993 and won the 1994 Newbery Medal; it begins as an apparently utopian story before revealing the costs of its controlled society.