Jonas is the Receiver-in-training in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. At the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is selected to inherit the memories of humanity from the community’s current Receiver, who becomes known as the Giver.
Jonas lives in a seemingly orderly society that has eliminated pain, war, hunger, and many forms of inequality through strict control. The cost of that stability is the removal of personal choice, emotional depth, color, and access to the community’s complete history. As Jonas receives memories, he begins to question the rules governing his world.
The novel was published in 1993 and won the 1994 Newbery Medal. Asher and Fiona are Jonas’s friends, while Gabriel is a baby cared for by Jonas’s family. Those names can be confused because all are important to the story, but only Jonas receives the community’s transmitted memories.