Messenger (novel)

For other uses, see The Messenger (disambiguation).

Messenger the book
Author(s)	Lois Lowry
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's, Dystopian novel
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	169
ISBN	0-618-40441-4
OCLC Number	53215694
Dewey Decimal	[Fic] 22
LC Classification	PZ7.L9673 Me 2004
Preceded by	Gathering Blue (2000)

Messenger is a 2004 novel by children's author Lois Lowry. It forms the third installment of the loose trilogy begun by her 1993 novel The Giver, which won the 1994 Newbery Medal. This novel is speculated to take place in the year 2073, about eight years after the events of The Giver, and about six years after the events of Gathering Blue. Characters from the two earlier books reappear in Messenger, linking the novels more strongly. Set in an isolated community known simply as Village, this novel focuses upon a boy named Matty, who serves as message-bearer through the ominous Forest that surrounds the community.

Plot summary

Lowry introduced Matty in Gathering Blue; he is an energetic and impatient individual who is undergoing an awkward transition into adulthood as the story begins. Matty lives with Seer, an "unseeing" man who the people of the Village rescued years before having. Matty is desperate for his new name to be "Messenger," which he feels is what he is best as being himself.

Many of the people in Village are like Seer: cast out from their old communities and sometimes seriously injured by a bear, they have made themselves new homes in Village. Most of the Villagers are reasonably altruistic, and they are never lacking those to help a Villager overcome some disability. Matty is from a community wherein people only know what the community tells them, and where those who do not fit the norm are usually put to death.

Outside the safe boundaries of Village is Forest, a foreboding realm which most of the Villagers fear. In spite of the lack of dangerous beasts, Forest itself is animated. It is capable of delivering "Warnings" in the form of injuries caused by such things as sharp twigs, stinging insects, or poisonous plants, all of whom attack with deliberate intent. If the person warned enters the forest again, it will kill them. Matty, whom Forest seems to favor, has gone through Forest many times without incident. Consequently, he has become Village's messenger, carrying word to the other communities scattered throughout the region. At one point, Jonas (called "Leader" in this book) says that he received a barge full of books from the community, and that the community has changed.

Very early in the book, discord appears in Village. People who trade at a gathering called Trade Mart change from compassionate and generous to angry and impatient. The temperament of the Villagers changes, and they decide to close their borders, no longer permitting the displaced and unwanted of other communities to enter. Seer, in the wake of this sudden change, decides to send Matty to travel through the Forest to retrieve his daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away. The journey soon becomes gravely perilous, as the Forest begins to attempt to entangle Kira and Matty. Leader's ability of remote viewing, which the book often refers to as "seeing beyond", allows him to sense the danger. He enters the forest to save them, only to be captured himself. Kira, who has the ability to weave prophecy-like patterns in thread and cloth, uses her gift to contact Leader, who tells her to have Matty use his gift to save them.

This gift is a special ability which Matty possesses but hardly understands, which make him mad, resulting in a fury; a power of healing, which causes wholeness from the inside out. Matty puts his hands to the ground and manages to restore the integrity of Forest and people alike, at the expense of his own life. Leader names Matty the Healer.

Near the end is a quotation of poetry, derived from To An Athlete Dying Young: "Today, the road all runners come/Shoulder-high we bring you home/And set you at your threshold down/Townsman of a stiller town." This is spoken by the Village's schoolteacher, known as Mentor.

On a side note, in the previous book, Gathering Blue, when Matty was a child known as Matt, the nursing of his dog Branch back to health could be a possible foreshadowing of Matty's healing powers.

Symbolism

"Messenger" uses the ominous forest as a symbol for the discord and animosity that spreads throughout the normally peaceful Village. When the frustration and anger builds up in the village, the Forest becomes more and more aggressive, "entangling" those who travel through it with vines until they die. Reflecting the villagers' anger towards new arrivals, the Forest also attacks Matty when he attempts to bring Kira back to the village with him. Leader (Jonas) is also attacked, which seems to show the anger that the villagers feel for him, as he believes that the village should stay open and tries to stop it from being closed. As the forest becomes completely filled with murky swamps, poisonous plants, and malicious vines, Matty feels as if everything were too mixed up to be fixed, which is almost identical to the feelings of helplessness he felt as he watched his old friends from Village become sick and hostile. When Matty puts his hands to the ground uses his power to "heal" the Forest, the village recovers as well, with the divisive wall remaining unbuilt and the citizens returning to their peaceful personalities.

Another major symbol of "live" is the concept of the Market and trading. While Trade Mart provided the villagers with goods and luxury items superior to what was normally available, the items came at high costs. Some trades made were:

• Mentor traded his "deepest self" for the physical beauty that he believed would earn him the love of the Stocktender's widow.
• The character Ramon's mother bought a Gaming Machine. It was never stated precisely what she traded; however since both Ramon and his sister became dangerously ill around that time, it could be assumed that she traded her children's health for it. She also tried to trade for a fur coat, but her offer was refused.
• The lady who sewed Matty's clothes got a fancy sewing machine and cloth. It was never stated precisely what she traded, although it is implied to be her generosity.

All the people who traded thus became hostile towards the newcomers, even though they all were remembered by Matty to be kind people. They also became more ill-tempered in general, as proven by Mentor's act of kicking his daughter's puppy and Ramon's mother's lack of concern over her children's illnesses. During Trade Mart, the people were all unnaturally silent and were extremely rude and greedy to be chosen to participate in the trading.

This suggests that the purpose of the trading was to illustrate how selfishness and want of beauty or luxury items can turn people into worse human beings than if they are content with what they have. It also shows how people undervalue themselves, as the example of Mentor, who loses his patience and teaching ability along with his love of literature to look beautiful, when other women can be seen as simply liking him for who he is.

Main Characters

• Matty: A rogue from Gathering Blue, Matty came to the village when he was younger and learned how to tell the truth instead of lie and has become an upstanding citizen in the Village. He is one of the few who has not been warned by the Forest and therefore carries messages back and forth from the other villages. He has a special power that he uncovers through the novel, the power to heal.
• Seer: A blind man, Seer is wise and has a special ability to see things without seeing them. He is like a father to Matty, who lives with him and helps to take care of him.
• Kira: Seer's daughter and the main character of Gathering Blue. She lives in a nearby village, and when the villagers vote to close the village to newcomers, Matty crosses the forest to get her so she can come live with her father. She was born with a crooked leg.
• Leader: Jonas from The Giver. Gabe, the boy Jonas takes with him on his escape in that book, briefly appears in this book as well.

In Messenger the Leader is in charge of the village and has the gift of future sight. He is wise and helps Matty with advice.

• Mentor: A once kind and patient man, Mentor is the teacher of the Village and has a hunched back and a bright red birthmark covering his face. Because he traded away his true self for the love of somebody, he slowly begins to stand straighter and loses his birthmark, as he becomes impatient, selfish and cruel.
• Jean: Mentor's pretty daughter who likes to flirt with the boys, including Matty. She offers Matty one of her dog's puppies and tells him of her worries about how her father is changing.

See also

• The Giver
• Gathering Blue

External links

• Lois Lowry's web site has an informative speeches section as well as a summary of Messenger itself.