"The Giver" by Lois Lowry, is about a futuristic Utopian society in which pain is nonexistent. Because pain caused many disastrous events, it was decided that pain, and everything that caused it, would be eliminated. And so anything remotely close to causing pain was wiped from existence: colors were disposed of, and people were all the same in this society. That way, wit no differences, everyone was equal, and there would be nothing to fight about, hence, a perfect society.
One single person in this society is selected to bear the memories of everything, be it pain, joy, anything; and everything that caused it. This was because memories cannot just be thrown away, and so every generation, someone had to bear it. The bearer’s name in this generation was Jonas. But as soon as he begins to receive these memories of pain and joy, he begins to realize that it wasn't a "full" life he was living. Many things had been deleted from people's lives, including color, race, and any sense of personality. This, to Jonas, was unfair. All the people he knew could never experience the joy of colors, of the thrill of riding a sled down a snowy hill! And no one would ever be able to feel this emotion called "love" because separation of partners was required by the utopian laws!
This entire dilemma reached a peak when the Giver (the current bearer of the memories) explained to Jonas why he was there. He explained that colors could delight or anger a person; rather than take that chance of angering someone, society decided to eliminate colors in case the anger led to something else. He explained that Sleds and Snowy Hills were expelled because what if something dangerous were to happen to the passenger, like a broken bone? That would lead to pain, and to anger, and to disaster. That is why this society had deleted anything remotely close to pain, even though many of those things were joyful and fun.
So this gives Jonas a choice. If he were to die, all the memories, joyful or pain filled, would come back to the community. He believes that even though there were many memories of pain, the memories of joy would override those hateful feelings. He could either try to return the memories to the society, or leave it to himself, and letting all the people he knows live an uncompleted life, without emotions, without color, without pain.
In this book, Lois Lowry really breaks down how there cannot ever be a world without pain, and that pain and joy are always going to be interlocked, one way or another. I really encourage you to read this book, and find out for yourself the final conclusions of this story.