Messenger

Messenger (2004) by Lois Lowry is the third book in The Giver Quartet, which includes The Giver (1993), Gathering Blue (2000), and Son (2012). Lowry is the author of over 30 books for children and young adults and has won the John Newberry Medal, the Regina Medal, and the Golden Kite Award for Fiction. Messenger is a young adult science fiction and fantasy novel that addresses themes like the value of honesty in community, selfishness versus the collective good, and identity, difference, and diversity. This guide refers to the Harper Collins 2004 edition.

While the setting of Messenger is not stated in this book, earlier books in the series show civilizations that exist sometime in the future after present-day civilizations were destroyed. The book tells the story of Matty, a teenage boy who lives in a utopian village where are all welcomed. It recounts events change his village and how he works to reverse those changes.

Plot Summary

The book begins with Matty cooking over a fire in a simple house with his adopted father, a blind man called Seer. Seer is the father of Kira, the protagonist of the previous book, Gathering Blue. Matty and Seer live in Village, where people have come to escape from cruel and unjust governments in their homelands. Many of the villagers have some sort of physical difference that made life in their homelands difficult or impossible. In Village, those with differences are welcomed and valued, which sets the town apart from other societies in this fictional world.

Matty came from a town on the other side of the dense and dangerous Forest, relocating to Village when he was six years old. He has lived with Seer ever since. Matty often serves as a messenger for Leader, a young man with exceptional ability and piercing blue eyes. This means that Matty frequently travels in Forest. While Forest has been known to strangle and kill many who enter, Forest has never hurt or threatened Matty but instead appears to aid him in his tasks. Matty hopes that Leader will assign him the true name “Messenger,” just like Leader assigned the blind man’s true name, “Seer.”

The story’s inciting incident occurs when Matty accidentally heals a frog. Surprised and frightened, he hides the event from the Seer. He feels guilty about doing so because Village prizes honesty. He keeps his abilities a secret even when he heals a mother dog and puppy. His unexpected healing power leaves him upset, confused, and physically exhausted.

While Matty tries to understand his power, changes happen around him. Trade Mart, a sinister market for immaterial things, is becoming popular. Villagers go to Trade Mart with nothing in their hands and trade away parts of themselves to get new furniture or a gaming machine or even to change their physical characteristics to earn someone’s affection.

Mentor, Matty’s old and beloved schoolteacher, is one of the villagers who frequents Trade Mart. Mentor is known for the bright red birthmark covering his face, but he is loved by his students for his kindness, patience, and passion for teaching. As Mentor attends Trade Mart, however, his birthmark begins to fade, he grows hair over any bald spots, and he loses the hunch in his shoulders. He also appears to lose much of his kindness and patience and begins leading a group of villagers who wish to close Village to outsiders.

Jean, Mentor’s daughter whom Matty has a crush on, confirms Matty’s suspicions that Trade Mart changed Mentor. She tells Matty that her father traded away the deepest parts of himself to earn the love of a woman he is courting. Others in Village have made similar trades, and Matty notices that they have become more irritable, unkind, and unhappy.

Eventually, the villagers vote to close Village to newcomers. Leader tasks Matty with posting notices of Village’s closure throughout Forest, and Matty promises Seer that he will bring Kira back from her homeland before Village closes. Before Matty leaves on this journey, Leader tells him about a gift he has called “seeing beyond” and that he knows about Matty’s gift of healing. He warns Matty not to waste his gift because a time is coming when it will be needed.

As if influenced by the events in Village, Forest has thickened and the journey is more dangerous than any Matty has gone on. He spends a few days posting the notices along various paths and then reaches his home village where Kira also lives. Kira, who is lame in one leg and uses a cane to move around, has a gift; she can weave scenes in cloth that briefly depict the future. Therefore, she is not surprised by Matty’s visit or the news he bears, and she agrees to return to Village with Matty.

Forest attacks Matty and Kira. It pokes them with sticks, drips acidic sap on their path, and places a swamp where the path once was. By the third day, neither Kira nor Matty can continue. Using his gift, Leader sees that Matty and Kira are in trouble, and he leaves Village to rescue them. Forest attacks and immobilizes him. As a last-ditch effort, Leader and Kira use their gifts at the same time and can communicate. Leader tells Kira that now is the time for Matty to use his gift.

Matty digs his fingers into the ground and uses his gift of healing. This act of selflessness spreads through Forest, and the hostile plants become docile once again. The healing spreads through Village and reverses the trades people have made. Matty sees Mentor return to his daughter with his birthmark, balding head, and stooped soldiers, but he is smiling and quoting poetry like he used to. A boy who had been lying sick due to his mother’s trades is suddenly healthy again. The townspeople who had been gathering materials to build a wall around Village abandon their work.

The Forest releases Leader, and he finds Kira and Matty. He puts his hand on Matty’s forehead and assigns him the true name “Healer.” He guides Kira and carries Matty’s lifeless body back to Village, where the townspeople sing a song of mourning.