The people who live in Jonas' community are very predictable and unchanging. These characters are uncomplicated and complacent. They are static, simple, one-dimensional characters. Because the majority of them do not change throughout the novel, we see only one part of their personalities — their surface appearances and actions. Nothing happens within static characters; things happen to them.
Most of the citizens in the community passively follow the rules of the community. They always do what they are told by the Committee of Elders, following the rules and reprimands that are blasted over the loudspeakers located throughout the community and in every family dwelling. The people are totally controlled by the Committee of Elders as a result of a decision, a long time ago, to choose Sameness over individuality. The lives of the community members have been exactly the same for years. Nothing has ever happened to them except when an earlier Receiver-in-training, Rosemary, asked for release because she no longer could tolerate living in the community. After her death, the people were in total chaos because they didn't know what to do with the memories that Rosemary had experienced. They were not accustomed to thinking for themselves. Experiencing Rosemary's memories was something that happened to the people. Afterward, they resumed their lives as before, so it is evident that nothing permanently changed within them. Because Lowry has written an ambiguous ending, the changes that might have occurred as a result of Jonas' departure from the community are left to the imagination of each reader.
