The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Oh! Wow!

Definitely a must read book!

Set in futuristic America, it portrays the lives of the people who have rebelled against the government and now must pay the price by sacrificing their children once a year in the ultimate game of life-and-death.

This book is one of the new big trends in high school English classrooms. With so many aspects that can be focused on and so many big questions that can be used as themes it lends itself to a universal classroom available to many different grade levels and units.

I really enjoyed this book, and since it's been a little while since I read it (I've read three other books since then), I'd like to share with you my journal entry from when I read it for class:

Warning: Contains Spoilers

I connected to this book in a lot of ways. In particular I found myself connecting it back to other texts that I had read. The two texts I kept coming back to were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and "The Most Dangerous Game." Particularly, I kept thinking about this idea of killing and how it was portrayed in each of the three stories. In The Hunger Games it was very brutal, usually involving a lot of blood and some sort of savage act. Some competitors seemed to have no problem will killing one another. They had been raised and trained to do just that so that if the time came they could bring back a victory for their district. It wasn't about morals or allies for these kids, it was about the way their district would treat them when they returned and the honor that their district would receive. For others, killing came less naturally, but as we saw with Katniss when Rue was killed, there became a time when the killing was justifiable and it didn't matter that it was murder because it was in revenge of something or someone that really mattered.

In The Goblet of Fire the winners aren't supposed to actually die, but it happens regardless. This causes controversy and people begin pointing fingers. Because no one sees what happens Harry becomes the target. Winning is not seen in that case as being held above life, but then, it also isn't a life-or-death game. For Voldemort, however, he is like the tribute that doesn't care who he kills. He kills mercilessly simply for the sake of killing.

"The Most Dangerous Game" seems to tie these two ideas together. First there is the idea of it being a sport. Certainly in The Hunger Games the killing itself becomes a sport as they must hunt each other not only in order to survive against one another, but to survive against the Gamemakers by being the sole survivor. Both of these stories present the idea of what it means to hunt and how hunting humans is similar and different from hunting animals. Not only that, but they both create a situation in which killing becomes the only option for survival. While they post a situation in which killing is the ultimate outcome, do they not also lend themselves for other ways to try and outsmart they're opponent. Katniss doesn't jump right into the idea of killing the other tributes, but she does use her wit and skills to try to outsmart them as a way of wearing them into defeat. In the case of the food pyramid, for instance, she destroys it, not only hoping that it will lead them to the conclusion that another tribute did it, but also diminishing their food supply to take away the ease that they have created for themselves. In "The Most Dangerous Games" this also happens. Traps are set as a way of slowing down his enemy as he attempts to keep himself alive. These are meant to outsmart but not to necessarily kill (in most of the instances).

The two big questions related to killing that I was left with after this book were "how far can you/should you go to prove a point" and "are we more likely to follow society or our own morals?" These questions can both relate not only to killing, but to life in general. In the book the Capitol believes they have a point to prove to the districts. There as been an uprising before and while the destroyed District 13 as a way of stopping them from uprising, they are convinced that in order to keep control they must continue to hold the Hunger Games every year. Does it make sense to punish these people though? Yes, it was their ancestors that created the uprising, but how many of them were alive or even remember knowing those ancestors who were? This is the 74th Hunger Games, creating a large time gap. Do they still believe that the districts will rise against them? If they continue to hold the strict rules they have created and the crappy conditions which they force upon the districts is there even any way they could create an uprising? (Probably. I'm hoping they could and eventually would, actually, but really, is it even a possibility?) I think that by keeping the laws and conditions they have proven their point, and not only have they taken it too far by holding the Hunger Games, but they've crossed an entirely new boundary line by forcing everyone to watch the Games as they are played out.

The second question, that of society and our own morals, seems to be one that the tributes aren't given much of an option about. The choice is to fight or die. But there are certainly moments of defiance toward the Capitol (which could be the society in this instance) where the characters morals show through. Alliances are created and upheld, like that of Rue and Katniss. Thresh letting Katniss go in exchange for her kindness and alliance with Rue. Peeta protecting Katniss from the pack of Careers at the risk of his own life. In all of these instances the players morals showed through above what society would have told them today. The Capitol told them what they must do, and they showed their defiance through the kindness towards one another. The final defiance and showing of upholding their morals comes from Katniss and Peeta at the end of the Games. At first Katniss jumps to the ready with her bow, believe she will have to fight Peeta to the death after all, but when Peeta gives in, throwing away his knife and begging her to take the victory, she realizes that she can't do that. Her morals and her love for him (whether she is willing to admit it or not) will not let her. Their defiance in choosing to die together and leave no victor leads the Gamemakers to retract their previous statement and change the rules yet again. Their defiance leads to a change in the rules of the society. Can't we do the same thing? Maybe it's not always in a life-or-death situation, but can the defiance and refusal of a few, or even one, cause people to notice and society to somehow change?