We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the “hunger games” phenomenon. Young people, in particular, seem to be quite enthusiastic about the “hunger games” novels and the movie. So I had to have a look.
Reading Suzanne Collins’ novel “The Hunger Games” was an interesting experience. The novel was touted as a book for teenagers, and I can understand why they would be interested. Here were young people in a struggle to survive in a future world where the power lies elsewhere.
What I didn’t understand was why “I” was so keen upon the book. In fact, once I began to read the novel, I couldn’t put it down. It reads smoothly, the conflicts are incredibly real, and the characters are fascinating. The main character, 16-year old Katniss Everdeen, caught my attention from the first moment she was introduced. Indeed, my sympathies focused on her throughout the entire story.
Katniss’ world is made up of several different districts in a nation called Panem sometime in the future. At the heart of this nation is a major Capitol city which rules over and controls all the outlying districts. Each district contributes a particular product to the Panem economy. Katniss Everdeen’s district is the nation’s coal producer, and like all the other outlying districts, it has very few food resources and its residents often starve to death.
Once, however, in the past the various districts rebelled and fought the Capitol’s forces. When the districts lost the war, they were given harsh treatment. Each year they were required to choose one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games at the Capitol.
The Hunger Games are reminiscent of gladiator entertainment in ancient Rome. Only now the combatants are children from the 12 districts and from the Capitol, and the warfare is televised live to the nation. It’s a bizarre event in a landscape far bigger than a coliseum. The idea is the strongest and the smartest at survival will kill the others and reign as king or queen of the Games.
If you ever read Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” you’ll recognize the society Katniss lives in. The names of all the young people in the District are placed in a glass ball on stage. Unfortunately, some names are in the glass ball more than once. In this society, if you need food for your family, you can get some by adding your name again and again to the “reaping” as it is called.
I won’t tell you how Katniss ends up as a combatant in the Hunger Games, but from the moment she is accepted, her life changes. The preparation for the introductory spectacles prior to the Hunger Games is reminiscent of the preamble beauty pageant contestants must go through. However, the Hunger Games extravaganzas far outstrip the readiness required of prospective beauty queens before they walk onto the stage.
Most of the novel follows Katniss when she is tossed into the Hunger Games environment with 23 other contestants who must kill her and the others in order to carry on. We witness her skill, her breath-taking escapes, and her near-death many times as she comes closer to winning it all. It is exciting reading as we are caught up in both her anguish and her triumphs.
In this novel, we truly enter another world than the one we live in. The conflicts between power structures and between humans, however, are not much different than those in our own societies. That author Collins has managed to include these parallels has made this novel worth reading—even for adults.
