The Hunger Games

Last week I concluded reading The Hunger Games series with reading the final pages of Mockingjay. After reading the first two books in the series, I had extremely high hopes for the third. The books are filled with memorable characters, action-packed plot, and powerful themes representing the hypocrisy and faults of the world’s post-apocalyptic society. However, after reading Mockingjay, I must admit that I was disappointed. Perhaps I’m just too much of a sap that wants to see a happy ending in everything. The novel was violent, bloody and dark, and after growing to love the characters in the first two novels, it was almost painful to read about some of their demises. In a way though, perchance this is what also made the novel good. The fact that the more fierce and aggressive sections of the novel were able to bring forth emotions in me such as regret, sorrow, and grief over the downfall of the characters means that I connected with the book.

The main plot of The Hunger Games centers around teenager Katniss Everdeen, who is forced to take part in the Hunger Games, a contest forced upon society by the overbearing, evil Capitol of the nation Panem. In the games, twenty four tributes from across Panem fight to the death in a game of survival, where the winner receives the privilege of escaping the game arena with their life. The novel is continuously commentating on the barbarism of not only the government of the society that creates the games, but also of the people who watch the games on their television. These moderate people may think the games are cruel or unjust, but they do nothing to act upon it. From this motif of a lack of action against oppressors in the society of this novel, parallels can be drawn to faults in real society. Many instances in history reveal a lack of caring from the average person who is too afraid to take a stand against wrongdoing. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”,  “shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” Like how white moderates stood by in the twentieth century and allowed African Americans to be treated cruelly, the people of Panem are refusing to defy the hunger games and demand the right to life the teenagers taking part in the games should have. Author Suzanne Collins is using the novel to comment on how immoral it is for our timid society to stand on the sidelines of injustice and allow evil to seize the lives of others as long as it does not effect us.