On The Hunger Games

(Written by Suzanne Collins.) Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She has cared for her mother and her little sister ever since her father died. Back when she was a little girl. Before near starvation and the need to hunt animals robbed her of her childhood. Now she has to survive the annual Reaping Day - the day where one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen will be picked to fight in the Hunger Games. The "Games" where two people from each district of Panem, twenty-four "tributes" in all, will fight to the death. But Katniss's name is not pulled out of the glass bowl. Her younger sister Prim's is. So Katniss reacts like any protective, loving sister should - she jumps forward and volunteers to take Prim's place.

A reviewer quoted on the back of The Hunger Games declares that philosophy can be found within the pages of the book. Though all books contain some sort of philosophy merely because they have words put together in a (somewhat) meaningful manner, this book has a little more deliberately philosophical look at the modern world. Set in North America sometime in the future, it is a commentary on the way our culture seems to be heading - downhill. The good characters, while they don't stick to stereotypes, stick closely to an ideal that our culture, helped by feminists on the warpath, is speeding away from at an alarming rate. But this presentation of goodness is tempered with two searing attacks on evil.

The relationship between Katniss and Peeta is odd, but that is more a compliment than a criticism. With a strong heroine and a strange tendency to end male characters' names with an "a," The Hunger Games hinted that perhaps Katniss would end up saving Peeta, the main male character (I can't call him a hero yet because I haven't read the other two books in the series and he has a rival). Now, there is nothing wrong with the girl saving the guy, as long as it does not constitute an inversion of gender roles. That is, the heroine can save the hero through feminine means (wiles, love, etc.), but she should not save his life in battle through her physical prowess. But there is no inversion of gender roles in this book - just a switch in story roles. Katniss is definitely the heroine and the main character, with Peeta taking an unassuming spot in her shadow. But he is strong in his own right, and spends much of the book looking out for her. In fact, their relationship is refreshingly reciprocal, with each saving the other at different times and through different means.

Now to the depiction of evil. There are two noteworthy lessons in The Hunger Games; a lesson on an unhealthy obsession with beauty and youth, and a lesson on a large, overbearing government. First, the people in the Capitol - the ones who live high on the hog while the rest of Panem starves - are addicted to beauty and youth. People have countless surgeries to keep themselves looking young. They reject fatness as ugly, and have a strange, bright sense of fashion. (Picture Lady Gaga and you have a pretty good idea of what people in the Capitol think is beautiful.) There is almost nothing they can't do when it comes to personal appearance, and they choose to use the technology at their disposal to make themselves fit the ideal of beauty. But those who participate wholeheartedly in this idea are self-absorbed and, frankly, stupid. Caught in the cages of their self-absorption, the ones most obsessed with their appearances are those who are most clueless about what it means to be a good person. Thus, they are portrayed as shallow.

Second, the government, which is a threat to the people of Panem because of its power, is portrayed as evil. So many books and movies nowadays seek to pit the rich against the poor. Some of these stories even offer some form of government as a remedy to the inequalities of wealth. While the government can and should regulate society and the economy to some extent, it can become over powerful and oppressive. It is not the answer to all societal ills or even, I daresay, most of them. The Hunger Games embraces this idea and indicts both the rich, who live clueless, self-absorbed lives in the Capitol, and the government, which oppresses those in the twelve districts. Both the controlling government and the rich are portrayed as bad, but only the government is shown as a real threat. Now, I haven't read the other two books in the trilogy yet, so I can't guarantee that the end won't produce some rich businessman or other pulling the government's strings. But so far, at least, the government is portrayed more as a threat than a savior.

This isn't to say that the good characters are always good. Katniss makes a few questionable moral decisions, and some of the other good characters have definite flaws. But flaws allow for moral development in the characters - and sometimes the portrayals with the most contrast between good and evil rest in a character's realization that something he or she did was wrong.

In the end, the people are what matter to good characters in The Hunger Games. Katniss goes to what she believes is certain death in order to save her younger sister. Peeta nearly loses his life protecting Katniss. Even the odd Cinna, who designs Katniss's costumes for the opening ceremonies, is portrayed as good because of his obvious compassion for her. On the other hand, evil is sometimes portrayed as brutally violent, sometimes as subtly oppressive, but always as manipulative, cold, and self-absorbed. The Hunger Games asks and answers the question of what will happen if our culture continues to careen in the direction it is currently heading. The conclusion is not pretty, but it is sound.

My Rating: T (violence, sexual references, murky moral decisions)

Review of the second book, Catching Fire

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• Incarceron
• The Homelander Series
• Airman