hunger games book review

hunger games book review

The Impact of “The Hunger Games” Book

1. Introduction

The Hunger Games is a novel that portrays the districts of Panem and its inhabitants being punished for a previous rebellion against the Capitol. Every year, on the day of the reaping, each district must send a boy and girl to fight to the death on live television, with the event ending in one lone victor. The victor is then rewarded with food and riches for both them and their district. A content analysis study can help us achieve a better understanding of how the media can influence the public and provide valuable information in media literacy for the youth.

Throughout the years, there has been an astonishing expansion in the amount of cultural studies done on the media and its impact on the audience. The studies have shown the various dimensions that the media can influence the public and for the purpose of this paper, books and more specifically The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins will be the primary topic. As a result of these studies, parents and teachers are given the opportunity to better understand how the media affects the youth and to use that information to have the power to educate the youth to become better suited in making proper decisions in regards to questionable situations.

2. Plot Summary

They spend some time in the Capitol being primped and polished to display a good image to attract sponsors, whose help can be the difference between life and death in the arena. Haymitch is their drunkard mentor and the lone living victor of their district. He comes up with an idea for them to appear as “star-crossed lovers” to try to win a feeling of sympathy from others, along with help in gaining sponsors. This plan may not be needed considering the Capitol audience is already wrapped around Katniss’ finger, stunned by her beauty and as well as her personality. Katniss is against this theme as it will give people a false image about her and Peeta, but Peeta is adamant in his decision to help people gain sympathy for them.

Katniss is the main character in this novel. She volunteers to save her sister from death in this novel. In a stunning turn of events, the reaping, Katniss’ sister is drawn for the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is an event where one boy and one girl from each district is chosen to fight to the death until one player remains. To save her sister, Katniss takes her place. Peeta is the boy chosen from District 12. From here, they journey to the Capitol, which is home to the people who invented the Hunger Games. Before they actually go to the Capitol, Peeta reveals his love for Katniss. Peeta’s love is not really illustrated but may display a sense of sympathy for him.

3. Themes and Social Commentary

Futuristic societies often fall into the dystopia/utopia dichotomy, creating an America-sized gap in social class. Dystopias are societies in cataclysmic decline, with a worsening quality of life for the vast majority of its citizens. The catalyst for this decline is an original event of some kind, with the later society’s iniquities merely being an amplified result of the horrific happenings that follow. Utopian societies are so ideal that they provide a sharp contrast to the world in which we live. People have attempted to create utopias with mixed results, some intended utopias result in a much better way of life for everyone, while a privileged few live at the expense of the majority, and still others are unmitigated disasters. Usually a utopian society has incurred so much debt to the natural world and sanity of its people that the story of how the society came to be is an interesting tale. The society may acquire sentience or achieve perfection in a certain craft, only to find that these accomplishments are double-edged swords. In the Hunger Games, the society is a dystopia because the capitol, where the seat of power lies, is a utopia and the rest of the nation is at the capitol’s mercy. In the fallout of an unspecified apocalypse, the capitol rose to power and with its ascendancy came the subjugation and exploitation of the outlying districts. This ultimately led to a rebellion by the districts that was brutally squashed by the capitol, who come to make a punitive example by selecting children from each district to participate in a nationally televised bloodbath known as the Hunger Games. This is an event of such colossal horror and depravity that the gamemakers often try to manipulate the outcome in order to maintain ratings and have been known to alter the battlefield with catastrophic and often lethal effects. This is the backdrop for a thematic take on the nature of humanity between competing ideologies and the cost of hegemony on both the oppressor and the oppressed.

4. Character Analysis

Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the Hunger Games Trilogy, is a spirited 16-year-old girl who volunteers to take her younger sister’s place in the 74th annual Hunger Games. She hails from a poor family in District 12 where life and its prospects are grim and a far cry from the luxury of the Capitol, yet in many ways the Capitol’s are a caricature of those of the more fortunate districts. Katniss is a hunter, a provider, and protector. Her skill and knowledge of hunting in the woods allows her to provide for her family, and in keeping them fed and herself alive, she has already been fighting a not so passive battle with the higher power of the Capitol. In volunteering to take the place of her younger sister in the Hunger Games, her act was not one of selflessness though it may appear that way, suiting that narrative to protect and provide for someone else, is not unfamiliar to her and is the first competent way to fight others. This act was, in fact, one of defiance to the Capitol and the crux of the entire Hunger Games story is centered on the defiance-filled action and the resultant consequences decided by the interplay of fate. Now we see that if the plot of “The Hunger Games” were prefixed with a random drawing of the competitors for the games, it would not have been an unfitting addition. But taking up the role of the fates and weaving an intrigue round a certain selected few, results in a situation which is ever more of a delicious torment for the reader. Following on from the incident at the reaping, a second child from each contestant district is chosen as a helper in the games, such an arrangement is not unfamiliar to Katniss from her own selection of a helper for a previous occasion. But the reader is already well aware of the type of person Gale is to Katniss and the situation is heavily spiced with dramatic irony.

It is not a simple task to remember the reality of a well-drawn character in a book, even though the scenario in which he or she is placed may be vivid in our memories. It is likely that we retain an impression of him in action and little more, and every action of his must have passed through and tinged with its qualities the various situations in which we have found him. But it is worth attempting to examine a few characters of a book, whose story has been inwrought with our own lives and coloured by the moods of various stages. For in rendering those characters unforgettable to a wide circle of readers, “The Hunger Games” has undoubtedly achieved one of the ambitions of all good writing and the characters in the book are the best reflection of this. In a story where the hope lies only in defiance, the central character must possess defiance coupled with a sufficient load of fate to bring her at times into the shadow of disaster and the closer she is to disaster the higher will the excitement rise.

5. Conclusion

The Hunger Games is a critique on the shallow and rather dangerous media/information saturated society we live in. This is portrayed effectively through the intrusive and exploitative nature of the games, with the media’s control and the conditioning of public opinion shown to be the determining factors in the games and their outcomes. The relevance of this to the modern day is obvious. Suzanne Collins has said that the inspiration for The Hunger Games came from switching TV channels between a reality TV show and war footage. Additionally, the exploitation and consumption of the suffering of people in less fortunate situations is brought to our attention through the characters of Katniss and Peeta and the way they are glamorized and used by the capital and its people. This portrayal is highly relevant to the western world’s media consumption of the poverty and tragedy of less fortunate countries. The Hunger Games is ultimately a stark criticism of our own media culture and it’s easy to see why the story resonated with so many people across the world. The Hunger Games is, in the end, less about violence or weapons, and more about war against oppression. People fighting for freedom and trying to elicit change to a better way of life. Throughout the story, we see the contrast of the lives of those in the capital to the poorer districts and the ways in which the citizens are kept in line. The games themselves are a form of Pax Romana, a way to keep the outer districts in submission through fear. Katniss and her actions throughout the story become a beacon for change and spark thoughts of rebellion in the hearts of the people, akin to Joan of Arc or other influential figures in the history of the world. This repressive state is analogous to many ideological or physical occupations today and the message in The Hunger Games is that people can overcome these situations, they can live to see a better day.