I just finished the 3rd book of the Hunger Game series, "Mockingjay"....these are the thoughts I was left with. Discussion is welcome, please comment.
Social-economic districts. Excessive and highly entertained upper class Capitol. Starving citizens. Brutality, carnage, lives destroyed for the sake of entertainment. The Hunger Games....or us?
As I read all three books, I was plagued with a deep sense of wrong that any person, particularly a child, could be subjected to such horrible acts of violence as entertainment. I increasingly became sickened and angered that these people who so eagerly watched the games, betting on who would win, glued to their tv's for more, awaiting what shock and horror would come next, year after year.......and then I read the books ravenously, pulling for my favorites, wanting to know what horror awaited next, eager to see what would happen.
How does this make me any different than the people of the Capitol? How is my being glued to these books any different than their desire to see what would happen? Isn't the spectacle of the games, which the theme of these books seems to over and over condemn, what fuels the Hunger Games mania??
The thing that haunts me the most is how much we as Americans are like the capitol in our consuming love of entertainment. We are so consumed with who is dating, what they are wearing, where they are going in our over embellished, opulent, consumerist society that we completely miss what is happening in the "Districts" of our world...we call them 3rd World Countries here. We obsess, mourn, and honor a singer or entertainer for weeks, but fail to even notice a mass genocide in Africa.We have so much food that we are literally killing ourselves with over indulgence, while much of the world doesn't even have access to clean drinking water. We over stuff ourselves on food and entertainment, watching and reading about brutality of body and heart, in our "reality" tv and scary movies. It is true, we ourselves do not send our children into a fight to the death. But we avidly consume it, which means we are not so horrified as we claim to be...
Reading is useful for providing both enlightenment and entertainment.....
Social-economic districts. Excessive and highly entertained upper class Capitol. Starving citizens. Brutality, carnage, lives destroyed for the sake of entertainment. The Hunger Games....or us?
As I read all three books, I was plagued with a deep sense of wrong that any person, particularly a child, could be subjected to such horrible acts of violence as entertainment. I increasingly became sickened and angered that these people who so eagerly watched the games, betting on who would win, glued to their tv's for more, awaiting what shock and horror would come next, year after year.......and then I read the books ravenously, pulling for my favorites, wanting to know what horror awaited next, eager to see what would happen.
How does this make me any different than the people of the Capitol? How is my being glued to these books any different than their desire to see what would happen? Isn't the spectacle of the games, which the theme of these books seems to over and over condemn, what fuels the Hunger Games mania??
The thing that haunts me the most is how much we as Americans are like the capitol in our consuming love of entertainment. We are so consumed with who is dating, what they are wearing, where they are going in our over embellished, opulent, consumerist society that we completely miss what is happening in the "Districts" of our world...we call them 3rd World Countries here. We obsess, mourn, and honor a singer or entertainer for weeks, but fail to even notice a mass genocide in Africa.We have so much food that we are literally killing ourselves with over indulgence, while much of the world doesn't even have access to clean drinking water. We over stuff ourselves on food and entertainment, watching and reading about brutality of body and heart, in our "reality" tv and scary movies. It is true, we ourselves do not send our children into a fight to the death. But we avidly consume it, which means we are not so horrified as we claim to be...
Reading is useful for providing both enlightenment and entertainment.....
But the problem is, I can't figure out which Hunger Games was more of.
