lens+4+lee

back to personal page Andrea Lee Dr. Sherry Literature for Young Adults 22 March 2011 Lens #4 __The Hunger Games__ //The Hunger Games // was completely different than how I expected it to be. It truly opened up my eyes to how good we truly have it in our own society. I believe that this would be a good book for young adults to read because it offers them insight to how the world actually could be and maybe they too would appreciate the way that we are living in society today. //The Hunger Games //is the story of sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen who lives in a futuristic society where the United States use to be. There is a powerful Capitol that is surrounded by twelve districts; with whom they keep in line by forcing them to send one boy and one girl ranging from ages twelve to eighteen from each of the twelve districts to compete in the annual Hunger Games. These Hunger Games are a fight for survival where anything goes and killing is the means of survival. Katniss volunteers herself in order to save her sister from these Hunger Games. This text raises questions about means of survival. In the Hunger Games all these adolescents have is their resources; what they know about the woods and surviving and what is sent to them by their sponsors. This text points how important these resources are in this society because if you do not have them you will be dead. //The Hunger Games// also depicts the concept of power. The Capitol has all the power and they enforce it by making the districts compete in the Hunger Games. Normally the careers, the competitors from districts one and two, who train for these games hold all the power because the other competitors are not skilled or ready for the games. However, this year Katniss is in the Hunger Games and she knows how to survive because she has been doing it her whole life. Another detail is that the competitors range from twelve to eighteen; that is a huge maturity difference. How is a twelve year old girl supposed to defend themselves against an eighteen year old boy? This truly makes me wonder if anything like this could ever take place in our society because unfair things are always happening just like this one. What should we as readers and as people take away from //The Hunger Games//? I believe Suzanne Collins wants her readers to be appreciative of the life they lead and the freedom that we do have. By using children in the Hunger Games I believe it made the message more powerful because people view children as innocent and by making them kill each other it just sounds so much worse than if she were to have adults compete in these games. It also makes you think how can your government make you kill each other just to survive another year?