Intertextual+LENS+4

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Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games deals with a subject matter that should hit adolescents close to home: people their age fighting for their lives. The themes of starvation and excess, war and love, all in the context of growing up make the novel both engaging and accessible. However, the Hunger Games is by no means the first young adult novel to address the seemingly taboo issue of children fighting and sometimes killing one another. Books like Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, Orson Scott Card’s Enders Game, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies all address similar issues, but approach the same subject matter in drastically different ways. It is these differences as much as the similarities that makes each novel pertinent and unique. =====

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 In Battle Royale, Much like The Hunger Games, focuses on a group of Japanese school children forced to fight to the death until there is only one left standing. The main male and female lead share a blossoming romantic relationship, similar to Katniss and Pita, and they too fight to escape from their government-issued demise. The key factor that makes Battle Royale different, however, is it’s country of origin. Unlike the other books listed which take place in the distant future or lost islands, the setting for Battle Royale is a fairly modern Japanese society. It reflects a cultural standard of rigorous education and fierce dedication to success, the literal deaths of various characters representing the figurative roadblocks that real Japanese students face. The book ultimately leaves its reader questioning how much humanity Japanese students lose when faced with such immense pressure to ‘survive’ in their world. =====

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 Ender’s Game focuses on a children’s military academy in the distant future, where young adults are forced to participate in battle simulations against one another to prepare them for real battle. The ‘simulations’ and ‘drills’ they are put through become so intense that many kids crack, unable to take the constant stress. When compared with The Hunger Games, the children that attend the academy can be seen as similar to the delegates of the rich, well-fed districts. Trained to kill their entire lives, they become unable to function without it, lost as to their purpose beyond murder. Kato’s impulse killing after the destruction of his supplies reflects this nature of uncontrolled violence. This brings to mind a slew of questions regarding the rehabilitation of troubled youths: can someone who has grown up with nothing but pain ever truly adjust to a normal life? Though both Katniss and Ender ultimately escape their warzones, they return as fundamentally different, more damaged people than they went in as. =====

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 While the other books all involve children being forced to fight, Lord of the Flies instead focuses on the breakdown of society. Left on an island to fend for themselves, the children of this book ultimately become as savage and ready to kill as any of the participants in the Hunger Games. Does this mean that we, as humans, are only kept from killing each other by a system of rules and government? This makes even corrupt societies like that of the Capital seem like a favorable alternative to all-out chaos. A book like Lord of the Flies presents an interesting parallel to the dystopian realities of the other novels, comparing the result of the collapse of society versus the formation of an authoritarian one. =====

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In reading The Hunger Games and thinking about other young adult novels on similar subject matter, I’ve begun to wonder if there isn’t some kind of subgenre for kids fighting other kids to the death. While I understand the violence and social commentary are meant to engage young readers, I wonder too if it is really necessary to get the point across. I cannot argue that it makes for an enthralling read, but I also feel there is something very Hollywood about the entire experience. I believe that books like these should be juxtaposed with real life accounts, such as True Notebooks, so readers do not become so taken in by the fiction they lose a sense of why they are reading in the first place. =====