Saturday, April 16, 2011
The "Others" in The Hunger Games
I am currently reading The Hunger Games, and I realized that the theme of our class ("others" or being an outsider) actually plays a role in the book. For those of you who haven't read this book, it is about a future world. There are 12 different districts and the Capitol takes a boy and a girl from each district every year to fight until death. Basically, the last person standing wins. Now your next question is probably: "How does this have to do with the theme at all?" In the book for most of the districts, it is considered honorable to be picked as a participant to fight in the Hunger Games. The main character, however, comes from a rather poor district that has the complete opposite view of this sick entertainment. Katniss lives in District 12, and the people there live in fear of being chosen to fight in the Hunger Games. In a way, District 12 is an "other" compared to the other districts. District 12 is considered strange in that the people don't enjoy this disgusting form of fun. Even further, Katniss is an "other" in the way that she volunteers to join the Hunger Games. Even though her reasoning to save her sister makes sense, people of District 12 never thought they would see the day when someone would do this. I thought that it was pretty cool that this theme was in the book, but even further, I thought it was awesome that the "others" were the ones doing the right thing. The fact that District 12 is considered strange because it doesn't like cruel entertainment seems backwards. Why is it that sometimes the right way is sometimes considered outlandish? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
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That book definitely seems like it could be very interesting. It's weird how it takes that view on others. I like it though. I agree that it's almost backwards, but at the same time I don't think it should be. I think that in our world, the right way should be the "normal" way to do things. It seems like that is not the case very often. I think maybe it's because people like the thrill of doing something wrong or doing something that isn't necesarily the smartest.
ReplyDeleteThat is so true!! It seems more and more in society that doing the right thing just isn't the "right thing" to do anymore. I actually finished the book yesterday, and I will tell you what, the theme doesn't go away. The thing this book really brought home with me is the fact that people like katniss really do still exist, and those are the people we should strive to be, make it a new norm to do the right thing.
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