The story slowly turned every page in my imagination and struck a new chapter of a heartbeat. The book was difficult to put down as I was more captivated by the characters who were casually but creatively introduced. I began to naturally associate with their personal and family dilemmas. I smoothly entered and blended into their world and destinies. I was swallowed in one gulp by the Hunger Games.
The setting is the post-apocalyptic world of Panem, once known as the United States of America. This futuristic wasteland was created by man’s insatiable greed for power. The appealing but harsh realism is just so intriguing: Panem can happen! In fact, it may already be happening in a smaller scale in some present totalitarian or socialistic states where man’s innate dignity is abused.
But in this dark futuristic world, Suzanne Collins weaves a story, though not entirely original, towards a more bizarre level. The districts tried to overturn Capitol’s tyranny but failed. The leaders punish the remaining districts by conceiving a more entertaining and unforgettable lesson: the Hunger Games. Naturally, this becomes the story’s booster shot for the imagination and shifts one’s adrenaline into full throttle!
The games are bloody reality shows broadcast for all the districts to helplessly view. The games have one goal: only one “contestant” will survive. They have become a cruel and psychological form of entertainment to suppress any further attempts of rebellion among the remaining districts. The lesson was clear and simple: rebellion will make you suffer by watching your own children butcher each another.
The Capitol further adds a morbid seasoning to the games by constantly reinventing these “staged massacres” by marketing the “players” to sponsors. These wealthy and influential individuals support the candidate most likely to win. Thus, some players are overrated, others are given “tragic-romantic backgrounds” so that the viewers and sponsors will be more emotionally glued to the sweet choreography of carnage.
The survivor (if there ever was one) will not only bring “fame” to his district. His or her ‘victory’ will benefit the district in the form of abundant food and supplies for a year. Given this bloody incentive, some districts have specialized and geared themselves into brutal training grounds to have a better chance at winning the games. One or two members are rendered dispensable if a greater number of people will after all benefit in the end. Thus, an inevitable vicious cycle of butchery is created.
Enter Katniss! The heroine of the story is a ray of hope that subtly dispels the deplorable mist of this sociopolitical hell. Despite the dreary world she lives in, she would not allow the games to control and mess up her own little world and her most valued treasures: her mother and her sister.
Her life and character reveal that no sociopolitical structure is capable of annihilating and degrading her innermost gifts and aspirations. The Capitol’s suppression cannot extinguish her love for her family, her compassion for her friends, her fond memories of better days with her father and the mission she personally undertakes—even heroically offering her life—to protect her family. In fact, they grow stronger every day.
But Katniss’ resistance is faced by a more difficult trial. The only surviving oasis of hope and love she cradles is suddenly threatened and ravaged. In order to thwart this danger, she sacrifices herself to be “reaped” (chosen by lottery) as her district’s representative for the Hunger Games. She is paired with a childhood acquaintance, Peeta. Together they must “survive,” that is, they either both get killed by the other contestants, or if they both survive they must fight each other to claim the prize.
Katniss’ new ordeal to survive further reveals how the “inner hunger” in every human person goes beyond the want for food and clothing. In the full swing of defying the onslaught of the others competitors, the story continues to reveal her genuine longings, and her growing sentiments for Peeta, even though at first they are simply asked to act out their being “romantically involved.” Their struggle to survive is perhaps, another attractive touch to the story because problems are not hurdled through magic or technology, but with sincere human virtue and sacrifice.
Despite this, however, there is still a missing element that the borders of the pages of the story seem to prevent from wandering into any chapter, page, paragraph or line. Where is the natural hunger for the divine, that is, for God. Is it possible that the very core of his spiritual values and convictions are also eradicated? In other words, will there be point in man’s existence which will no longer require God’s existence. At least this is what the story alludes to. One cannot a single reference or mention of Katniss resorting to prayer, hoping in or expressing some spiritual aid. There is only hunger for what is human—at the lowest, to survive—and nothing for the divine.
Although Suzzane Collins skillfully weaves her story, it leads one to conclude that man’s existence is reduced for his own sake. Man’s life is imprisoned within the “emo-material” confines of this world. This is only possible within the Hunger Games, that is, an artificially crafted society that isolates man from any divine stroke. But what will answer and fulfill man’s eternal longing for happiness, for integrity and immortality, and a love that is beyond the ephemeral state offered by the world’s mechanized and digital realities?
Without divine longings for divinity, man’s life—as it is portrayed by Katniss’s life and world—will be one sickening illusion of an existence that will constantly feed on inner material cravings. These will bore like ulcers with a gnawing emptiness that can only be artificially soothed by making man constantly forget his innate hunger for God. And his natural hunger will then feed on the senseless game he has converted his solitary existence into.
“Katniss, try praying! God exists!”