Now vs Panem
The book The Hunger Games is about futuristic society in the debris of North America, where most are poor and hungry except those living in the so called “capital”. They can feast all they want. While many things are very different in this society some things are the same as current times. Some of the topics that can be compared are sacrifice and violence. The world in which we live in is not so different than that in The Hunger Games. In our world people are hungry and starving in the poorer countries like Nigeria, Colombia, Africa, Georgia, China, Pakistan and many others.
The other countries that are wealthier and bigger enjoy loads of exquisite food and drink. We in the United Sates of America usually eat to our heart’s desire or more. In World War two many counties gave up food, gas, clothes and the tiny things that make life worthwhile, but that was then and this is now. The United States of America is completely dependent on foreign oil, other energy resources and products like paint, toys, cars, books, clothing jewelry, canned foods, every day household items like soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, pencils, toaster ovens, forks, and, spoons. The fact that we are all still buying this stuff means that we are not at all sacrificing the way others do in many other countries that are mostly surrounded by violence.
The world is covered with violence. The world as we know it sees it everywhere it looks, television, games and all over the news. People even fantasize about it with games not knowing the true horrors of war like supporting training and arming of anti-communist forces in Central America that mostly killed thousands of innocent people, that could barely read in the 50’s 60’s and early 70’s thinking that it was for just causes. In Pakistan Iran and Iraq the death toll is rising very high. As a very wise adage once said “those who wish for war have never truly experienced it”.
This should be a standing motto to reduce violence unless we want to end up seeing our children to kill each other for national television. In the book The Hunger Games it talks about a futuristic society In the ruins of north America. It is divided up in so called districts. There are twelve of these districts. Some are wealthy and can live like the old U.
S.S.R. style of not owning much. if anything this is considered a wealth way of life there. While the other districts are poor and starving the people in “The Capital” are eating to their heart’s content and dyeing their skin very much like us tattooing ourselves in their large citadels.
The people in the districts are suffering in the same way as contemporary society. In Panem they send 24 of their kids aged 12-18 to fight in an arena to the death. Is this not basically a video game or a war in Africa that we experience today on a much grander scale? Instead of 24, try over 1,000 kids some younger that ten years old, sent to kill each other or act as living bombs and mine sweepers. Instead of jail time they also in Panem have their tongues removed if they speak out against the government or break any of the laws. Is it not worse to cut someone out from their family for life? They are beaten and hurt badly for information about anything that the government thinks they are guilty of even if they are completely innocent.
This is extremely similar to China and the former U.S.S.R. Sometimes they do it just for fun or just to see you squirm or worst of all just to fulfill their sadistic needs of killing people In reflection the differences between our world and The Hunger Games, the similarities are many and the differences are actually just the extremes that we are barreling towards at this moment.
This paper has shown that the only difference between us and Panem is a few extremes. The capital is keeping its citizens down except for a select few just like many other governments today. The world that the world we live in is not so different as Panem
