The Most Dangerous Game – The Hunger Games Trilogy The Most Dangerous Game – The Hunger Games Trilogy
    BY ASHLEY NICHOLS As the starting gong sounds, Cooper City High School junior Sarah Roth makes a beeline for the forest, the... The Most Dangerous Game – The Hunger Games Trilogy

 

Students all over CCHS are devouring the popular new series, The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins, is the first part of the action-packed trilogy. Photo Credit ROBYN BONFIGLIO

 

BY ASHLEY NICHOLS

As the starting gong sounds, Cooper City High School junior Sarah Roth makes a beeline for the forest, the safest place to hide. She and 23 other teens are thrown into an arena where they are forced by their government, the Capitol, to participate in this annual ‘game’ and fight to the death until only one remains. Roth quickly finds cover in the familiar trees and begins scoping out the other innocent teens she must kill in order to be crowned as the victor. She hears a branch snap on her left side and she rapidly picks up her bow and arrow to shoot down the victim. With sheer precision she has just killed one of her adversaries; one down, 22 to go.

When reading The Hunger Games, many students are so engrossed in its captivating plot that they feel as though they are actually a part of it, just as Roth had. Released in 2008, The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins, has recently become the talk of CCHS, as well as the nation. 

“The author knows how to make things from her own imagination seem real and it felt like I was actually there in her world,” Roth said. 

The Hunger Games, the first book of the trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay), is set in a post-apocalyptic North America called Panem. There are 12 districts, large states within Panem, and each is suffering from impoverished conditions due to a long lost district 13’s rebellion against the Capitol. As a reminder that the Capitol has ultimate control over the districts, they host the annual ‘Hunger Games’ where 24 tributes, a boy and a girl from each district, must fight to the death until one rises as the glorious victor. As a victor, they will be treated with a life of luxury and royal-treatment, as well as the mental scars and nightmares that come from the innocent children they were forced to kill.

The Hunger Games is written in the first person point-of-view of Katniss Everdeen, the lottery selected tribute from district 12. She is the fighting symbol that gives the districts hope of eventually being freed from the tyrannical hands of the Capitol. In Catching Fire, Katniss has already won the Hunger Games and is basically the fuel behind the burning fires of the districts’ desire to rebel, and now the Capitol wants revenge. 

During her journey to overthrow the Capitol, Katniss is faced with another difficult decision. Behind the battle and gore of the Hunger Games, Katniss’ heart is torn between two lovers: Peeta Mellark, the boy who has continuously saved her life, or Gale, her best friend who always has her back. In Mockingjay, Katniss is faced with the issue of starting a new life and choosing who she really loves.

Collins’ original idea of Katniss’ story came from a restless night of television channel surfing. On one station she watched a reality TV show where people were competing for a grand prize and on another, a live newsreel of young men fighting the war in Iraq. In her sleepy subconscious, she blended the two together and the resulting image was most unpleasant, but it did birth the concept of The Hunger Games.

With its futuristic feel and ties to current issues, The Hunger Games has introduced many readers to an entirely new genre of reading. Add that to Collins’  unique and alluring writing style and teens, as well as adults, are hooked. Collins writes in a way that allows readers to use their vivid imaginations and get lost in The Hunger Games. Because of Collins’ exquisite writing style and the action-packed story line, The Hunger Games has sold over 5.6 million copies in the U.S. and is planning on reaching even more fans throughout the world, one nation at a time.

“I liked it because it’s an extremely new idea and it had a lot of interesting concepts,” sophomore Zachary Morris said. “It had an appealing writing style and the book was easy to get into.” 

Collins relied on more than just her natural writing ability to enthrall readers, but also her interest in Greek Mythology and ancient Rome. She paralleled The Hunger Games with the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The myth is about an angry king punishing his people and proving to them that he has  absolute power. To prove his domination over them, he threw seven young men and seven maidens into a labyrinth, where they were up against a man-eating beast, the Minotaur. He was sending his people the message: “mess with us and we’ll do something worse than kill you. We’ll kill your children”. In the same way, Panem was forced to compete in the Capitol’s televised Hunger Games each year as a reminder that they were powerless and inferior to them. In addition to mythology being the basis of her story, she also used many Roman-inspired names for her characters; for instance, Panem came from the expression “Panem et Circenses” which means “Bread and Circuses.”

With fans eating up the trilogy and responding to it enthusiastically, Collins has agreed to allow Lionsgate to transform The Hunger Games into a blockbuster film that is expected to be released in 2011. With its popularity rising, The Hunger Games has a chance of becoming the next Twilight

“I don’t think it will blow up as much at Twilight did,” Morris said. “I do think The Hunger Games trilogy deserves to be popular and it soon will be.”

With time slowly fading and one chapter left, Roth is pulled into a frenzy of emotions and decisions. She has finally escaped the arena, but how will she ever be able to stop the Capitol and in the process save her family and the districts? Even more importantly how will she decide between Peeta and Gale without losing them both?

The Hunger Games has done more than captivate an entire CCHS crowd through the unique writing of Collins, it has also allowed teens and adults to tap into their imaginations and be fully immersed. With the recent release of Mockingjay, and the exciting news of The Hunger Games going Hollywood, fans are more ecstatic than ever before.