The Hunger Games Post-Game Review

by Daniel McInerny on April 25, 2012 · 3 comments

So The Hunger Games, as I understand it, is a tortured cry for real life–a cry that is forced from the young who feel compelled to resist the sick reality TV set of the Games and, more generally, the dystopia wrought by the Capitol. To this small but significant extent, the youth in The Hunger Games grope desperately for that which transcends the lust for pleasure and power, for that which can survive the soul-annihilating existence of the Capitol–for that which can only be fully satisfied by God.

And whether the youth of our culture themselves realize it or not, I think this is the key to why they, especially, are poring over the books and flocking to see the movie.

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Tagged as: "Novel-Writing in an Apocalyptic Time", The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games and God, Walker Percy

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  • Maryroth

    My daughters and I have read the 3 books in the Hunger Games trilogy. We discussed how these books reveal life in a society that has forgotten or abandoned God. The young protagonists show that people still hunger for God who is Love, Compassion and Mercy even though they do not know His Name

  • Michelemorgan

    Where was the worship of God or, indeed, any so called higher power, in Tolkein’s work? The Grey Havens seemed to be a sort of refuge and rest for those who had sacrificed so much of themselves that they could no longer rest easy in Middle Earth, but it didn’t feel exactly like a ‘reward’ to the good and trusted servant, either. There was a marked sadness to the ‘passing away’ of those who left Middle Earth for the Gray Havens. I’ve read Tolkein’s four main books many times over the years, and seen all the films. If I had not learned, after I became a Christian, that Tolkein was writing a Christian allegory, I would never have known it. Yet that series of books touched me on a deep level, and once I became Christian, gave me a window into my faith (just as my faith then gave me a window into MIddle Earth) that I could have gotten in no other way. I’ve had friends tell me the same thing about C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series: they read it as a child having no idea it was a Christian allegory. One even told me he resented it when he found out. But the lessons were absorbed, all the same. Maybe they were even more profoundly meaningful because they were not seen by the readers as having an overt message.

    Fiction that uses faith to teach an overt lesson is just preaching. There is nothing wrong with preaching, but it seldom results in writing that withstands the ages. Great fiction examines the human condition, which does not really change because what it means to be human does not really change. While our external circumstances may change (I would love to live in the 16th century, for examle, so long as I can take modern dental care and my cell phone) our deepest needs and longings do not change. So great fiction touches the souls of all ages, not just that in which for which it was written.

    The fact that The Hunger Games does not mention God or faith is just as irrelevant to its power as transformative fiction as was Tolkein’s “oversight” of overt mention of these things. Its legacy will be the questions it raises, not those it presents as already answered.