Why the Younger Generation Thinks They Are Katniss Everdeen–and are They?
The Hunger Games. It was the book that our parents did not want us to read; the book where children fought each other to the death as the rest of the world watched. It was a gruesome idea. However, this story said that they could challenge the structures holding their lives together. Novels like The Hunger Games (and their movies) became a cultural phenomenon.
As kids, we were fed stories. Stories that appeared to be very different, but all had the same message: that the young were always good and right, and the old were corrupt and selfish. Harry Potter, Divergent, and of course, The Hunger Games all preached that message. They were the stories that defined our formative years.
Naturally, this may add to some of the reasons why 2020 has been such a staggering year.
First, let’s exclude all the factors that we know have only made 2020 worse: Donald Trump, racism, and boomers refusing to wear their masks.
Second, all of the stories I mentioned earlier share a similar attribute: it is always the child hero against the evil adults — Katniss against President Snow; Harry against Voldemort; and Tris against Jeanine Matthews. In literature, these similarities between novels tend to show the need for social criticism. For example, Jane Austen’s novels all address the convention of marriage, making her social commentary about the institution of marriage.
With that in mind, more recent stories like The Hunger Games seem to be making a commentary on government corruption and the inherent power of the younger generation.
This commentary may be the reason why the United States’ coronavirus cases have soared and why the Black Lives Matters may have been the largest protest in U.S. history (Buchanan).
At the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, little was understood about the virus. Still, we were told that it affected the older generation more severely. Somehow, that translated to this mentality of immunity to the virus for the younger generation. Hence, why so many young adults did not take the pandemic seriously, and why they spent spring break at the beach, crowding together and soaking up the sun. Or, they were going to bars and clubs while the rest of the world remained in their homes.
Other countries have not had this problem. For example, Japan, whose population is much older, has managed to lower the curve of infections. Why? Because their culture emphasizes respecting one’s elders.
Meanwhile, the United States keeps fueling the younger generation with novels that pits them against their elders.
And one end that is a good thing, as the Black Lives Matter protests had a staggering amount of people involved in it. Perhaps some were taking their chance to embrace their childhood hero, Katniss Everdeen, and take on the corrupt government. But it also could have given lots of people the idea that the uprising was finally here. They would not miss their chance to be the Mockingjay … even if they did not honestly care about the topic being protested.
While The Hunger Games is a prime example of this messaging, the influx of novels with similar ideas continues to enter the publishing market. As a student of literature, I refuse to believe that the books we read not to affect our lives, and perhaps we should turn out eyes onto more recent novels to examine the social commentary that is, quite literally, in our laps.
Work Cited
Buchanan, Larry. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” New York Times. July 3, 2020.