Ashley Monzon
Professor Harrison
English 115
1 December 2011
The Corruption of Humanity or Just Plain Human Nature
In the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins many themes were brought up one of which was corruption. However, corruption in the book can be seen through various levels such as corruption of government, society, or humankind. Most of what could be seen as survival tactics could have easily been misconstrued to be the action of a person with corrupted morals. What I find most fascinating about the book is how human nature can be seen as something that is corrupted or unnatural. When in actuality human nature are just a human’s instincts and what the instincts are telling humans to do in any situation. Our instincts usually do not have anything to do with morals, it is our fight or flight mode, and it can be understood how making a decision regardless of morals may seem corrupted just as in The Hunger Games. While the hunger games were commencing and everyone was scared for their children, there were some districts in which going to the games were an honor, and further exploring this topic, it can be proved how the people of Panem may have enjoyed the watching of the games. Whether or not the people of Panem enjoyed watching the games is not the issue, the issue is that people are condemned for having a healthy appetite for action and drama, when in actuality it is each human’s true instincts taking over. As Stephen King said, “We are all crazy, some are just better at hiding it.”
The hunger games of the book, most will agree, are pretty gruesome and disturbing. The fact that a government is having children fight and kill each other for food is disturbing on many levels. However, the protagonist, Katniss, seems to be in the games just to survive, she never seems to see herself as a serious competitor. Which is something that sets Katniss apart, since she does not enjoy watching her enemies being killed, she is purely just trying to stay alive. This is quite different from her opponents, the careers. The careers are raised for the games, in tip-top shape and ready to kill. This may seem barbaric to most but when thinking back to hunter gathering ages, most humans were willing to kill in order to get food. So how do the careers differ from historic humans? Well, the careers may enjoy the act of killing more than most and actually make some deaths slow in order to torture the person, which is quite the opposite to hunter gatherers. Now although the games are disturbing and awful, what the Capitol is doing is testing the limits of each human, how far will one truly go to stay alive? Throughout, the games each child is tested and their limits continue to be pushed as they are forced to kill for food, for survival. Yet, it is not the child’s fault that they had to kill someone to eat a squirrel it is no one’s fault, the child was merely following their instincts in order to survive. So although the careers may seem awful, they are on point in knowing their task of killing others in order to survive. It is in human nature to fight for food even if it means to take out one’s competitor, so while the reader may read the book in horror, it is helpful to remember humans do what they need to out of the struggle to survive.
The other part of Panem that is purely doing what nature intended was the audience, the viewers of the games. Today it may seem disgusting to watch children kill each other on a screen, but don’t people watch horror movies or shows similar to Survivor? It is human instinct to seem like one may want to look away however; the pain of others can easily enthrall humans. People want to see the outcome. Some may cover their eyes, while watching, but rest assure they are peeking, and no one should be punished for watching especially since it is everyone’s instincts. In fact, according to Stephen King’s short story “Why We crave Horror Movies” King mentions that everyone is crazy; just some people are better at hiding it. Which is a complete valid point regarding The Hunger Games because for the tributes to be in the games and at least try to survive they have to have an edge of craziness to them. For the people of Panem, or the careeer’s districts, to watch the games intensely they most definitely have to be a little bit crazy, but no one should be looked down upon because everyone has the same instincts, everyone has a part of them that wants to see the gruesomeness. So in fact no one is corrupt, humanity is more or less how it should be because it is embedded within humans to do these actions, even Stephen King agrees.
Another book that relates to the particular theme of human nature would be Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In Heart of Darkness Conrad reveals the idea of the absurdity of evil, he questions whether or not there is evil in a society in which morals stand by the individual and not the society as a whole. This can relate to Panem because the country is divided into districts and each district has problems specific to the location, so it is questionable whether the whole population of Panem has a set of morals in which bring them together, or whether the people just have in common that they are human. While being human entitles one to natural instincts according to Conrad it can entitle one to the fascination of the abomination. In Heart of Darkness Marlow was interested in Kurtz just as Kurtz was deeply interested in the natives, or cannibals, of Africa. Each character has something in which interests them however can be completely wrong to be interested in for many reasons, just as the audience of Panem is so enthralled by the games. Kurtz is crazy and has completely involved himself in the barbaric ways of Africa, however Marlow is completely enthralled by him. And with Kurtz living alone and being so strange in the novella he is considered the abomination along with the natives, or cannibals. The viewers of the games in The Hunger Games are similar to Marlow because of the way they watch the hunger games and how engrossed they are by it. They are interested in the abominable and they cannot turn away. Both these books presents the theme of human nature at its best showing the true colors of humanity, by having characters be so deeply interested in a societal abomination just as people would be in real life.
The Hunger Games, although written for thirteen year olds truly presents humankind at its worst and best to the audience. By having a caring protagonist and selfish antagonist the book seems like any other, however what makes it truly unique is the situations characters are put in and then reading the character’s reactions. The reactions are what make the characters real for the reader. Just as Marlow watching Kurtz and the viewers of Panem the reader continues to read about brutality and craziness in the world but continues in order to eventually find good in humanity.
WC 1235
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. London: Scholastic, 2008. Print
King, Stephen. Why We Crave Horror Movies. Print.
