So, a lot of people around me have been reading "The Hunger Games," and are eagerly anticipating the movie, which will be released in about three weeks. I had my doubts. After all, the premise is horrifying. But, I finally succumbed in the last week, and I understand the hype. During a week that has been anything but pleasant, I have been able to find myself completely sucked into the epic story of Katniss, a young woman who finds herself in a struggle to survive a battle to the death with twenty-three others in a post-apocalyptic world.
On the surface, it is an adventuresome thrill ride that drags you to the edge of your seat and keeps you there. As I think about the week I happen to be living, it has taken on a different meaning for me.
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss lives in District 12, one of the poorest of the remaining districts of Panem. Panem is overseen by leaders living in the Capitol who govern with an iron fist and want to make certain that all of its citizens living outside of the Capitol know the danger of dissent. Each year, two children, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. In these games, the "Tributes," as they are called, are launched into an artificial world with its own potential threats and hidden bounties. They are intended to kill each other until there is only one of them remaining.
Katniss isn't really good at accepting her lot. In her poor mining district, food is scarce, and as the oldest daughter of a widowed mother, she has become the primary provider in her household. She escapes the confines of her district on a routine basis to hunt and gather any additional sustenance the nearby woods has to offer. It is through her hunting and gathering that she develops a strong, but undefined bond with Gale, a boy who is just a couple years older than she is.
Everything about the games is designed to further oppress the people of the poorer districts and the lower classes within each district. For the price of increasing their odds of being selected in the reaping, the impoverished and hungry children can acquire additional food to help sustain their families. As the primary providers in their families, Katniss and Gale have multiple chances in the reaping, but much to Katniss's horror, her sister Prim's name is drawn the first year of her eligibility. Even if you haven't seen the movie trailer, it's a given that Katniss will volunteer to take her sister's place.
She and her male counterpart, Peeta, are swept away in a wave of strategizing and image creation. In the process of preparing for the games, Peeta reveals two things: 1) he doesn't want his fear of dying to change the person he is as he fights for his own survival and 2) he has been in love with Katniss for years. Katniss, who has promised her family she will do her best to survive the games, has no use for holding onto trifling things like her own identity, and the last thing she knows what to do with are Peeta's feelings for her.
As the games unfold, Katniss struggles to keep her promise. Along the way, she becomes attached to a girl from another district and with this girl's death, she seems finally to begin to absorb the cruelty of the games. She begins to discover herself, and not only struggles to fight for her own survival, but for the survival of her own spirit, even though she isn't exactly sure she knows her own spirit. And it is this that is the essence of what I have connected with in this story.
I identify myself as an agnostic--someone who isn't sure there is a higher power. Some people think of agnostics as being "atheist light." But I often think of the scene in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," when Hugh Grant's character Charles is getting ready to marry Duckface and he tells his brother he is uncertain of what to do. "Here I am on my wedding day and I'm still thinking." It seems like I find myself feeling the same way about God and many other heavy life decisions. I'm always "still thinking."
In "The Hunger Games," Katniss finds herself confused about her feelings for Peeta and Gale. She finds herself playing along with a ruse that may just help her and Peeta survive. But at what expense? And if the ruse does work, how long will she have to keep it up? What other prices will she have to pay?
The outcome of the games is surprising to say the least. Without necessarily planning it, Katniss thumbs her nose at the Capitol and appears to be inciting dissent among the districts. Such an act puts herself and those she loves in danger.
When the world seems to be closing in on her, it appears she thinks she can have it both ways when she considers the prospect of gathering her loved ones and trying to run. She believes in something impossible, only to find that some of the people she loves aren't able to so easily delude themselves and pretend.
This last weekend, Jeph and I had to say goodbye to our fifteen-year-old dog--our Blue. It's the second such loss we've suffered in the last two years. Last spring, we nearly lost our eleven-year-old dog. As I contemplated the possibility that she would not survive her illness, for a moment, I believed no matter the benefit, I could never take on any other living thing to love, because of the deep pain I knew I was going to endure if we lost her. As I am enduring that pain, I find myself unable to close the door on eternity--something only a dedicated atheist can do. I find myself referring to where Blue and Scrubby are now, and their fellow dogs that I've known over the years that deserve better than my faithlessness.
Loss makes you "hunger" for something more. It makes you hunger for an alternative to what you can see and know with your eyes. It makes you hunger for a way out. It makes you hunger for a sustenance the faithless can never find.
I don't know if Katniss will ultimately survive. I haven't gotten through all three books yet. In spite of the pain I feel right now, I know that I will survive. I know that, in spite of my current feelings about it, that I will "love" again. As the last weekend was ending, I discovered a quote by Edgar Allan Poe that shocked me: "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed." Knowing a thing or two about the losses and suffering he endured in his short life, I have to raise a glass to my Eddy for being able to recognize what most of us find really difficult to see in the face of sorrow.
And since I haven't been launched into an arena with twenty-three other people who are trying to kill me, I have the time to consider who I am and what all of that means before I reach that final door.
Safe and Sound--Taylor Swift, featuring The Civil Wars
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