Power and Control

            The young adult novel “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” has shown us how people separated by many factors can still gather together to fight for a common cause. I feel like that the author is trying to teach us all a lesson on change. See for change to happen in this modern age, there needs to be mass agreement and a constant push for modification of a law or idea that isn’t right. In this book we see many different districts, that are heavily separate and none only the basics about each other. No these districts can be compared to the many different groups of protesters across the globe. They are all fighting for a change and for a common good, but they can’t support each other. The real question here is how many people and how long will it take for a protesting group to get what they want. Well in recent events we haven’t seen a lot of change. There has been a lot of push on many different ideas such as the Occupy Wall Street protest group, Ferguson protesters, and or the recent protests in Atlanta after the death of Anthony Hill. Will any of these groups succeed in their plea for change?  We have seen slight changes in political laws in Arizona thanks to the Occupy Arizona movement. This group protested in a peaceful way, in our book we don’t see peaceful protest. We can see the being sparks of a full blown out revolution. Rumors being spread, sparks lighting up and a massive outbreak of violence could happen at any time. Rumors spread like wild fires in today’s society, we can thank our massive incretions of social media for that. In the Hunger Games  these districts don’t have the technology we do in fact  their only source of information comes from government programs and scared winners of the Hunger Games.

            These districts are separated by walls and electric fences, what is really separating all of us from bounding together and fighting for a common good?  There are plenty of able human beings like you and me who can easily say “I support that cause” but we don’t go out there and protest with them.  It’s because we all don’t want to get in trouble. It’s as easy as that, we have been taught from an early age that if we get that one bad “X” on our record that we want be able to get a job. Without a job we have been told that we wouldn't be able to eat, buy a house, or start a family. This is all true I haven’t been able to go to the streets and riot because I feel like my hands are shackled to my house by these ideals.  Even something as basic as the recent protest in New York, where plenty of New Yorkers took the streets and peacefully protested their want for more action pertaining to climate change. This is a cause I would love to willing support but, I don’t want to run the chance of being locked up in NYC jail cell. Especially with all the recent news about NYC cops and all their controversies, but that’s a different can of worms.   

            But that’s not really pertaining to our young adult novel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, although Katniss has angered the capital she can still live freely in Penam. The only catch is almost her every move is being watched and monitored by the capital. Even in our society after you have been arrested for a crime, you still have a chance to becoming a normal functioning member of society again. But your life will be much harder and a lot tougher to reach the goal of your own personal American dream.  It’s a hard restricting factor on one selves, being labeled as a criminal would make everyone turn the other cheek at you.  These are all reasons why our recent generations don’t want to cause trouble or have the black x’s labeled on our foreheads. But in the end the real question is, how similar are we to the people of Penam?

-Richard Plattel