Al Asousi

Issa Al Asousi
May 6, 2015
English 113B
Professor Rebecca Lawson
The Death of Childhood in Western Culture and in The Hunger Games
It is a shocking thing to read The Hunger Games. The idea that a culture would use
children to play a death game goes against all world religions. A person does not even need to
believe in a God to be shocked. The game of The Hunger Games has children killing children
for entertainment. It is put on television for all of Panem to watch. It is possible that Suzanne
Collins wrote The Hunger Games as a warning. Western culture does a bad job of letting
children be children. Many parents encourage their children to grow up too fast, and do not
allow them to have the simple failures and problems of childhood. The chance that the world
will ever have games like in The Hunger Games is slim. Still, the Western world should do
better at letting children be children.
To see how childhood is misused in The Hunger Games, it is worthwhile to do two
things to start. First, review how the Games came about in the first novel. Then, understand
what the author of the book, Suzanne Collins, wanted us to think about when it came to the
tributes and children. Katniss Everdeen explains about how teens came to be in the games in the
very first chapter of the novel (Collins). After she and Gale break the rules and hunt, they go to
the yearly reaping. It is at the reaping that tributes are chosen for the games (Collins). Katniss
relates that the games came about in punishment for the uprising seventy-four years before
(Collins 18). In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl
and one boy, called tributes, to participate (Collins 19). By taking the children between the

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ages of 12 and 18, Katniss believes that the Capitol is saying, Look how we take your children
and sacrifice them and theres nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last
one of you (Collins 20). This process sets up the idea that children exist to be used by the
Capitol, instead of being able to develop at their own paces. There is an argument to be made
that a youth of 18 might be ready to fight and compete. After all, many military forces will
accept recruits of age 17 or 18. But it shocks the conscience that a child of 12 could be selected
to be in the games.
Collins herself says that she decided to make the book about how children are used
because they once were to feed a mythical monster. Collins said this in an interview in 2008
(Blasingame and Collins). She said she was inspired by Greek mythology. In the myth of the
Minotaur on Crete, Every nine years (when the full moon falls upon the equinox) seven
Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls would be sent to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur
(Blasingame and Collins 727). The Minotaur was killed when Theseus got himself sent to Crete
instead of one of the boys or girls. Those boys and girls were called tributes (727). This is
where she got the idea that the children that participate in the games would be known as
tributes, too. The idea for The Hunger Games came to her, she says, from seeing American
reality television. I happened upon a reality program, she says in the interview, recorded live,
that pitted young people against each other for money (727). It is easy to find these kinds of
programs on television. In fact, television and film use teenagers a lot as a way to get people to
watch. It is worth noting that the powers of the Capitol do the same thing by using children in
the games.
In his review for the New York Times of The Hunger Games, the writer John Green
points out that Katniss is a good hero because of certain parts of her character. She is not a

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typical heroine. Green says a typical heroine would be tough and resourceful, but kind and
sentimental (Green BR30). Instead, Green shows how Katniss can be a killer. He talks about
how Katniss had to kill a lynx that she liked because the predator animal scared away other
animals she wanted to kill for food (BR 30). The review also talks about the relationship
between Katniss and Peeta. Green says that Katniss cant even tell if she loves him or not (BR
30). He must get this point from the part of The Hunger Games where Katniss and Peeta have to
fake being in love. Katniss says, That if I do have feelings for him, it doesnt matter because
Ill never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children (Collins 366).
That Katniss even thinks this way as a teen girl shows the reader how she has grown up more
than she should. Katniss has her first kiss when she kisses Peeta, but that kiss is more for the
feelings of those watching the games than out of a real feeling of romance.
Katniss does other things that show that her childhood has died. She is asked to kill in
the games. She has to provide food for her mother and Prim. That makes her the adult in the
family even if she is just a teen girl. She has to play act to save her own life. She must make life
and death decisions about Peeta during the games. She saves her sisters life when she decides
to be a tribute. She saves all of District 12 by being part of the games. All the tributes save their
districts this way. It is important to remember this, even when some of the tributes are evil
during the games.
The Hunger Games shows the death of childhood in all the tributes. There are social
scientists who argue how childhood is already dying in Western society. David Elkind is a
psychologist who studies how children grow up too fast. In his book The Hurried Child, he
points out many ways that children are pushed forward in the west. For example, western
families encourage their children to participate in organized and competitive sports where the

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parent can take pride in the childs success (Elkind 29). He goes on to say that what used to be
recreation for children, like music, art, or sports, has been made over by adults into hypercompetitive activities (214). For many children, there is no such thing as pure play anymore.
Elkind points out that modern America does not have many playgrounds (33). It is in playing
with other children that kids can be kids. They can also learn from each other.
There is no room in The Hunger Games for play, either. The only game is a game that is
to the death. Everyone loses by dying. One winner lives by surviving. That winner will have to
know how many children died so that he or she can win. Children like to play games. The best
part of a game is that it is safe and fun. Whoever wins, it is just a game. The Hunger Games is
not a game at all. Whoever wins it is because many children have died.
Tan argues that the worst part of the death of childhood in The Hunger Games is that
children are turned into things (Tan). The moment that Katniss is selected as a tribute she is
public property (Tan). She calls them commodities. That is a term that is the same as rice, or
corn, or wheat. Commodities are a thing that people consume. Tan believes that the Capitol
consumes children the way that people consume commodities. Then, all the people in Panem
consume the show of the games. They are required to watch. Tan calls this part of the world of
the games scopophilia, which means that people in that world get pleasure from watching
others. Just the act of taking pleasure from watching is an adult kind of activity. Children would
rather participate in something than watch it. However, many teens today document all their
activities with their cell phone cameras, taking and posting pictures. In our world today, the
technology encourages teens to watch instead of participate. This is still another way that
children today grow up too quickly.

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The Hunger Games is a big example of how childhood can die. The worst part is that it
does not happen naturally. There are survival stories of children in storms. These are stories
from natural disasters. The situation of the games is different. The games are manmade. The
way that children grow up too fast today is also manmade. If mankind has created this current
situation, mankind can also change the current situation. The games of The Hunger Games are
an extreme example of what can happen when children are not valued and protected as children.
It is warning to our world of what might happen if we do not treat children as children.

Works Cited
Blasingame, James, and Suzanne Collins. "An Interview with Suzanne Collins." Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.8 (2009): 726-7.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.
Green, John. "Scary New World." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 Nov. 2008.
Web. 17 Mar. 2015.
Elkind, David. The Hurried Child. 3rd edition. New York: Perseus Press (2001). Print.
Tan, Susan Shau Ming. "Burn with Us: Sacrificing Childhood in the Hunger Games." Lion and
the Unicorn: A Critical Journal of Children's Literature 37.1 (2013)