The Hunger Games: Ethical Value

          The Hunger Games is a story that does its best to make you rethink your own set of morals and ethics. One of the goals of an author is to get the reader involved in the plot, linking, or relating to one or more of the characters. The ethical issues are not as black and white as one would hope. The protagonist, Katniss, puts on a tough façade, but that is because of all that is required of her, and for her own safety and the safety of her family, especially Prim, her younger sister.

          Katniss demonstrates kindness and compassion as she looks after the welfare of those younger or those who are unable to care for themselves. In a conversation with her closest friend, Gale, they both reach the same conclusion: they can never leave because of family obligations.

          “They’re not our kids…But they might as well be…Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more” (14)?

          There are numerous instances when Katniss shows us that she does have a heart. She looks after Rue, a competitor in the arena; takes care of Peeta, her partner in the games, and provides a mercy-killing to her arch nemesis, Cato. Katniss struggles with the thought of killing; however, she knows it’s “kill or be killed.” Her own sense of morals dictates her actions, she strikes from a defensive stance rather than act as the aggressor. Her first real kill was the boy from District 1 after he let loose a spear that dove deeply into Rue.

          The ethical values of the Capitol are easier to disagree with; after all, they instituted this “game” as a punishment and deterrent from future uprisings.

          “The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games” (27).

It was no wonder everyone held no love for the people who ran the Capitol or President Snow. Their moral compass went every which way, and it would always be in the best interest of the Capitol as evidenced in the rule-changing during the game (339).

          Is YA literature a place for young adults to find their moral compass? In his article, “Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, and Utopia as Process in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games…,” Brian Jansen quotes author Carol Jones Collins as saying that YA fiction “help[s] the young reader determine and understand his or her own ideas about morality and can help that reader work through moral confusions” (22). I believe that the ethics found in The Hunger Games allows readers to evaluate their own morals and ethics. 

References

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. First ed., Scholastic Press, 2008.

Jansen, Brian. “Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, and Utopia As Process in Suzanne Collins's the Hunger Games: ``It's the First Gift That's Always the Hardest to Pay Back''.” Jeunesse, vol. 7, no. 1, 2015, pp. 18–41.