One of my favorite book series of all time is The Hunger Games series. While it made a very large wave in pop culture, the novels themselves actually are really insightful, and provide a lot of interesting social commentary. If you don’t know what happened in The Hunger Games, it’s pretty simple. The novel takes place in a dystopian society, called Panem, where there is one capital, literally referred to as “The Capital,” and twelve districts. Citizens of the capital live in luxury while the districts- some incredibly poor- provide for them. In order to remind the districts of The Capital’s power, each year 2 children (ages 12-18) are selected from each district to participate in a competition called “The Hunger Games,” which is literally a fight to the death. The novel follows a young girl named Katniss, who is selected to compete in The Hunger Games for her district, which is the poorest district in the country. All tributes (those who are participating in the games) are trained for the games in the capital, where they get to experience a taste of the luxurious living style. Katniss makes many, many comments that highlight the injustice and abuse of power present in Panem. One example is when Katniss literally asked what a shower does, because Katniss’s district doesn’t have running water. Like many of the works we’ve read in class, The Hunger Games comments on injustice in an adaptive way, where the author manifests her opinions on our society in a made up society. I think the Hunger Games strives to highlight how the unequal distribution of resources affects people, in any day or time. We could even go further to say that the novel suggests a large cycle of inequity, where birthrights determine if you will live or die. To some degree, this is true in our world. While our country doesn’t select citizens for a fight to the death, there are many policies that support a cycle of injustice mainly targeting racial minorities. Based on who you’re born to and how much inherited power you have to overcome the system, your fate, while not necessarily sealed, is strongly suggested.