The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins - 1441 Words

The Hunger Games is a novel by Suzanne Collins about a lower class girl who finds herself suddenly surrounded by a striking upper class lifestyle. Growing up in District 12, it was very hard for Katniss Everdeen to picture life on the wealthier side. She lives in a country called Panem, which is divided into 12 districts. All 12 districts are controlled by one greater force, the Capitol. The Capitol is known for it’s lavish lifestyle and harsh methods of control. The Capitol controls the media, the schools, the food supply and most importantly, the people. Panem suffers from immense class differences, harsh body modifications, glorified spectacles of violence, and monstrous sponsorships. Life in Panem is a lot more similar to life in†¦show more content†¦The chance of her name being drawn is very slim compared to to those who live in the Seam. Not impossible, but slim. And even though the rules were set up by the Capitol, not the districts, certainly not Madge’ s family, it’s hard not to resent those who don’t have to sign up for the tesserae† (Collins 13). Each time a family runs out of necessities, they have two options, they can go without and try to make ends meet, or they can put their name in the drawing for the games another time. This is the tessera program. The tessera program is just one way that the government allows itself to keep the upper hand. With the division between the upper and lower class being so large, and the majority of the population being lower class, we can see how closely life in the districts relates to life in America today. According to pewresearch.org, the middle class makes up about 46% of the American population today. This leaves more than half of the population to be divided between the upper and lower classes. With the upper class making up less than 10% of the population, this means that around 44% of Americans are considered to be lower class citizens. Also, as gathered from pewre search.org, in 2010, the median wealth for upper class families was 6.2 times that of middle class families. By 2013, this number grew to 6.6. With such a high population of lower class