I’m an English student and a terribly slow reader, and the leisure reading for which I do find time spans a wide range of genres and subjects. I do try, however, to stay relatively current with trends in young adult literature, given that I’m a YA author myself. Most recently, I finished Veronica Roth’s Divergent, and between it and The Hunger Games, I’ve begun to notice a trend in female protagonists of YA dystopia. (Of course, having read only the two, I can’t be completely sure it’s a trend, but since these seem to be trendsetters in the movement, I’m going to go ahead with that assumption.)
With the success of the Twilight franchise in recent years, admittedly a disaster for women’s empowerment, these more recent female authors seem to be writing their protagonists as responses to Bella Swan’s character weakness and hyper-dependence. I find that a worthwhile pursuit, but it interests me that the vehicle for doing so has been martial strength and a propensity for violence.
It’s worth noting, of course, that the worlds of all these series are far more violent in general than those their readers inhabit. So too are those of countless fictions featuring male protagonists; Ender’s Game, a favorite of mine and a novel from which Divergent takes countless cues, features horrendous violence by characters as young as six years old. It will be unfair me to give these stories a pass while criticizing the violence of Divergent or The Hunger Games, and quite frankly, neither of these books struck me as particularly graphic (I actually found THG surprisingly tame, given its premise). I’m just wondering if there are ways to show strength in a protagonist, whether male or female, that don’t involve physical combat.
The problem with using violence to establish a character’s strength is that it carries its own baggage. It isn’t a neutral thing; by wielding it, an author is shaping not only a character but the moral framework of her story’s world. When Tris starts shooting people, Roth isn’t merely giving us information about Tris. Intentionally or not, she’s making an ethical statement about the use of violence as a means of conflict resolution. I haven’t read Insurgent yet, and the third book in the trilogy is forthcoming, so I don’t know how should develop this theme. But taking Divergent as a statement unto itself, violence appears the only viable response to violence.
Maybe I’m being a bit too harsh, but I really found Tris to be an abrasive and unsympathetic character in general. If Bella Swann is spineless and painfully boring, Tris’ general hostility isn’t much better. (It’s also worth noting that despite their apparent differences, in the fall for the same sort of emotionally abusive, I’m-no-good-for-you type of guy.) I don’t know whether Roth intended it for her protagonist to be any sort of role model, and of course, it’s perfectly fine if she didn’t. But insofar as we view Tris as a response to Bella, it bears mentioning that empowerment isn’t the same thing as brutality.
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23 June, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: advertising, breaking dawn, catching fire, divergent, dystopia, indie author, insurgent, mockingjay, mutt, post-apocalyptic, promotion tips, rittenhouse, science fiction, self publication, self publishing, stephanie meyer, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, twilight, veronica roth, women's issues, you promised you'd take me to see the king, You're Just A Mutt, young adult | 3 Comments »
It seems everywhere I turn these days, somebody is saying they’ve just read Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and they absolutely love it. I’ve read the first book, and I unfortunately can’t find the same enthusiasm that everyone around me has. I did enjoy the book, and I applaud Collins for her work, but there were several things that detracted from the experience for me. Here are two minor problems and one major one that I feel made The Hunger Games good instead of great.
1) Really bad copy editing. This isn’t Collins’ fault so much as Scholastic’s, and it’s something that can be corrected in future editions. But it’s a reminder that no matter how big the publisher, a book just might not receive quality editing, so it falls upon the author herself to ensure the version going to press is good.
2) Obvious similarities to Battle Royale. This 2000 Japanese film was based on a 1999 novel by Koushun Takami, which centers around a class of high school freshmen kidnapped and pitted in a last-man-standing deathmatch, which is broadcast on live TV. The ongoing similarities between THG and Battle Royale wouldn’t be so problematic alone, but they offer an interesting contrast for my main issue with the former…
3) (SPOILER WARNING) A lack of genuine hard decisions for Katniss. As Battle Royale so well illustrates, this plot setup is a goldmine of impossible situations. Groups of friends form alliances that implode in paranoia and violence. Some contestants kill themselves rather than participating in the game, while others plot doomed escape attempts. The characters in BR also know each other, which makes for even more tension as old school friendships and rivalries turn lethal.
Collins sidesteps the real difficulty of her scenario by creating a group of “bad” players from the outset and having them eliminate every character the reader is supposed to like. Katniss wonders whether she may have to fight Rue or Foxface, but they’re cleanly killed off by the Careers, dodging scenarios where Katniss would have to make an ambiguous decision. Her only hard choices involve Peeta, and we pretty much know from the start how that plotline is going to turn out because, well, duh. He’s the male lead.
Two things are worth noting lest I come off as one-sided. Battle Royale is clearly targeted at a much more mature audience than The Hunger Games, so it gets away with a lot more. It also has a similar ending to The Hunger Games, and that ending feels much harder to believe after everything else to which the story has exposed us.
The Hunger Games actually really sold me in its own ending. The closing chapters, after the Games ended, were my favorites, and I do intend to continue the series. Right after I finish A Dance With Dragons/some school reading/everything David Mitchell ever wrote.
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5 March, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Battle Royale, book review, books, dystopian, Koushun Takami, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, young adult | 2 Comments »
