To my surprise, a fresh, glossy copy of Credenda/Agenda turned up on my doorstep today. Within said pages I found Doug Wilson’s review of the fairly-new book The Hunger Games, in which he criticizes it robustly for ethical and moral relativism (you can read the first part of this essay online here). In terms of “helping Christian young people set their minds and hearts on that which is noble and right,” Wilson concludes, “we can’t even give it one star. We would have to assign, in this last category, one burnt out asteroid,” (18).
This article provides us with a solid point from which to jump into thinking about fiction, ethics and moral presentation, issues that stand high and tall in the contemporary Christian fiction circles.
First, a caveat. I have not read The Hunger Games myself, yet there is enough in his review to be going on with, because he uses the ethical dilemma of the books to discuss such matters himself. On that count, we have a neatly rounded account. (UPDATE: I have now finished reading all three Hunger Games books, and still stand by what I argued in this post.)
I feel that Wilson has fallen, firstly, into the trap of thinking fiction is first and primarily about ideas and instruction, such like setting the “hearts and minds” of Christian young people on the “noble and right.” Sorry, I must have missed that memo. And if that is what you really want, go read the Lamplighter series. As the Scripture says, he has his reward already. Fiction is about people, and as another article from the Credenda pages so accurately notes, stories are primarily about learning to love some vile sinner on the path to redemption. This is not to attack standards, or to say that we cannot evaluate literature, simply that we ought evaluate it fairly, for Pete’s sake. We want to turn the unique events of a story into a universalizing principle when it stands as a tale of what “this person” did in a given situation. This is to say nothing about what she perhaps ought to have done.
In the second place, I feel Wilson has unfairly criticized the book, as Christians are wont to do, on the basis of a category mistake; that is, because a book or film does not present moral answers as pouring down from on high or consulting the Bible directly they paint a picture of “situation ethics.” But just because a book does not give you a propositionally defined moral code does not mean, therefore and upon that basis, that it has defaulted to situational ethics. It ignores completely the fact that Christian ethics actually has a situational application, in which the abstract principles must be carried into unique circumstances, which requires wisdom to apply in new ways to new places. Wilson has not so much rejected wisdom as forgotten it was there. But we must, particularly with fiction, take that into account.
Now, to the situation into which Wilson believes such ethics are being inserted. We follow our protagonist Katniss in the first person through a dystopian future. There is, as the trope requires, an evil and corrupt government called the Capitol, which has separated North American into twelve districts. Every year, each district is obligated to send one boy and one girl to the arena, to participate in the Hunger Games, a challenge of fight-to-the-death, kill-or-be-killed. Katriss’s younger sister is chosen to enter the arena, so naturally Katriss takes her place to spare her life.
But Katniss is now faced with the truly appalling reality of participating in the Games herself. Will she kill another young human being to survive? Wilson goes for the opt-out scenario. He writes that it is “better to be wronged than to wrong. It is not a sin to be murdered” (17). All perfectly true. But he forgets the premise. This is not something they’re asked to do. it is something they are being forced to do. If Katniss refuses to participate, the Games defaults back to her sister and we’re back at square one. As Wilson also points out, some of the participants are trained to play for glory – they’re not reluctant kids. They’re out for blood. In such a coercive situation, it is all self-defense.
Wilson is, of course, correct to note that it is not a sin to get murdered; unfortunately this won’t work in the book since it will simply default back to her sister. As it happens it is also not a sin to kill when someone breaks into your house to kill your family. Bam, you’re dead and no sin here. I don’t think it particularly matters if the person breaking into your house had a gun to his head, making him do it. Bam, you’re still dead, even though I’ll feel waaaay worse about having to do it.
Wilson objects to the book on the basis that authors can create a place where “it is not true that with every temptation there is a way of escape,” (17). But it is extremely clear – even having read only his review of the book – that Katniss does exactly this. She survives and “without doing anything perfectly appalling,” (17). But this in itself doesn’t really count because she didn’t learn “anything about how the world is actually governed,” (17-18). We’re back to the “the book wasn’t explicitly Christian” argument. Guess I missed that memo too.
I am half-tempted to propose a new form of Deus Ex Machina in which we can claim an objection to a book is a Deus Ex Machina objection if the objector is complaining that God doesn’t show up at the end descending from a wire and delivering a sermon about the sources of authority in the world, or about where morals come from, or why we should all be nice boys and girls.
The real issue is this: Is this world a Christian world or not? Is it a Christian world even if nobody acknowledged that? Is Romans 1 true or isn’t it? If it is true, then can I present the world in fiction without making God a character and it still be a Christian world? Of course. So then, all the objections sort of crumble away, really.
Wilson is better than this review. He even (shockingly) stumbles at the end. He complains through the whole first two pages of the review that Katniss will be forced to commit sin and that this is objectionable. Then he argues that she actually finds a way to not commit sin and still survive to help her struggling family, which sort of takes away all the objections – but even this is objectionable because she didn’t learn about how the universe is supposed to work. And it is doubly objectionable since she only survives “because of luck, not because she learned anything about how the world is supposed to be governed,” (17-18).
But how are we supposed to take this? She survives out of luck, not out of finding out how the universe really operates. Yet, the universe does not operate according to luck. No character in fiction ever survives by luck. They survive because the Author decreed they would survive. Which would make her survival not a matter of luck at all, but a matter of sheer, unadulterated grace. Concerning which I hear Wilson is something of a fan. The confusion appears to me to be uncharacteristic for Wilson and therefore a bit baffling. The world operates on grace whether we like it or not; what we see as luck is nothing more than a tiny slice of divine grace offered in the form of survival and the tensions of the story resolving.
Tags: Christianity, ethics, ethics in fiction, the hunger games
Thanks for this article. (I just read the series this week and am looking for some Christian reviews & commentaries, and yours is the first I’ve read.) I had not even heard of the series until recently when I saw it mentioned in a CT article on the Harry Potter books, mentioning it as one of the “best-selling series of the 21st century.”
If you do happen to read The Hunger Games at some point, I’d be interested in your reaction to the whole work from a Christian point of view. It presents a far more complex moral and interpersonal landscape than many works it’s compared to, and is probably disturbing to anyone who reads it seriously whether Christian or not. No doubt it was intended to be disturbing.
Mike, thanks for stopping by! Glad you found it somewhat helpful. I am planning on reading the book – it is whirring its way towards my local library as we speak – and I would like to do a follow up post on it once I’ve gotten through it. Keep checking back!
I was glad to see you ran across John Granger’s CT article on the Potter series. He’s the world’s premier Potter scholar and a personal acquaintance of mine. A good guy.
I appreciate your critique of Wilson’s review, not only because you made some good points, but because so many people believe anything Christian authorities say without ever thinking about the quality of the actual arguments.
I recently read and liked the Hunger Games and the 2nd book, but hated the third book on levels of both morality and craftsmanship. As for the first two, the main character (Katniss) doesn’t make all the right choices or have all the right motives, but it did seem like she was moving in the right direction, which was what made her character dynamic and the story interesting. She does have a moral compass in one of the other characters, and if you want the author’s moral code it’s better to look to him.
I’ll be interested to see what you think of the books….
Thanks, Rachel! Obviously, since I haven’t read the books I’m simply commenting on the logic of Wilson’s review. I don’t think anyone could maintain that Katniss never did anything wrong (would we really want a protagonist who did?) I’m getting more and more interested in reading these books.
Very good points. I like this one: “what we see as luck is nothing more than a tiny slice of divine grace offered in the form of survival and the tensions of the story resolving.” So true! The world does not operate based on luck, and so that IS what a story is about… plus: “Fiction is about people, and as another article from the Credenda pages so accurately notes, stories are primarily about learning to love some vile sinner on the path to redemption.”
So that the basic storyline by which we determine what is a tale is: getting in the skin of a vile sinner who is in a world governed by more than luck. (Which is why right must prevail). Funny… sounds a LOT like Christ coming to earth so as to get to know us vile sinners… who live in a world not governed by luck…
In this way, we see that the threads of our own psych are engrained in the tapestry of God’s universe. We’re part of His story. Any story that mirrors His reality will reflect Him, and, therefore, be satisfactory to us. Now I know where all those themes I write come from! Haha!
~Adele
Adele, I love it! Glad it was so helpful to you. Yes, learning to love a vile sinner in a world not governed by luck is exactly what Christ did for us, and which we’re called to do in our own real lives. Fiction, then, offers us a way to learn more about loving vile sinners on their way to redemption (or ultimately rejecting redemption).
I am a teacher in a small Christian School. This is my first year teaching though I am in my 50′s. I was in college up until I took this position teaching a scholastic reading program.I home schooled my sons and knew first hand the difficulty finding books that hold the interest of non-readers. I have a handful of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade boys who would not read. After finding and reading Hunger Games myself, I had boys in my classes excited about reading. Our discussions were amimated and informative about these books. Kids were buying books that had never bought a book in their life. I whole heartedly recommend the Hunger Games. The cruelty and poverty that the people have to endure under a totalitarian government, the choices they must make, the innocents that are killed and mourned, the forgivness given by the Districts forced to watch the games as a way to pit them against each other so as not to rebel was so beautifully written it’s hard to believe this is a 6-9th grade reading level. Long story short the book is now being removed from the school library, a parent had a “concern”. I have yet to find anyone involved in this decision who has actually read the book. It is intellectually dishonest to only read parts of the book and condemn it. The very least a child would get out of this book is it would make them glad to be an American, where personal liberty’s are protected.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read the hunger games.
What is worse a civilization that seeks redress from long ago event by having children fight to death as entertainment or we as the readers of such material who think this is entertainment?
The problem I have with such fiction is it takes us to places that we need not go. Do we come accustom to such violence and slog it off as entertainment? Or are we just becoming desensitized to such material and ignoring the long term effects it may have on what we think entertainment really is.
Jonathan,
The value of The Hunger Games, for me, is that it takes me places I don’t want to go. Its author claims that part of the inspiration for the book comes from her father’s experiences in Vietnam. She wanted to show what it feels like to live and die outside the protection of America’s borders. One of the events that most changed my life was a trip to Guatemala, where I saw firsthand the residual racism and hatred caused by genocide and revolution. The worst thing, for me, is to know that America did that violence.
I’m not a pacifist, and I don’t want to be political. But I think a lot of Americans ignore things that actually happen around the world, because they don’t want to think through the results of even America’s actions. Reading The Hunger Games, for me, is a personal experience. I feel closer to soldiers suffering from PTSD, and better honor their sacrifice. I feel more reluctant to resort to war as a first resort, knowing the ways in which destruction and death, revolution and counter-revolution can become self-perpetuating. And I feel just enough “desensitized” to violence that I don’t have to turn entirely away in horror when I hear about genocides or towns razed to the ground or death squads–instead, I am prepared to face those horrors with a bit more understanding, and a bit more familiarity.
There’s a lot going on in The Hunger Games. One of the main things is a condemnation of our culture’s obsession with entertainment, which is raised explicitly at many points in the story. But the story’s violence and disturbing nature aren’t invented for shock value or entertainment; they’re central to the complex political and moral world the book describes. They also are never “just entertainment.” The main character has nightmares throughout the books about every death she causes, directly or indirectly. She sees loved ones killed before her eyes, and watches as others lose their souls by giving themselves to hatred and death. All these details aren’t titilating (though I fear a movie version could make them so.) The way they’re described–through the heroine’s first-person narration, they drive home the horrors of all the violence, and contrast against the heroine’s hope for peace.
This isn’t “mere entertainment,” it’s thoughtful portraits of more difficult times sugar-coated by adventure (i.e. the joy of watching a heroine survive terrible dangers.) This may not be what most Americans think of as entertainment, but it’s pretty close to the heart of story-telling as practiced from Homer’s epics to the fairy tales collected by The Brothers Grimm.
A.M.E.N. Exactly!!
Jonathan, thanks. I get what you’re saying, but it isn’t what is going on in The Hunger Games. You seem to have dismissed THG because you perceive it as glorifying fighting to the death in an arena, when the opposite is really the case. Collins’ wrote THG as a treatise on the evils and destructive consequences of war and violence, not to take pleasure in it. Western culture is presented in the books as reveling in children forced to fight to the death, and it is overwhelmingly condemned.
So while I would abstractly agree with some of what you say, having read the Hunger Games trilogy now, the criticism does not apply. The lessons we learn (or are supposed to learn) is that the revelry in violence that our culture so freely indulges in is a bad thing. It is meant to shock us awake to the realities of our own world by presenting them in a grotesque caricature (as Flannery O’Connor spoke of).
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Thanks alot for this review. I read the trilogy in 2 days and I really liked it. I wanted to see a Christian review because aftervmy obsession over HP and then finding out the evil in it I became more wary of what I was reading. I agree with what you say and I believe Katniss is a strong Protagonist that did her best to do the right thing. FOR EXAMPLE, when Coin was planning to capture the workers in the Nut, Katniss objected when Gale wanted the workers to be trapped and killed… Thanks again,
-Team Peeta!!
PS. PEETA WAS ALSO AN IMPORTANT MORAL CHARACTER
I don’t understand why any Christian would be interested in any of the fantasy novels around today. Christians have a hard enough time following the commandments of God and the moral compass of Christ in the new testament without adding a third demention of fantasy which is just nonsense in the first place. No situation, no relationship, no job, no circumstance can be looked at in any other way but through the eyes of Christ and His teachings. A Christian who allows himself/herself to try to put themselves in the place of a fantasy being to see what they would do in a similar case is just wasting time on junk. Christ has told us NOT to waste out time on “whatever’s” but to make use of every minute of every day. There is not a shred of time to waste on putting ourselves into a fantasy situation. It isn’t FUN, it is FATAL to our Christian mindset.
Paulette….. well said, and I whole heartedly agree. It’s very disconcerting that Christians seem to make every argument in the book to do otherwise. From my perspective, all the hours wasted reading this trilogy could have been better spent in many different ways. I appreciate this blog and the insight it offered from all perspectives. I’ve been wrestling with the fact that this trilogy is being “worshipped” as in verbiage along the lines… “I can’t wait for the movie…” “I can’t get enough of the books” etc. Maybe I’m negated in my opinion because I have not read the series and am not interested in seeing the movie. However, what I have heard, read and seen (movie clips) is dark and sinister to our spirits. Why go there? I just don’t get it.
AT’s response to a comment:
“The lessons we learn (or are supposed to learn) is that the revelry in violence that our culture so freely indulges in is a bad thing. It is meant to shock us awake to the realities of our own world by presenting them in a grotesque caricature (as Flannery O’Connor spoke of).”
The success of THG is a glaring example of this “revelry in violence” you mention. And I have not heard one person who has “simply devoured” these books say anything even vaguely insightful. The comments rarely go beyond, “I couldn’t put it down.” and “Can’t wait for the movie.”
It seems to me that a study of history would and has produced shock to the realities of the depth of the evil of man. No need to predict such depth into a future none of use will ever see. There is nothing new under the sun.
The appetite for violence, sorcery and generally dark subject matters in literature seems to have done nothing but increase in recent years which is why THG has done so well. The pump was well primed.
Deb,
Let me say some things I pulled from The Hunger Games, that I think are intelligent. (None are new under the sun, as the author’s stated basis in Greek and Roman history and myth admit. But I still think THG has valuable lessons, even if other voices speak the same thing.)
1) It showed vividly the way that violence can warp the soul, what psychiatrists call PTSD. Glimpses of Katniss’s guilt over people who she directly or indirectly killed, her nightmares, and her lifelong emotional scars ring true. As a son of an army officer, I’ve always been fascinated by our military and the sacrifices they make. Reading THG gives me a bit more of a vivid idea of what it might be like to have the sort of nightmares and attitudes detailed in the nonfiction works such as “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. It allows me to respect our troops sacrifice more, and strive more to make such sacrifices unnecessary.
2) It has a lot of interesting commentary on the nature of oppression, a subject repeatedly obsessed over in the Old Testament. One of the fascinating things in the book is the way it shows an obviously evil government preying on people’s selfishness to make them support its evil aims. Even people in the city don’t think of themselves as evil. The portrait of people ignoring their evil actions, told from a fantasy perspective, helps remind me of ways we ignore the evils that support our own lives, whether the abortion-supported stem cell research intended to cure cancer or slave labor in the supply chains of the computer I type on right now. Such reminders can lead to repentance.
(spoiler alert)
3) It asks useful questions about the usefulness of revolution. One thing we’ve seen recently in the world is a spate of revolutions against oppressive governments. Our president spoke in support of, say, Egypt’s rebellion, standing as a representative of my votes. He also has acted to economically support some revolutionaries, and provided quasi-millitary support. But the end of THG trilogy presents a revolutionary government lead by someone who obtains power through murder, deceit, and threats. This sounds eerily familiar to many of the dictators America once supported, blindly believing that since communism was evil, anyone against it was good. THG reminds us that both sides can (and often are) wrong, and that war should always be an absolutely last resort.
Now I’m not saying THG is the first to say any of this, or that it is the best source for any of this information. But as an introduction to a lot of very difficult topics, presented towards young adults just forming their political beliefs, it seems like it is a most useful book.
Regarding your closing remark: THG has no sorcery, no sex (except in brief and oblique comments showing the city’s corruption), and its heroine is someone who hates violence. If people want to see a hero who is celebrated for using dark forces and dark deeds to slaughter an even darker evil, they’ll be sorely disappointed. But if they want to know what it would be like to live in a world overrun by violence and fear, they might get that here. Then they might better understand not only less-sheltered people in foreign countries, but the prayers of people living in less sheltered times, including the many prayers for peace that fill the Psalms and the Old Testament.
(And again, I’m not saying that THG is the best place to get all this stuff. But I am pointing out what its author intended, and what I see most readers are most likely to get out of it.)
I am deeply saddened and alarmed to see so many supposed Christians defending this sensational filth as worthy of reading. No amount of pseudo-moral justification can ever hope to excuse a Christian filling their mind with this vivid emo/gothic post-modern PsychoTrash. Christians near and far might do well to steer well clear of wanton what-ifs about hypothetical hysteria.
“what ever is good and pure, think on these things”– God
I completely agree! I accidentally saw the preview to the movie when I was attending another movie ( which I rarely do) it disturbed me so much. I wish I could remove it from my memory. I have many Christian friends (women mainly) that are completely enthralled by these books and going to see the movie. As a parent, and a Christian I can’t fathom wanting to watch children killing each other for survival purposes. This is nothing but evil in my opinion. Have we lost our ability to discern good from evil-I think many Christians have. Perhaps if we filled our minds with teachings of the Bible, Christian radio programs, uplifting Christian music, instead of reading these popular Harry Potter, Vampire books and Hunger Games books we would be better prepared to discern what we should use our free time watching and reading.
One final note: none of these elements mean that you, are anyone else, needs to read The Hunger Games. It probably is more useful to go to the original sources. But what THG does provide is a lot of thought-provoking situations filtered through the perspective of a fictional girl in the middle of a horrible situation, within the reassuring framework of an adventure book. I’d love for you to be able to understand that possibility when you see young people (or any people) reading The Hunger Games, and ask them about the effect on their lives before condemning the book or their reading of it as useless or evil.
I recognize that “to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.” One can read even a thoughtful book like The Hunger Games for the wrong reasons. But I believe most readers of THG are not glorying in violence.
I read all the books and they are awesome. But my parents tell me I can’t see the movie until they get a Christian review on the movie. I want to know if I can still see it and if it has alot of violence in it. Every one in my school is going to see it and I don’t want to be left out
Thank you for all your comments. I am a Christian mother with a 12 year old and 10 year old.
I have not let any of my kids read Harry Potter or that other Vampire book. I have not read the the Hunger Games and I am very protective on what my children are exposed to. I have read all the comments and have come to the conclusion that they will not read the books.
Better to be safe than sorry. It seems that the books, movies and actors turn into idols in a subtle way, and takes the focus off of Christ and His living word.
Excellent movie, haven’t read the book(s) but now I want to. GRIPPING, which is what good fiction is supposed to be. Extremely thought-provoking, made me ponder where I might be involved in actions or systems that are essentially exploitative, and want to do something to alleviate the suffering of innocents. Flannery O’Connor would definitely approve, and so do I.
I was NOT equally impressed w/ the Harry Potter series, but I guess no one’s asking…..
Great information