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Saad Ghareeb
Prof. Rebecca Lawson
English 113B
22 April 2015
Government Control in The Hunger Games
Will The Hunger Games be real in the future? The Hunger Games is a series of the books,
which are: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay written by Suzanne Collins. The
books talk about a country called Panem in the future. This country has twelve districts and the
Capitol. Rich people and the government live in the Capitol, and the poorest people live in
District 12. This book shows what may happen in the future and how the government controls
their citizens. They kill them and burn their houses if they dont obey their orders. This series of
books show also how Katniss Everdeen, the main character in the book, helps her family and her
people from all districts to say to the Capitol, stop controlling us. What the book shows, is
exactly happening in the real world especially in Syria.
The Capitol is the bad government of Panem. They treat their people like slaves, and they
dont give them their rights. In Syria, the government also treats their people as the Capitol treats
theirs. The government has a rule that every year there is a Hunger Games. The Hunger Games
rules are choosing twenty-four people from all twelve districts, and they call them the tributes.
Each district they choose one male and one female to represent their districts in the Hunger
Games. Syrian government has the Hunger Games every day, and they force people to kill each
other to survive. The government chooses them randomly, and when they call the name, the
person has to go to the Capitol to play. In the Hunger Games there is always just one winner, and
to win, the other people in the games have to die. In Syria, there is no winners expect the people

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who support Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President. The winner in the Hunger Games will go
back to his districts, will have a house, food, and will be safe. The Capitol will also give his
district more food. Also if someone won the Hunger Games, he would never be chosen to play
the games again. Bashar al-Assad doesnt give the winners, people who support him, gifts. He
also treats them like slaves and threats them in their families lives if they dont obey. The Capitol
forces them to play the games, and between twenty-four people one person has to survive. The
government, as the book showed, controls the citizens lives, they feed people as they want, they
make them work whatever the government wants, and they punish them hardly if they dont
obey. In the book, in the 74th Hunger Games in District twelve, the government picked Prims
name, Katniss little sister, to represent the district in the hunger games, but she was only twelveyears old. As the book showed, the tributes have to be between twelve and eighteen-years old to
be forced to enter the hunger games. Katniss, sixteen-years old, felt so bad that they picked her
sisters name to go to the games, and she has only one way to make her sister stays in District
twelve. She has to volunteer and represent the district instead of her sister, and that what she did.
Because of these bad rules, the Everdeen family may lose either Katniss or Prim. In al-Assads
government, there are no volunteers, if they got picked, they must obey. The government forces
people to kill each other to say to the media that they are killing each other, and we dont have
anything with that. The Hunger Games is going to begin and they started to say goodbye to their
families because the tough government rule, they might not come back. In Syria, when people
everyday want to go out, they say goodbye to their families because they might not come back.
Katniss and Peeta traveled to the Capitol by the train, and the government made them eat
a lot of delicious food because maybe they would die. They also made them train to be ready for
the fight. Syrian government doesnt give people food and doesnt train them. The games began

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and ended with Katniss and Peeta alive, and in the middle of the games, the government told
them that two people will be the winners as a new rule for the games. In the end they told them
that the rule has been changed, and there is only one winner, so either Peeta or Katniss have to
die. Katniss got mad and she didnt want to kill Peeta. Also Peeta had this feeling, so they
planned to force the government to change the rule and make it like the old one. Their plan was
eating the poison berry because none of them wants to kill the other. When they got ready to eat
it, the government announced their winning. If this were in Syria, the government would let them
die. On this moment, the problems began to come to the Capitol because people found out that
the government could be forced.
There is a rule in the hunger games that every twenty-five years there should be
something different in the games, and the call it The Quarter Quell. The 75th Hunger Games is
the third quarter quell, and people expect that there is something different is going to happen this
year. The new shocked the citizens because the new rule was that this Hunger Games would be
only for the winners in the last games. One of the wining gifts is that the winner would never be
picked in the next hunger games, and he and his family would live free and safe. This unfair rule
is like one of al-Assads rules. He doesnt care about what he told people because his rules are
always changing. The reason of the Capitols rule was to get Katniss killed because she started to
be a hero after wining the 74th Hunger Games. They wanted to kill her because she made a lot of
problems to the Capitol and people love her, so they will be on her side. Syrian government also
do this to people who think they are heroes. The Games began and ended by Katniss when she
destroyed the arena. They got her and Peeta was missed. The Capitol took him as a hostage. This
showed how the Capitol was injustice and doesnt care about their people. That also showed how
the government controlled the whole country, and how they treat the citizen badly. Most people

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in Panem want to stop this government and change it, and they cant because if they thought of
it, the government would kill them. This is also happening in Syria
Katniss knew that Peeta is missed, but nobody knows that he is in the Capitol, and they
think that he was died. Because of what Katniss did in the arena, the government destroyed
District twelve and burned it, like what they did in District thirteen in the beginning of the book.
Al-Assad also did this to people who rebel and destroyed their homes. District thirteen was found
underground and called the rebellion district, and they were leaded by President Coin. This
district has goal that is destroying the Capitol and make President Coin the president of Panem
instead President Snow who is the current president of Panem. Katniss brought to District
thirteen and said that she wants to be the Mockingjay. District thirteen represents The Free Army
in Syria because they have the same goals. They want to remove the unjust government and
replace it with a better one. They started the revolution and destroyed some of the Capitols
airplanes. They started the mission, the Capitol dropped a bomb to kill the rebellions, and
District thirteen sent the medical group including Prim, Katniss sister, who had been taught to be
a doctor. The Capitol dropped other bomb, Prim died and Katniss injured. Killing innocent and
sick people in Syria is being normal now because its happening every day. This showed how
people could have the word and change the government if it is a bad government, and as Katniss
said, We burn, you burn with us. These bad governments shouldnt exist in our real world
because it is against the humanity, but this is life, it has to have consequences.
Are there bad government and unjust governments in our real world like the Capitol? It is
actually happening in our world that the government kills innocent people without any reasons,
just because they dont obey their unfair laws. It is happening in Syria where there is no justice.
According to BBC News, More than 200,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four years of

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armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale
civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to
President Bashar al-Assad. A lot of poor children are being killed in these days, and a lot of
them fled their homes in Syria because of this unfair government. Bashar al-Assad is like
President Snow in the Hunger Games, he doesnt care about the citizens, and he only cares about
himself and his people. There is an army in Syria called The Free Army, and it is like the
rebellions in the Hunger Games. Theyre trying to destroy the government and change it with
another just government. They are fighting against the injustice, and trying to help the innocent
people from the injustice. The whole world hope that Syria becomes like the old Syria, and
become a safe country again.
In conclusion, the Hunger Games isnt just a novel. It is showing how the country is if the
government is unjust. The Hunger Games is now happening in Syria, and a lot of people are
dying. The whole world has the faith that Bashar al-Assad will get President Snows destiny and
die. A lot of countries are against al-Assads side, and according to CNN, The ongoing violence
against civilians has been condemned by the Arab League, the European Union, the United
States and other countries. A lot of people only read this novel for fun and dont think of it
seriously. According to Stephen King, Collins is an efficient no-nonsense prose stylist with a
pleasantly dry sense of humor. Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently
simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local
eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway. What would
happen if it were really happening in their country? What would happen if they were Syrians?
People have to think about it, and think that is happening in their countries. They would not feel
as bad as the Syrians feel.

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Work cited
Collins,Suzanne.TheHungerGames.NewYork:Scholastic,2008.Print
Collins,Suzanne.CatchingFire.NewYork:Scholastic,2009.Print.
Collins,Suzanne.Mockingjay.NewYork:Scholastic,2010.Print.
King, Stephan. "The Hunger Games." N.p., 12 Sept. 2008. Web.
"Syria Civil War Fast Facts - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"Syria:TheStoryoftheConflict."BBCNews.N.p.,n.d.Web.22Apr.2015.