Tesserae From The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games
Set in the dystopian Panem, the Hunger Games Trilogy depicts the lives of its citizens in the wealthy Capitol and 13 subordinate districts at varying levels of poverty.
This scenario as described in the books by Suzanne Collins strikingly resembles the status quo of our world. Wealthy western countries and underdeveloped nations. The pareto-distribution of income across the world. We even have more people dying of obesity in 2022 than people dying of hunger and malnourishment.
The vast dichotomy of the haves and have-nots in Panem reveals itself in numerous ways throughout the series. The writer depicts the dire situations in most poor districts by telling us the prevalence of starvation, in part thanks to the inability of the people to hunt. It’s forbidden to go beyond the districts to scavenge for food. One can only rely on the infamous tesserae system, which we will look into later in the article.
In stark contrast to the birthplace of our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, the story unfolds as Katniss arrives at the Capitol in preparation for the 74th Hunger Games. She is immediately taken aback by the abundance of lavish feasts and elaborately prepared dishes. It’s for the first time that she tries hot chocolate!
However, perhaps the best case in point for us to understand the disparity between the well-to-do and the less fortunate in Panem lies in the tessera system and the way in which tributes are selected for the games.
Tessera is a form of voluntary food rationing, offered by the government of Panem to people in the districts. Families struggling to get by would often enter their names of their children into the reaping ball additional times in exchange for food and oil. What ends up happening is that children from poor families are more likely to end up getting picked as tributes because there are more tickets with their names in the ballot. Furthermore, rich families from districts 1 and 2 have an additional edge over other competitors because they are trained to take part in the games. Katniss refers to them as Career Tributes as they are often stronger and broader in stature.
Needless to say, the odds of winning the games for richer families is much higher compared to the poor tributes.
My Thoughts
I believe this idea of tessera resembles the dire reality of society, in that we see more negative life outcomes and consequences associated with being born poor. Notice I have used the word being born poor. Because it’s important to remind ourselves that none of us chose our circumstances. We are dealt a hand in life and have to play accordingly.
Yet society seems to be predicated on the idea of meritocracy, the notion that success is based on our merit and that we deserve what we get. But is that really the case? I mean we didn’t choose our parents, our genetics, our upbringing, our race, our skin colour, our sex, our religious orientation etc.
Studies after studies have shown many different correlations between success and one’s background. As concluded by writer Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, he wrote
Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to life outside the ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky — but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.
The main takeaway from this is not to use this as an excuse to not chase our dreams, rather it should shed light on us that none of us truly deserves our success. People often end up where they are not purely because of their own actions, but of many variables outside of their control. All in all, it’s a reminder for us to show some level of empathy and compassion to our fellow human beings because at the end of the day we are in this together.
Thank you for reading.
