Mockingbird + Jabberjay = Mockingjay?

Yet again, Dr. Mortimore managed to fight fate and find a book that I genuinely enjoyed reading. Feed was the first novel that I didn’t have to struggle to read and get through since, well, I can’t even remember. Well, not only did I have to not struggle to get through the Hunger Games, but there were actually times where I couldn’t put the book down. I enjoyed reading this book. I can’t even believe that I’m saying this, but it’s the truth! At first, I must admit, I was skeptical. The whole idea of this type of lottery where someone from each town (or district) was randomly selected to go and basically get killed (assuming they weren’t going to win) was pretty disturbing. Once the game itself actually started though, and even the “pre-game” festivities and such, I started to really fall for Collin’s… imagination? It was one of those books (or movies even) that you look back on and wonder how someone just came up with that idea and concept and then actually made it seem appealing and entertaining to an audience; or in this case, the reader.
I can definitely see where some connections could be made and how the Hunger Games works “in conversation” with the other novels we have read so far. For one, the audience viewed the arena and participants within in the same way that Big Brother saw over everyone on in 1984 via the telescreens. In the same way that Winston had to “act” in order to please the party, Katniss had to do her fair share of “acting” to please the audience (including the sponsors). One of my favorite parts of the novel was Collin’s creation of the jabberjays and, consequently, mocking jays – basically, birds that can repeat sounds of sorts. Along with this was my interest in the mutant wolves that were chasing Cato, Katniss, and Peeta towards the end of the novel, which were actually the fallen tributes. Both of these ideas seemed really futuristic to me, which is why I liked them so much. Furthermore, a connection can be made to the technological advances in Feed. Both novels are clearly set in the future some time from now where technology has seemingly become something it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t think that the creators of the feed intended for it’s user’s to no be able to function without it. Likewise, the creators of the jabberjays intended for them to die off after the dark days when left in the woods. Instead, they mated with regular mockingbirds and, as a result, created what the districts called mockingjays. This proved to show a bit of the Capitol’s stupidity in their original creation. The point is that there is a similarity here in the way that technology sort of unraveled itself.
The character that I found myself connecting with the most throughout the novel was definitely Gale. It wasn’t that I could really relate to him in some way, but rather, I could just feel for him. I feel like he was probably watching the games and feeling left out in a sense, almost betrayed. Katniss found a new best friend, a new “lover” for that matter, at the games in Peeta. I couldn’t help but wonder what Gale was thinking as he watched everything unfold with his best friend, which I’m sure probably came of as having forgotten about her friend from home altogether.
Finally, it’s kind of funny that one of the requirements for this blog was to find a multimedia connection to the novel because the entire time I was reading I was actually thinking about a movie that had a similar idea or concept behind it. That is, the idea of sending people out on a mission (in both cases, referred to as a “game”) and then have an audience sit back and watch it unfold as if it were a television show. “Rat Race” is a movie that came out in 2001 where “a Las Vegas casino magnate, determined to find a new avenue for wagering, sets up a race for money.” The idea is basically to bet on a winner, then sit back and watch the race, or “game” for that matter, unfold as basically a form of entertainment. Sound familiar at all? Here’s a trailer of the movie: Rat Race