Hunger Games/The Pearl/The Last Lesson of Mrs De Souza (edna)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (YA novel) 

i must be the third or fourth person here to list The Hunger Games as my YA option, but i have to because i literally speed-read it last week in three hours for this assignment and now it is ruining my life because i need to finish the next two books of the trilogy before i can move on with my life. This is probably a good time to write about this because i have no idea what happens next (have not watched the second film either) so i can review the first book on its own merit.

So, quick synopsis that no one needs: The Hunger Games is a story about a dystopian world of the future where people are split into twelve poverty-stricken districts, controlled by the freakish, rich, all powerful Capitol. Every year, the Capitol organises a Hunger Games, where the districts nominate two children tributes each to participate in a bloodbath in which the children kill each other to be the last one standing, all for the entertainment of the inhabitants of the Capitol. So it's a bit like Survivor meets The Amazing Race meets university life with an exam bell curve.

The story is written in the present tense from the first person perspective of Katniss, who volunteers to participate in the games after her twelve year old sister's name is drawn as tribute. She is joined by Peeta, who i found over the weekend has intentionally been given a punny bread name because he is a baker's son (if this is false, blame Gerry), and they navigate the Hunger Games together. The interesting thing about the Games is that, being a source of reality TV entertainment for the Capitol, it does not only involve the arena competition, but also all the pre-Games build up, where tributes get interviewed and showcased in order to gain sponsors by people who invest their time and money in betting on their favourite participant. So it's a bit like the voting stuff we do on reality shows where we pay to keep people we like in the game show.

By many turns of events, Katniss and Peeta end up winning The Hunger Games together even though there is only supposed to be one winner, every other kid dies, and the authorities in the Capitol are not happy that they both managed to break the system and defy the rules of the game. The Capitol is going to do something about Katniss and Peeta, which i will find out when i finish the second and third books dun dun dunnnn.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck (MOE approved text. at least i think it is, because i studied it in Secondary School, so it has to be approved...unless my school broke the system Katniss-style.)

Synopsis: The Pearl is about a pearl diver named Kino, his wife Juana, and their baby son Coyotito, who live happily but in relative poverty in a little town in La Paz. One morning, a scorpion pays Coyotito a visit in his crib and stings him, poisoning him, and Kino and Juana take him to the doctor. The doctor, however, is a rich white excuse of a man who has no interest in helping "the natives", and refuses to help Kino because he has no money to pay for the treatment.

So Kino goes on a dive in search of a pearl and, as luck would have it, he finds a giant one. But our flawed, brave protagonist lacks the common sense to be quiet about it, and soon everyone knows that Kino has found The Pearl of the World (TM)....even Dr Moneybags, who comes down to Kino's hut to take a look at Coyotito, pretending he planned all along to help the baby but was previously busy with other commitments.

Among the people who have heard about the pearl are the pearl buyers, and the resident pearl buyer in La Paz is yet another crook who plays legerdemain with a coin and pretends that a pearl as huge as Kino's is a monstrosity worth no value at all. Kino is predictably angry with the buyer's assessment of his pearl's value, and declares that he will go out of town to find someone else who will buy his pearl at proper value.

One night, someone tries to rob Kino of his pearl and it's starting to feel like Lord of the Rings because the One Pearl seems to be the bringer of all things evil and Coyotito still has not got any better, so the family go on the run with their Pearl to presumably find some other place to sell it. On the way, they get tracked by evil people, and Coyotito is shot in an accident. The novel ends when they take the pearl back to the ocean and cast it back into the watery chasm from whence it came.

The Last Lesson of Mrs De Souza by Cyril Wong (other novel)

Synopsis: Set in the fictional St Nicholas Boys School in Singapore, English teacher Mrs De Souza is retiring and having her last lesson with her boys. She obviously spends the lesson telling stories instead of teaching a class, and recalls a time in her career involving a student named Amir.

Years ago in this same school, Amir had come to confide in Mrs De Souza, and confessed that he was gay and was afraid of not being able to live up to his father's expectations, among other struggles. Mrs De Souza, not knowing how to respond appropriately, was not unkind to him, but tried giving him advice, none of which Amir thought was good for him. She suggested that he come out to his father, to which Amir refused to do. He pleads with her to never tell his father.

The confession hit Mrs De Souza hard and made her think about how to help Amir. After much thinking, she came to the conclusion that telling Amir's father was having Amir's best interests at heart, and would be the solution because she would be able to reason with his father to make him understand. She failed, and sometime later, Amir committed suicide without ever telling anyone why.

This event has haunted Mrs De Souza through the rest of her teacher career and she wonders what happened and if she could have done anything differently or better. Her last lesson with her students end with her students affirming her as a good teacher, and she leaves her class reflecting on her career and deciding that she has done all she could. But as she packs her things up to leave, she finds a note she has never seen before and... dun dun dunnnn it's from Amir, written just before his suicide, telling her how he felt about what she did, and how it is her fault that he has to commit suicide.

In short, it's a really depressing ending.

The book i would choose to teach:

In the ideal world, i would choose to teach The Last Lesson of Mrs De Souza, because it's a local text and set in a secondary school, which makes it very relatable to students, and it deals with identity, struggle, family, love, and irony, which are all very poignant themes that should be dealt with in class. It is a complex text where morality and ethics are concerned, in which there is very much less black and white as compared to the other two texts (even though they explore complex morality in their own right). However, considering that this has to be taught in a classroom and probably needs to be approved, the subject matter of homosexuality would possibly be seen as a controversial one in given context and i want to keep my job. That aside, i do think that this would be a powerful text that students (and teachers!) could have a meaningful literary discussion of in class.

In another ideal world, i would like to teach The Hunger Games as well, because it is also a thematically rich text, and its fictional setting makes it easier to discuss issues of oppression and marginalisation without being accused of having a political agenda towards/against sensitive social issues. The popularity of the text aside, i think the language of the text is accessible (yet well-written enough for me to want to read the next two books) for students and will be a welcome inclusion to any literature syllabus. My only concern would be the fact that this is the first of a trilogy, and the likelihood of having to get students to read all three books (though they may already have and/or do so on their own) in order to discuss across the texts will be quite high.

With that, i guess i'll be boring and go with the MOE approved text, The Pearl. I don't, however, think The Pearl is a bad text to teach. It may be a little less accessible than the other two texts because it uses more nuanced and complex language, is set in Bolivia, and was not turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, but it is precisely all of this that makes The Pearl a really rich text to read and analyse. Plot-wise, it's a slow moving story, but the writing is full of beautiful symbolism and imagery, and there is a lot to explore thematically with racial oppression, family relationships, and pride (among others) as well.