31 Students Remain

An article by Don Quixote    No Comments

Always a sucker for a good book, I decided to take Regan Clem’s recommendation and pick up a copy of Battle Royale.

So far it’s been a pretty interesting read. The over all premise is that every year within the government, an entire class of 3rd year students (normally around the age of 15) are dropped off in a deserted location and are told to kill each other.

The location could be an island or a part of the city that has been emptied. If the students refuse to kill each other, the state promises to do it for them.

I guess one of the more gruesome knells through out the book is that at the end of each chapter it keeps a running total of the number of students that are alive. The story begins with 42 students; I’m down to 31.

So far the book has been an interesting lesson in fear, human reaction, and the struggle of the rational mind in a context where societal constraints are removed and all the safety nets that we have in place in our community are removed.

Is it man in his base nature? I cannot say that for sure. What differentiates this book from something like The Lord of the Flies is that the children are forced into an artificial context in which they must kill each other or fear for their own lives. The Lord of the Flies doesn’t do that, rather it strips man of society and says, “Let’s see what happens.”

So for now that’s all I really can do; just keep reading and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.