47 pages • 1 hour read
Invitation To The Game
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Symbols & Motifs
The Game
The Game is the most important symbol in the novel. It represents the existential quest to find meaning in life. The teens initially seek out The Game because they hear it is a mysterious event that only some unemployed people are invited to join. Its exclusivity appeals to the teens. Wanting to find out more information about The Game becomes a goal for the teens, who are looking for some sort of purpose or structure in their life. The Game serves as both an escapist fantasy and as a testing ground for the teens to practice their skills. In The Game, they forget their low social status and dreary living conditions, focusing instead on exploring the landscape of the virtual simulation for clues. The teens become so invested in The Game that they start to treat it as almost a religion, orienting their life around it. Furthermore, they debate its purpose and to what extent it is real, and their discussions are similar to theological arguments.
The Game Manager compares The Game to video games of the 20th century, suggesting that it also serves as a commentary on the utility of video games. While some characters, like Rich, find The Game to be a waste of time because it is only a simulation, others, like Lisse defend its value because it gives meaning to their lives. While there is not a direct connection between the video games of Hughes’ time and The Game, Hughes implies that video games and similar types of technology can have value beyond just recreation. They can be educational by encouraging the players to cooperate towards a common goal.
Ultimately, The Game’s true purpose is to prepare teens for a new life on another planet, and they use the same hypnosis employed in The Game to unwittingly transport the teens to a new planet. The blurring of lines between simulation and reality suggests that life itself is not so different than The Game. While we may never be sure if what we are experience is “real” or not, Hughes suggests only sure way to happiness is through self-actualization by creating our own meaning in life. Ultimately, Lisse finds more meaning from helping to create a new society than she would have if she had stayed on Earth and had a regular job.
Rats in a Maze
A recurring motif in the novel is the image of rats in a maze, which is used to represent The Government’s constant surveillance and control as well as its experimental use of The Game. Lisse compares herself and the other teens to animals in a lab experiment, forced to run through a maze while a scientist observes from above. Throughout the novel, she returns to this image to explain the fear and anxiety she feels knowing that The Government is watching her. Lisse’s fears are founded, as The Government controls every aspect of the teens’ lives, not unlike a scientist manipulating variables in an experiment. Thus, the image of a rat in a maze illustrates the powerlessness Lisse feels at not having any power over her own life.
Moreover, the image of rats in a maze takes on a new dimension due to the teens’ participation in The Game. By playing The Game, they become participants in an actual experiment, though they do not realize it. The Game Manager hints that The Game is an experiment when he uses scientific jargon to discuss its rules. However, the teens only realize they are test subjects when they discover they were transported to a new planet against their will. Once on Prize, Lisse can finally dismiss the image of rats in an experiment from her head because she believes The Government is no longer monitoring them.
The Egg
Lisse describes the plastic landing pod which deposits Lisse and her group on the new planet as a “natal egg” because of its shape (157). It represents the symbolic rebirth of the teens because it transports them to their new life. Hughes depicts their journey to Prize like the stages of birth: a spaceship, representing a womb, carries them to a new world, and when they arrive, they break out of the landing pod like they are hatching from an egg. They do not remember the process of their arrival, and they even forget about the landing, just as children cannot recall being born. Their emigration to the new planet marks a new stage in Lisse’s life, one where she and her peers leave behind the socioeconomic problems on Earth and instead build a new society of their own. The egg marks the rupture between their previous life and their new one, signifying that they are making a fresh start on this untouched planet.
Prize as Paradise
The teenage colonists name the new planet Prize because it is their reward for winning The Game. Lisse explains, “It was kind of a joke at first, but it has come to mean so much more than that” (170). The name Prize is ironic since the teens’ initial reaction to living in the inhospitable conditions of the new planet when they first arrive is anger and frustration. They wonder sarcastically if the Government has sent them to this new location as a reward, since it seems more like a punishment. However, once they decide to make the best of it, the planet’s name takes on a new meaning: They view being on Prize as an opportunity to build a life on their own terms. Furthermore, comparing the new planet to a reward suggests that the teens are part of an elect group that has proven themselves worthy. Thus, the novel alludes to Christian theology in which only the virtuous ascend to heaven.
Prize is an allegory for the Christian heaven. During The Game, Lisse eats a nut that she remarks is “sweet as Paradise” (106). While Lisse makes this comparison in the simulation of Prize, not on the actual planet, this establishes the idea that the landscape they explore in the simulation is so perfect that it is otherworldly, like heaven. The actual planet is not this ideal, since Lisse and the other teens must fend off dampness, sickness, and discomfort. However, once they decide to forge a new society, they create a utopian community that seems almost too good to be true, one where all the inhabitants live in perfect harmony. Thus, Prize does transform into a real paradise—a place where Lisse finds self-actualization and leaves all the troubles of Earth behind.
Prize also resembles the Garden of Eden because it is an unspoiled world with everything humans need to survive and create a civilization, including iron, copper, timber, edible plants, and animals. Like God in the story of Genesis, The Government provides the humans it transplants onto the new planet with a world of abundance. Prize is also free from all human pollution, allowing the colonists to build a society without repeating humanity’s environmentally destructive mistakes.
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