The novel, The Running Man, by Stephen King is an exceptional and modern related story that touches sensitive themes of corruption and social injustice in the society. A similar movie with starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards brings out the theoretical message in the book. Casted in the dystopian posterity representing American economy in 2025, the story in both the movie and the novel tries to touch on how influential companies and governments operate especially when working towards ensuring that lower level citizens are silenced or rather wallow in poor economic classes.
In the story, Ben Richards is lured into accepting a deadly deal, which is a rather dangerous game that involves striving for survival. The game show is sponsored by the government which controls every institution and any individual residing within its state borders. In the movie, The Running Man, the department of crime and Justice collaborates with the game show organizers, where a band of skillful murderers are paid thousands of dollars to pursue criminals in a 400 city square. One of the main criminals in the movie is Ben Richards.
As a matter of fact, Ben accepts to participate in the show, not because he loves to do that, but because his lovely daughter is suffering from unknown disease. The only way and option left for him is to accept that deal and raise money to cure his daughter. To reflect on the theme of corruption, the government pays its powerful murderers to kill people of lower class, who might prove to be strong. It does this by collaborating with stable companies like Damon Killian, who claims that he can get 10 points for the biceps of his prey Ben Richards (Bachman 200).
In reality, those who control the power would always establish tighter chains to ensure that they remain in control. Certainly it has become a common event that killing as portrayed in the movie, The Running Man, remains to be part of human life. Ben Richards is being hunted down and his hunters will be paid thousands of dollars after they kill him. Unfortunately none of them makes it to the end.
What makes the story of The Running Man, more captivating is the manner and setting in which it is brought out. The themes are very relevant to the modern world and economies, which are surrounded by powerful companies that kill their threats to remain competitive. For instance, in the story the government controls everything including jobs, and this forces its citizens to do menial jobs to survive. This is brought out by Ben Richard’s case when his wife turns to prostitution to feed the family. This social injustice forces poor citizens to remain poor and the only way they can earn a living is by working with the government at all costs.
The ending of the story is sweet but full of suspense. The end is a reflection of the world expected to come, where big corporations and governments would spend huge sums of money to instill influence, power and control over the media of a reality television. With twists, the story comes to an abrupt end, without proposing a comment or even suggesting a word, whereas in the movie, the story ends when both Ben Richards and Damon Killian die in a plane crash (Bachman 200). And this suspenseful ending brings out a true picture that people in the near future will wager away with their lives, just to win a chance to fortune. This is the dystopian future in the novel, The Running Man, by Stephen King commonly known as Richard Bachman.