the hunger games dystopian essay

What makes “The Hunger Games” a Dystopia?

In the world of dystopian literature, few works have garnered as much attention and acclaim as The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins' bestselling series, which includes the novels The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, has captivated audiences around the world with its gripping narrative, memorable characters, and intricate world-building. Yet, how does The Hunger Games compare to other top dystopian novels, and what can we learn from these comparisons about the political valence of the societies depicted in each work?

To answer these questions, we must first consider what sets The Hunger Games apart from other dystopian novels. One key factor is the novel's focus on the spectacle of violence and power. The Hunger Games depicts a world in which the ruling class of the Capitol holds an annual tournament in which young people from the twelve districts of Panem are forced to fight to the death in a televised spectacle. This tournament serves as a form of entertainment for the Capitol citizens, who revel in the suffering and bloodshed of the contestants. The novel's protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is thrust into this brutal world when she volunteers to take her younger sister's place as a tribute in the Hunger Games.

While The Hunger Games shares some similarities with other dystopian novels, such as George Orwell's 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in its depiction of a totalitarian government that controls every aspect of its citizens' lives, the spectacle of violence in The Hunger Games sets it apart from these works. In 1984, for example, the government's control over its citizens is largely achieved through surveillance and propaganda, rather than outright violence. Similarly, in Brave New World, the government uses pleasure and distraction to keep its citizens in line, rather than relying on overt displays of force. By contrast, The Hunger Games presents a world in which violence is not only normalized but actively celebrated, with the Capitol citizens cheering on the contestants as they slaughter one another in the arena.

However, The Hunger Games is not the only dystopian novel that depicts a society in which violence is a central aspect of social control. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, for example, shows a world in which books are banned and "firemen" are tasked with burning any that are found. The use of fire as a symbol of destruction and power is a recurring motif throughout the novel, highlighting the oppressive nature of the society. Similarly, in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the government's control over women's bodies is maintained through physical violence and the threat of punishment. The novel's protagonist, Offred, is forced to bear children for a high-ranking official and is subjected to frequent beatings and other forms of abuse.

Despite these similarities, the political valence of each society depicted in these novels differs. In The Hunger Games, for example, the violence serves as a form of spectacle that reinforces the power of the ruling class, while also providing a distraction from the poverty and suffering of the districts. By contrast, in Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid's Tale, the violence serves as a means of social control, used by the government to suppress dissent and maintain power. The political valence of each society, then, is shaped by the role that violence plays in maintaining the status quo.

Why was Cinna killed in The Hunger Games?

Why did peeta join the careers.

Critical and Analytical Writing

5 Dystopia and Violence in the Hunger Games Trilogy

Complit 131 brave new world, shannon roch.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins has become well-known for both its popularity among young adult readers, and its subsequent influence on the creation of dystopian young-adult franchises such as Divergent. Books in the young adult genre—particularly when they are, like this trilogy, paired with extreme popularity and with the sci-fi/fantasy genre—traditionally seem to be viewed by the general public as frivolous escapism, and thus are frequently overlooked by academics and literary critics as serious literature expressing concepts meaningful to the real world. However, the Hunger Games trilogy incorporates many grim elements common to dystopian literature, such as authoritarian governments and all that tends to accompany them—lack of freedom of speech, for example. The trilogy also includes themes of violence (including war, fear, and PTSD) as major themes in both the progression of the plot and the growth of the main characters. This paper will look at how the themes of dystopia and violence manifest themselves in the trilogy, and will argue that the trilogy actually explores socioeconomic, political, and psychological concepts much more mature than its critics would expect.

The Hunger Games trilogy is set in Panem, a future North America beset by environmental crises and rent by past war. Panem is governed by the wealthy, decadent Capitol in the Rocky Mountains, which survives on goods produced by the twelve working-class districts surrounding it. In punishment against the districts for a past rebellion, the Capitol forces each district to send one boy and one girl to participate in the Hunger Games, an annual event televised live throughout Panem, in which the children fight each other to the death. District children are selected for this purpose via a sort of grim lottery, called the reaping.

The dystopian elements of the series are obvious from the very first chapter of the first book in the trilogy, which opens with the heroine, Katniss, waking up on reaping day. As she goes about her daily activities and muses on the unfortunate reality of the reaping, the reader slowly gathers that Panem is a dystopian world. The most obvious dystopian element at this point, before the nature of the Hunger Games itself becomes fully revealed to the reader, is the lack of free speech. Katniss notes how she has “learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. […] Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games” (The Hunger Games 7). It is not made obvious precisely how Katniss fears that incriminating speech could get back to the Capitol, but as Don Latham and Jonathan M. Hollister note in “The Games People Play: Information and Media Literacies in the Hunger Games Trilogy,” “clearly the fear of surveillance is a powerful means of social control through Panem,” even though it “is not clear how extensively surveillance is actually used” (Latham 40). The fear of even the possibility of rebellious comments being recorded is enough to curb any such discussion.

What is clear is that this is not a world where free speech is valued or even possible, but instead a place where citizen dissent has serious ramifications. The threat comes not only from the government, but also from other citizens, who may use their familiarity and knowledge of others’ actions to exploit them, as evidenced by Katniss’s description of those who take bets on whose names will be drawn for the reaping. “Odds are given on their ages, whether they’re Seam or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. These same people tend to be informers, and who hasn’t broken the law?” (The Hunger Games 20). Needless to say, this makes District 12 a place of distrust not only toward the Capitol, but also toward one’s fellow citizens.

Another element making Katniss’s world dystopian becomes obvious in the first chapter: class differences. Katniss lives in the Seam, the poorest part of District 12, as does her closest friend Gale. The people of the Seam are less fortunate than other people of District 12, living in such extreme poverty that emaciated bodies and death from starvation are not at all uncommon. But aside from these disadvantages, the poverty of people in the Seam also forces them to put themselves at much higher risk of being reaped for the Hunger Games. Katniss describes how, at the age of twelve (the same age at which they become eligible for the Games), District 12 children may “opt to add [their] names more times [to the reaping bowl] in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year’s supply of grain and oil for one person” (The Hunger Games 15). The necessity of providing for both oneself and one’s family every year means that, at the age of sixteen, Katniss’s name appears in the reaping ball twenty times, and eighteen-year-old Gale’s name appears a whopping forty-two times.

Clearly, both Katniss and Gale are at much higher risk of being selected for the Hunger Games than Madge, the mayor’s daughter, who seems to come from the merchant class and “has never been at risk of needing a tessera” (The Hunger Games 16). As evidenced by Gale’s anger toward Madge when she happens to meet him and Katniss on reaping day, these differences sow further discord and mistrust between the citizens of District 12, this time along class lines. Of course, Katniss quickly learns that their assumptions about the risk of being reaped are a bit misplaced—as evidenced by the reaping of both Prim, whose name was entered only once, and of Peeta, who is a baker’s son from the merchant class, and therefore has probably never needed tesserae. Much later, Katniss also learns that Madge’s aunt was herself a tribute, one who died while partnered with Seam-born victor Haymitch.

Class differences also lead to more generalized friction between the classes in District 12. In fact, as Joe Tompkins argues in his article “The Making of a Contradictory Franchise: Revolutionary Melodrama and Cynicism in The Hunger Games,” that these class differences dovetail nicely with the Capitol’s desire to keep the different classes (and the different districts) from feeling too unified, due to their differences, since “These circumstances [of poorer families taking more tesserae] underscore the class divide that propels the competition, and they disclose a world where ‘pitting every district against the others’ is a way of maintaining class structure” (Tompkins 74). As the people of the Seam look down on the merchant class for their supposedly soft lives, the merchants look down on the people of the Seam for no apparent reason than their poverty. In remembering the desperate days of starvation after her father died, Katniss describes how when she checked the Mellarks’ trash bin for food, Peeta’s mother started screaming at her, “telling me to move on and did I want her to call the Peacekeepers and how sick she was of having those brats from the Seam pawing through her trash. The words were ugly and I had no defense” (The Hunger Games 36).

It is worth noting that, although race or appearance itself seems to have little meaning in Panem, it is frequently noted how the merchant class and the people of the Seam look quite different, to the point where Katniss’s blond and blue-eyed mother (from the merchant class) and sister “look out of place” (The Hunger Games 9) in the Seam. By contrast, Katniss resembles her Seam-born father, and like Gale has straight black hair, olive skin, and gray eyes. The mention of olive skin in particular suggests that the people of the Seam may be people of color. The connection between appearance and social discrimination is worth noting—not only in District 12 but also in District 11 (Rue’s and Thresh’s homeplace), an agricultural district seemingly set somewhere in the south, where many of the citizens are black-skinned and work in orchards of some sort in slavery-like conditions. District 11’s description in Catching Fire makes it clear that the residents of this district are far more severely oppressed than those of District 12:

We slow slightly and I think we might be coming in for another stop, when a fence rises up before us. Towering at least thirty-five feet in the air and topped with wicked coils of barbed wire, it makes ours back in District 12 look childish. My eyes quickly inspect the base, which is lined with enormous metal plates. There would be no burrowing under those, no escaping to hunt. Then I see the watchtowers, placed evenly apart, manned with armed guards, so out of place among the fields of wildflowers around them. “That’s something different,” says Peeta. Rue did give me the impression that the rules in District 11 were more harshly enforced. But I never imagined something like this. (Catching Fire, 67–68)

It is important to acknowledge, of course, that the social hierarchies traditionally ascribed to race and color in the real world may not necessarily apply in Collins’s world. Nevertheless, this description of almost concentration-camp-like conditions in a district populated by black people, laboring daily in what is essentially a plantation for their rich Capitol overlords, are hard to ignore. Notable, too, is the surprise of Katniss, who has previously seemed to assume that the poverty and famine experienced by her own (generally lighter-skinned) district is the height of misfortune, and only now realizes that she has actually been privileged to escape the additional misfortune of social oppression experienced by District 11 residents. In other words, Katniss has been privileged all her life (due, if not to her race, then to the region she grew up in), to the point where she has been totally ignorant of her own privilege.

Aside from poverty, the lack of free speech, and class/ethnic differences, the ultimate challenge faced by the people of Panem’s districts is the Hunger Games itself. While there are certainly many citizens who never get reaped, the risk is always there for residents of every district, in every class, while going through their teenage years. The annual spectacle of the Hunger Games, however unpleasant, is very much a part of district culture: Even someone who does not get selected themselves is likely familiar with watching people die on live television, starting from a very young age. This is an important part of the preparation for potential future tributes, as stated by Latham and Hollister, who note that it “seems likely that Katniss has already gained a well-developed ‘sense’ of the Games from watching previous Games year after year, something that is required of every citizen in Panem” (Latham 36). Some of the people whom viewers see die may well be people they know from their own districts, or even their own family members—while in the Games, Katniss is often motivated by the thought that Prim is probably watching her efforts to survive. Of course, the Hunger Games also forces contestants to sacrifice their own morality and humanity in order to survive, since all children must attempt to kill other children (one of which may even hail from the same district) in order to survive. This ties into the larger subject of war, violence, and PTSD, which will be discussed later in this paper.

Aside from the personal challenges faced by tributes to the Hunger Games, the Games are dystopian in the sense that they also serve the larger purpose of discouraging revolt against the Capitol, which arguably counts as an authoritarian government due to its surveillance and its brutal treatment of the districts. The story told at every District 12 reaping recounts the Dark Days, in which the thirteen districts revolted against the Capitol “which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens” (The Hunger Games 21). The Capitol’s retaliation led to the supposed obliteration of District 13 and the beginning of the Hunger Games: “The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws that guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games” (The Hunger Games 21). But Tompkins makes the case that the creation of the Hunger Games and the division it symbolizes between the Capitol and the districts can also be seen as an issue of class:

The ostensible purpose of the Games is ceremonial: to commemorate The Dark Days, an erstwhile rebellion wherein the poorer districts tried, and failed, to overthrow the Capitol, forcing the revolutionary vanguard underground in the seemingly abandoned District 13. But the Games’ true function is symbolic violence in the guise of entertainment, a ritualistic reminder of the sheer power of the Capitol and the futility of rebelling against it. In short, the Games exist to keep class conflict at bay, or, to paraphrase Guy Debord, to manifest a social relationship mediated by spectacle. (Tompkins 71)

In other words, the Hunger Games not only brings peace (in a sense) and provides entertainment, but also provides a framework for reinforcing class differences between the Capitol and the districts. What the reaping day’s history lesson does not mention, of course, is that the Capitol lifestyle is one of massive excess and comfort, and that most of the people of the districts do come from a drastically different socioeconomic class, being essentially impoverished slaves who spend their lives working to support their hedonistic Capitol masters. Hence, it seems highly likely that this framing of the Hunger Games as a just punishment against ungrateful districts is Capitol propaganda, and that the Hunger Games were instead created to discourage future revolts by demoralizing the Districts and making union between the Districts unlikely. Katniss seems cognizant of the fact that the first of those goals—demoralization—is inherent in the Hunger Games, noting that the “real message is clear. ‘Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen’” (The Hunger Games 22).

But it is not until Katniss is actually in the Games that she seems to get the first inkling of how the Hunger Games are actually used to divide the Districts. The fact that flow of information between districts is banned seems to be a given, considering Katniss’s thoughts when she discusses life in District 13 with Rue. “It’s interesting, hearing about her life,” Katniss notes. “We have so little communication with anyone outside our district. In fact, I wonder if the Gamemakers are blocking out our conversation, because even though the information seems harmless, they don’t want people in different districts to know about one another” (The Hunger Games 246). This is in itself notable as a dystopian element, as it is part of Panem’s “strict control of information and misinformation” (Latham 37) by which the Capitol “tightly controls information in an effort to discourage resistance as much as possible, particularly any kind of widespread resistance” (Latham 37).

But while partnering with Rue is not unusual—temporary partnerships form all the time in the arena—Katniss’s unusual refusal to see Rue as an enemy, and her insistence on mourning her death, make clear that the animosity the Games typically arouses in rival districts is essentially an anti-revolt measure. After all, if Katniss had done the more typical thing and killed Rue, the people of District 11 would probably have hated her, and by extension would have hated District 12, making union between the districts difficult. Instead, Katniss covers Rue in flowers and sings to her, wanting to “do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can’t own” (The Hunger Games 286). In doing so, she unwittingly invites sympathy from the people of District 11, who send her a gift of bread, and also commits her first act of rebellion against the Capitol, although she does not really seem to realize this until she watches the replay of her Games and notes that the act of covering Rue in flowers has been censored, since “even that smacks of rebellion” (The Hunger Games 440). Much later, in Catching Fire, the sheer sight of victors from different districts holding hands in unity is enough to cause a media blackout.

Aside from pitting the districts against each other and thereby discouraging rebellion, the yearly Hunger Games also, of course, involve violence and death. As noted, this has a powerful impact not only on the people of various districts who watch their own people kill and be killed, but also on the victors. It must be remembered that the violence visited on the tributes is not only perpetrated by other tributes (who could themselves be seen as “a piece in [the Capitol’s] Games” (The Hunger Games 172), but also by the Capitol through other threats in the arena. In Katniss’s first Games there are several examples of environmental threats—fireballs, tracker jacker wasps, and a body of water that dries up—most of which are merely meant to drive the tributes closer together for the sake of drama. The Games are, after all, being broadcast on live television and serve not only as oppression of the districts, but also as the “circuses” that keep the people of the Capitol safely entertained. But the final environmental threat instigated by the Capitol in Katniss’s first games are the muttations, which seem specifically designed to serve not only as a physical threat but a psychological one. This could be seen as the Capitol’s way of terrorizing the three remaining tributes—at least one of whom will certainly become a victor and thereby will have “slipped the noose of poverty that strangles the rest of us” and become an “embodiment of hope where there is no hope” (both Catching Fire 212)—and reminding them that all tributes are still the Capitol’s dogs, collared and lacking their own agency.

Katniss’s first Games are only the first of the trilogy’s many instances of violence and killing. On her post-Games Victory Tour, Katniss witnesses the civil unrest in the districts which she has unwittingly instigated through her celebration of Rue and her romance with Peeta (which culminated in their particularly provocative suicide pact with the berries). The most poignant of these is in District 11, where displaying the three-fingered salute and Rue’s mockingjay call lead to the Peacekeepers putting a bullet through an old man’s head. Aside from being an obvious act of violence, this serves as more psychological warfare against the victors, particularly Katniss, whom President Snow sees as the one to blame for the unrest and who consequently has more guilt over the violence. Though Katniss has obviously been affected by her experiences in the Games since they ended, it is the Capitol’s retaliation that really seems to cause her to be wracked by symptoms of post-traumatic stress. It is on the Victory Tour that Katniss’s nightmares increase to the point that she wakes up screaming in spite of taking sleeping pills.

It is not until the revolution is well underway that Katniss fully realizes just how strong the Capitol’s hold has always been over the victors—while her actions make her particularly prone to arousing the Capitol’s ire, the Capitol has never been particularly kind to those who win the Games. Johanna, unlike Katniss, is untroubled by jabberjays mimicking the sounds of tortured loved ones because, as she says, “They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love” (Catching Fire 418), which may suggest that any loved ones from her own district were murdered by the Capitol after Johanna became a victor. This may seem like a far-fetched inference to make until one considers the backgrounds of Finnick, who was blackmailed into prostitution out of a desire to protect his loved ones, and Haymitch, whose family was killed because he, like Katniss, made the Capitol feel threatened by the unconventional way he won his Games. In fact, the only relevant difference between Haymitch’s and Katniss’s actions in the Games were that Katniss’s actions not only defied the Capitol but actually incited revolt, whereas Haymitch’s did not.

After the decimation of District 12 and Katniss’s escape to District 13, the psychological warfare of the Capitol continues to serve as a weapon against the victors, particularly Katniss, and by extension against the rebellion. This could actually be said to have started at the beginning of Katniss’s second Games when Cinna was beaten up in front of her, but its frequency and severity takes a sharp uptick in Mockingjay. Conditioned by a life spent carefully attempting to avoid aggravating the Capitol in any way, Katniss feels guilt when she visits the remains of District 12, blasted after her escape from the arena, and sees bodies “reeking in various states of decomposition, carrion for scavengers, blanketed by flies. I killed you, I think as I pass a pile. And you. And you” (Mockingjay 6). The Capitol’s torturing of Peeta also serves as long-distance warfare against Katniss with which they attempt to cripple not only him but also her. The roses that Katniss associates with President Snow serve as psychological warfare on several occasions, including the discovery of the roses in District 12 and the hideous rose-scented muttations in the sewer that call Katniss by name. Of course, there are also many more general instances of PTSD to be found in the other tributes, such as Johanna’s fear of water and Annie’s mental illness.

Finally, it could be argued that the effects of war, mistrust, and PTSD start to turn the supposed heroes of the trilogy, and Katniss in particular, into anti-heroes who bring about realities just as dystopian as the ones they are fighting against. On a wider scale, the anti-hero concept can be seen in District 13, which uses Katniss as a tool just as heartlessly as the Capitol did, and where President Coin seems poised to become just as much of a dictator as President Snow—to the point where Katniss chooses to shoot her rather than Snow. On a more personal level, Katniss in her child-soldier role seems to have become equally heartless, having transformed into more of a killing machine than she ever was in her first games, killing an unarmed Capitol citizen and shortly thereafter mowing down countless people in the Capitol streets. “Peacekeeper, rebel, citizen, who knows?” she says. “Everything that moves is a target” (Mockingjay 398). This is very different from the Games—where Katniss knew who she was killing, did so for her own survival (and Rue’s or Peeta’s), and frequently felt empathy for her victims.

Toward the end of the trilogy, however, Katniss seems to have a growing awareness of the pointlessness and evil of the violence she is both experiencing and inflicting, and again starts to feel, if not exactly empathy, then at least a weary discomfort with war. The key to unlocking this emotion is realizing that her own actions, and Coin’s actions, are endangering the lives of children just as much as President Snow ever did. Before Coin even proposes her own Hunger Games, Katniss feels deeply uneasy about the death of the Capitol girl in the lemon-yellow coat (Mockingjay 397) and the District 13-instigated attack of the children serving as a human shield for the President’s mansion, which results in Prim’s death. The latter incident is a particularly poignant example of the sort of anti-heroism of war at this point in the story, since it seems likely Gale played a role in devising this trap.

In conclusion, the world of Panem contains a number of elements that make the Hunger Games trilogy a classic, chilling example of dystopia. Many of the themes are ones familiar to readers of dystopia—authoritarian governments and surveillance, for example—but the Hunger Games trilogy has a particularly modern resonance with its use of themes such as class/racial friction, the use of media to manipulate viewpoints and simultaneously entertain/control the masses, oppression of the lower socioeconomic tiers, and the ensuing rage and desire for a revolution of the social order. The presence of such elements is especially poignant when one considers that the trilogy is supposedly intended for children and, as such, is frequently seen as just a frivolous mainstream franchise. On the contrary, it could instead be argued that the mature nature of many of the themes touched upon in the trilogy mean it deserves to be taken more serious in literary circles as a work of dystopian literature.

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. Scholastic, 2009.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2008.

Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. Scholastic, 2010.

Latham, Don and Jonathan Hollister. “The Games People Play: Information and Media Literacies in the Hunger Games.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 45, issue 1, Mar. 2014. 33–146. Web. Retrieved 9 Nov. 2020.

Tompkins, Joe. “The Makings of a Contradictory Franchise: Revolutionary Melodrama and Cynicism in the Hunger Games.” Journal of Cinema & Media Studies, vol. 58, issue 1, Oct. 2018. 70–90. Web. Retrieved 9 Nov. 2020.

Writing the World 2020 by Shannon Roch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Hope and revolution in a critical dystopia: The Hunger Games

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:Text and analysis

Books and downloadable chapters, bloom's literature online, journal articles, journal articles - dystopian novels, online videos, related texts.

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NESA HSC English Syllabus This site includes past HSC exam papers, the subject syllabus and notes from the marking centre.

Bloom's literature : Suzanne Collins The biographic entry for Suzanne Collins from the Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. more... less... TAFE NSW username and password required
Love Among the Ruins : How our awful future became the next big thing. By Lev Grossman. Time, 3/12/2012
Dystopian novels : have you read one lately? Library Media Connection, Aug/Sep 2012
Wikipedia : The Hunger Games A short summary of the books in The Hunger Games trilogy.
The Hunger Games : Wikia A fan created community wiki site devoted to books and film adaptions of The Hunger Games trilogy. It includes sections on characters and plot.
Cliff notes : The Hunger Games With sections on characters, chapter summaries and analysis, this site provides a useful overview of the novel.
Time : PANEM's rebel : The star of the 74th annual Hunger Games A mock propaganda issue of Time Magazine promoting the 74th Hunger Games. It usefully demonstrates the manipulation of image and information in the world of Panem.
The New York Times : Scary new world (book review). By John Green. 7/11/2008 A review of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The dead and the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
The Artifice: The political message of The Hunger Games This article examines the political, social, cultural, and environmental messages contained in The Hunger Games.
Revisiting Dystopia: the Reality Show Biopolitics of "The Hunger Games" (Academic article) This paper explores the dystopian imaginaries of the trilogy The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and its film adaptations. It places the narrative into a genealogy of dystopian fiction concerned with the historical nation-state totalitarianism.
The Hunger Games: An ecocritical reading (Academic article) This academic paper argues The Hunger Games "Recognises that the degradation of non-human nature through human action" as a major theme. It suggests a deep reading of this multilayered text "can broaden as well as change perspectives and trigger engaged debate". The paper also covers the critical issues of "consumer manipulation, media and celebrity culture".
“In hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge”: Belly, bellum and rebellion in Coriolanus and The Hunger Games trilogy (Academic article). By Sara Soncini. Essays No. 15 05/2015 This article examines the link between Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the shortage of food as ferment for rebellion in the districts of Panem.

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Dystopian Literature Essay: The Hunger Games

Dystopian Literature Essay: The Hunger…

Dystopian literature without a doubt has sealed its place as a prominent genre among juvenile and adult readers alike. The genre only continues to grow in popularity and diversity. “Young adult (YA) dystopian literature is a trend that is taking the nation by storm.

Since September 11, 2001, the genre has gained a strong backing from academics, authors, and YA readers; after Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008), however, YA dystopian literature has become the forefront of teen reading,” (Ryan 1).

However, this popularity among readers poses the question, what exactly makes this genre so appealing to readers? This may be due to the relatability of the themes and characteristics common in dystopian literature and how they reflect the real world. “Constant surveillance, oppressive ruling regimes, lack of freedom, and forced conformity are all aspects of adolescent life that teenagers deal with on a daily basis,” (Ryan 2). These themes and conflicts that are prevalent in dystopian literature not only reflect aspects of life for teenagers but also are implicative of the real world.

To fully comprehend how dystopian literature reflects the real world, one must understand what a dystopia is; per English instructor Terri Chung of North Seattle Community College , a dystopia in the literary sense is, “A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control.”

Despite dystopian literature taking the conditions of the real world and spinning them to extremes, the themes and elements present in dystopian societies are still applicable to real-life society. The Hunger Games and the other books of the trilogy are some of the most popular books in the dystopian genre, and while this may be largely due to the romantic elements of the story, its success can also be derived from the relatability of the themes touched on in the story.

In the case of The Hunger Games, these themes include but are not limited to social-class divisions, outlandish beauty standards and ideals, and ideas of what is considered entertaining in the media.

In the story, the districts are divided based on the goods or commodities that they provide for the Capitol. The importance of the good a District provides along with simply how close it is to the Capitol determines the quality of life in that District and how wealthy its population is.

Although the Capitol likes to push that all the districts are equal, the clear-cut social-class divisions from district to district are too glaring to gloss over. This drastic division in the quality of life and the government’s message of equality is an almost obvious nudge at the state of the real world and touches on the theme of equality versus equity.

For example, right here in America, which claims to be the land of equal opportunity, one can see the obvious distinctions between places such as Compton and Beverly Hills with the cities having a per capita income of roughly $13,000 and $85,000 respectively according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In addition, the gap between the Capitol and the Districts reflects the gap between the richest one percent and the rest of the population. In an article from BBC News, Oxfam, a confederation of 19 organizations worldwide in a fight against poverty, “… calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.”

In The Hunger Games, the people of the Capitol are described as having outlandish features about them cosmetic-wise. For example, one of Katniss’ two stylists, Venia, is described as having, “… aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows.” The citizens of the Capitol are always changing their facial and body features to match the newest Capitol trends even to the point of going through body modification procedures to keep up with these trends and be considered beautiful, handsome, etc.

However, not just in the story but also in the real-world people are willing to go to great ends to keep up with all the latest beauty trends; this includes purchasing products or performing actual body modification procedures all for the sake of being considered pretty. Additionally, in the weeks leading up to the actual Games, the tributes are put through a thorough cleaning and grooming process and are dressed up in the fanciest Capitol wear even though they are about to be sent to their deaths.

This reflects today’s society because people of all ages today still spend vast sums of money on beauty products and body modification procedures; in fact, the beauty and cosmetics market is worth about $62 billion as of 2016 per MarketResearch.com . Nevertheless, things get worse than just over-indulging in cosmetics and beauty products in the Capitol and in reality.

Although a group of 24 teenage children are being sent to their imminent deaths, the citizens of the Capitol view the Hunger Games as nothing more than a show; the Capitol simply shrugs it off and chalks the practice up to sport. This twisted sense of what is considered entertainment, while not quite exhibited to this degree in real life, can be seen easily in today’s media.

Television broadcasts such as UFC, where opponents brutally beat down each other in a bloody brawl, and almost every reality television show, in which people draw entertainment from the drama and conflict in famous people’s lives, can be seen all too clearly in today’s society. In an article discussing the negative effects of reality television on adolescents, a Penn State Psychology student wrote, “Several adolescent television shows these days are full of fun, partying, fighting, and drama.

Many of these shows can be categorized as reality television shows.” Another aspect of the games in relation to television is the tributes having to put on acts (e.g. Katniss and Peeta’s love) in order to get sponsors to increase their chances to live in the Games. This reflects the wave of adolescents today that think that they can “make it big” by simply doing something over-the-top and crazy to get discovered and become famous overnight. While it is a means of survival in The Hunger Games, in the real world it leads to undriven children who aren’t willing to really work for anything because they’re holding out for their “big break.”

In conclusion, several of the themes and principles of dystopian societies can be related back to the real world. Issues faced in dystopian societies are issues faced by not only young adults but people of all ages, albeit not quite to the same extent as in dystopian literature.

In The Hunger Games, themes such as social class divisions, beauty standards, and ideas of entertainment are all present in today’s society, and this relatability is part of what makes the book series so successful. Perhaps this is where the allure of dystopian literature stems from, people can see reflections of their own lives in stories like The Hunger Games.

The connections that can be drawn from the story to the real world allow people to better understand the world they live in and how to keep it a better place than the broken, dysfunctional world they dove into.

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ALAN v41n2 - Beyond Sensation: The Hunger Games and Dystopian Critique

Beyond sensation: the hunger games and dystopian critique.

Hey, hey, give ‘em what they want If lust and hate is the candy If blood and love tastes so sweet Then we give ‘em what they want Hey, hey, give ‘em what they want So their eyes are growing hazy ‘Cause they wanna turn it on So their minds are soft and lazy, well Hey, hey, give ‘em what they want From “Candy Everybody Wants” by Drew and Merchant (1992)

The Hunger Games trilogy and high-grossing film are popular culture phenomena. 1 But what drives readers’ enthusiasm for the series? As a work of dystopian literature, reading the Hunger Games trilogy should be a disturbing experience. Ryan (2010) writes:

[I]if there is one truth that can be taken away from the Hunger Games [trilogy] it is this: we, the reader, tuned in and boosted its rating. Even while Katniss rails against the Games as disgusting and barbaric, we the readers turn the pages in order to watch them. We become the citizens in the Capitol, glued to the television, ensuring there will be another Game the following year. (p.111)

Grossman (2009) writes, “One of the paradoxes of the book is that it condemns the action in the arena while also inviting us to enjoy it, sting by sting. Despite ourselves, we do” (para. 5) . As Ryan and Grossman point out, there is a valuable, dystopian experience within the series; however, popular responses to the Hunger Games suggest that many readers do not interrogate the text or read self-reflectively. Entranced by the horror of the violent premise and the sensational speed of the narrative, readers overlook elements of the text that fuel the series’ appeal and weaken the text’s dystopian purpose.

Reader-response theory considers the individual and personal transactions that occur silently between reader and text. As Rosenblatt (1938/1995) points out, “The reading of a particular work at a particular moment by a particular reader will be a highly complex process” (p. 75) . This transaction, arising as it does from a silent interaction with the text, is difficult to collect or examine. However, literary phenomena such as the Hunger Games trilogy produce visible fan responses that are available for interpretation. In this article, I suggest that aspects of the text that fuel its popularity, the dynamics of reality television, the interruptions and silences of the first-person narrator, and the portrayal of gender also create a text that evokes that which it attempts to condemn. As a result, the trilogy invites a passive response from viewers and does not elicit the active social critique that is the hallmark of dystopian literature. Readers do not seem to ask why they take such pleasure in a story about children murdering children for televised entertainment. They do not question the similarities between American entertainment culture and the culture of Panem, and they do not seek ways to change their society.

In Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults (2003) . Hintz and Ostry outline the long, rich history of utopian and dystopian literature and note its attraction to readers of all ages. Utopian and dystopian fiction, they argue, asks readers to imagine other worlds and compare them to their own. In his foreword to this book, Zipes writes, “we are in need of this literature, especially for young readers, to provide hope for a different and more humane world” (p. ix) . In “Dystopian Novels: What Imagined Futures Tell Young Readers about the Present and Future,” Hill (2012) writes, “By witnessing futuristic societies no one would want to inhabit, adolescent readers can imagine a future they desire, envisioning a present that can begin to build toward that future” (p. 102) . Thus, the dystopian novel “mingles well with the coming-of-age novel, which features a loss of innocence” (Hintz & Ostry, 2005, p. 9) and this is a particularly appropriate form for young adult literature.

And yet, adult and young adult dystopias differ. Booker (2013) affirms that the foundational impulse of dystopian fiction is “a critique of existing social conditions or political systems” (p. 101) . Dystopian literature and film “should encourage the reader or viewer to think critically about it, then transfer this critical thinking to his or her own world” (p. 5) . But, as Sambell (2003) observes, true dystopias contain inherent problems for authors of children’s and young adult literature. Dystopias for younger audiences address problems of society without the “protagonist’s final defeat and failure” that is so “absolutely crucial to the admonitory impulse of the classic adult dystopia” (Sambell, p. 165) . There is reluctance to write or publish dystopian fictions that might overwhelm young readers ill-equipped to question, much less challenge, the ideologies and institutions in which they and their families participate. As Cadden (2012) explains in “All Is Well: The Epilogue in Children’s Fantasy Fiction,” hope and reassurance remain essential elements of children’s fantasy fiction.

Collins seems to recognize the dilemma facing authors of dystopian young adult literature. At the end of Mockingjay , Katniss reflects on what she will tell her (curiously) unnamed children. She asks, “How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death?” (p. 389) . This question encapsulates why the Hunger Games series is problematic as a dystopian text: it tells the story of a society that uses murder as televised entertainment and a political weapon without “frightening them [readers] to death.”

Intention and Response

In numerous interviews, Collins speaks of her hope that the books will stimulate social critique and combat audience passivity. In an interview with Deborah Hopkinson (2009) , Collins states “I hope they [the books] encourage debate and questions. Katniss is in a position where she has to question everything she sees. And like Katniss herself, young readers are coming of age politically.” In an interview with James Blasingame (2009) , Collins states: “The sociopolitical overtones of The Hunger Games [series] were very intentionally created to characterize current and past world events, including the use of hunger as a weapon to control populations” (p. 726) . When asked what she hopes readers will come away with after reading the book, Collins answered that she hopes they will ask “questions about how elements of the book might be relevant in their own lives. And, if they’re disturbing, what they might do about them” (“Interview,” n.d., para. 9) .

However, fans of the series do not seem to have responded with thoughtful reflections or insightful connections between the text and the social and political realities of the twenty-first century. Instead, fan responses to the Hunger Games series suggest that it is merely entertainment: the series has no more resonance with readers than a video game or a reality television show. Readers draw attention to how quickly they can read the books. “I raced through all three books in one weekend” says Rosemary Shearer (Minzesheimer, 2012, p. 2) . Rafe Singer enjoyed the “exciting pace” (Minzesheimer, 2012, p. 2) . Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, wrote “I was so obsessed with this book” (Hunger Games website), and Stephen King describes them as “a jarring speed-rap” (2008, para. 4) . The books are (to many) pleasures to be consumed rapidly without serious reflection.

In response to the text, young fans dress up as “gamemakers” and enact scenes from The Hunger Games by hunting one another with Nerf weapons. When interviewed by USA Today , readers dismissed concerns about the violent premise of the books. One young person states: “I’m 18. I’ve played video games more violent than The Hunger Games . I’ve seen a lot of war coverage on TV” (Minzesheimer, 2012, p. 2) . Another fan states: “The violence is pretty exciting” (Minzesheimer, 2012, p. 2) . In an effort to connect literacy and physical activity, educators at Southside Middle School in Florence, South Carolina, organized a “Hunger Games” field day. Their physical education teacher, dressed as Effie Trinket, had student “tributes” move between activities such as “tracker-jacker” tag and “power struggle tug of war” (Meder, 2013, p. 6A) . Clearly, this type of role-playing is done in the name of fun—young people show enthusiasm for novels and films by dressing up as they did for Harry Potter and Star Wars.

However, when considering texts such as the Hunger Games books, this impulse is not without implications. Muller (2012) observes in “Virtually Real: Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy” that the “entertainment value of the virtual modes in and of the text, with their capacity to diminish moral perspective, has clearly appealed to young readers” (p. 62) . She argues that the books’ examination of the dangers of virtual entertainment risks “perpetuating their entertainment value” (p. 51) . The desire to act out scenes of slavery, oppression, and murder, as performed for a privileged television audience, suggests that young readers do not recognize the dystopian aspect of the series or their society’s complicity in perpetuating a culture of consumption, violence, and social injustice.

Fan responses to the book and film replicate the desire for commodity acquisition similar to the citizens of the Capitol. Citizens of the Capitol, watching the tribute interviews, applaud the numerous fashion makeovers integral to the competition and appropriate Katniss’s Mockingjay pin as a fashion accessory. People magazine (All about The Hunger Games , 2012), mirroring Caesar Flickerman, encourages readers to get to “know” the actors in a collector’s edition featuring interviews and a glossy cover photo of actress Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. A breathless fashion layout encourages fans to “Get Katniss’ Look: Her functional style works as well on the weekend as it does in the games” (pp. 76–78) . Exploitation and trauma have become a fashion choice. A nail polish advertisement for Capitol Colors asks, “What will you be wearing to the opening ceremonies?” 2 Readers who imagine dressing like Katniss or painting their nails in the “colors” of the enslaved and starving districts of Panem have not shifted their gaze from the book and onto themselves or their society. They do not recognize that the Capitol mirrors the privilege and passivity of American culture; they do not recognize that they identify with the population that engineers and watches, but not the one that fights in the Hunger Games.

Such responses from young people may simply demonstrate their lack of critical reading skills and lack of life experience. Howeverm professional reviewers also avoid engaging critically with the violent content of the novels or reading them citically as a dystopian text. Younger readers may not register the violence as “real”, but adult reviewers who do recognize the violent content minimize it; they reassure readers that, although the violence is graphic and prevalent, it is safe. King (2008) , Grossman (2009) , and Miller (2010) suggest that violence in the Hunger Games is secondary and that the numerous, and ultimately repetitive, acts of murder are not the primary focus of the novels. King, in fact, observes that the “shoot-it-if-it-moves” quality of the books offers the pleasures of a video game ( 2008, para. 3) . His short, practical review suggests that, like a video game, the escalating violence is ultimately meaningless.

The book’s “efficiency,” that is, the absence of significant reflection, is also accompanied by “displays of authorial laziness” (para. 4) . By the time readers accompany Katniss and Squad 451’s block-by-block attack on the Capitol in Mockingjay , they, like Katniss, are desensitized to the escalating attacks reminiscent of videogame levels. In her essay “Fresh Hell,” Miller (2010) also notes uneven aspects of the text and the absence of a clear dystopian project. The book, she writes, does not “even attempt to abide by the strictures of science fiction” (para. 13) . The Hunger Games , she writes, “could be taken as an indictment of reality TV, but only someone insensitive to the emotional tenor of the story could regard social criticism as the real point of Collins’s novel.” Miller labels the text a work of “fable or myth” (para. 8) . Similarly, Grossman (2009) writes that the violence in the book, “rather than being repellent . . . is strangely hypnotic. It’s fairy-tale violence, Brothers Grimm violence—not a cheap thrill but a symbol of something deeper” (para. 5) .

Grossman’s and Miller’s reading of The Hunger Games series as a fairy tale minimizes its violent content and the dystopian admonitory impulse. (Note, for instance, Grossman’s use of the word “sting” to describe murder in The Hunger Games .) Unlike dystopian literature, traditional folk- and fairy tales are not critical of their culture or politically subversive. Indeed, one of the functions of the fairy tale is to uphold traditional gender roles and power structure. The power of the aristocracy is always reasserted. Beauty’s value is her appearance and her obedience to her father and husband and her obedience to her father and husband. Marriage is Cinderella’s only goal, and the upstart maid in “The Goose Girl” is torn to pieces for stepping beyond her social class. Zipes (2006) argues that folktales and fairy tales maintain dominant institutions of power and oppressive class structures.

Folktales and fairy tales have always been dependent on customs, rituals, and values in the particular socialization process of a social system. They have always symbolically depicted the nature of power relationships within a given society. Thus, they are strong indicators of the level of civilization, that is, the essential quality of a culture and social order. (p. 79)

If the Hunger Games trilogy constitutes a fairy tale, then it is worthwhile to consider what it reveals about our cultures’ values as well as our “attitude toward the young and [our] cultural construction of youth” (Clark & Higonnet, 1999, p. 5) .

Comparing the text to a video game explains why readers minimize the violence in the series. Connecting the work to fairy tales reveals its support of commodity acquisition and conventional gender roles. But the strongest explanation for the absence of dystopian reflection in readers may be found in the series’ use of reality television. Viewers of reality television know that although the emotions of characters appear “real,” they are staged. Ellis (2009) writes that this awareness is central to the appeal of reality TV:

Reality TV is based on a paradox. Its situations are unreal or artificial, yet reality is what we seek from them: the reality of the individuals involved. Viewers are keenly engaged in the process of decoding the “real” people, of judging the sincerity of what they are putting on display. They are required to perform “naturally,” to give the kind of performance of self for a viewership that was created in the early years of TV. But it has to be a performance of sincerity itself since it will be judged harshly if it seems to be evasive, duplicitous, or scheming. (pp. 111–112)

Participants on television shows seem to express real feelings and thoughts, but they are always aware of their performance; viewers cannot know what they are truly thinking or feeling. What is genuine and what is performance? In the Hunger Games books, this question alters the relationship between the reader and Katniss by replicating the relationship between viewer and reality television character. As a result, the performative nature of reality television becomes both the subject of the Hunger Games dystopian critique and the reason why readers do not think critically about their society—the emotional distance between reader and text encourages readers to consume the books’ content as sensation without self-reflection. Readers of the Hunger Games watch the novel and avoid the transactional interrogation of dystopian fiction. Like Capitol viewers, readers sit back at a distance and enjoy the story because the fast pace of the plot offers them the pleasures of reality television: commodity acquisition, sensational violence, and passive voyeurism: it’s just a story—it has nothing to do with them.

Interruption and Silence

This is where adult readers, educators, and literary critics can intervene. In order for the dystopian critique to be successful, certain aspects of the text must be recognized and resisted. The first element is the use of the first-person narrator. The first-person narrator is a popular device in children’s and young adult literature because it creates a sense of immediacy and connection. However, Katniss, always aware of her onscreen presence and ever-present surveillance, avoids introspection. As a result, the narrative interrupts moments when the character might begin to explore her emotions or think about the situations she encounters. Like a television commercial interrupting the climax of a movie or a show, Collins diverts readers’ attention away from uncomfortable emotions and difficult questions.

These are moments readers should focus on— what Katniss is not saying, and why. Following tribute selection in The Hunger Games , for instance, Katniss is distraught about leaving her home and her family; however, the allure of material comfort overwhelms her emotional response. Instead of conveying the brutality of the situation or her feelings of loss, Collins draws readers’ attention to sheets “made of soft, silky fabric. A thick fluffy comforter gives immediate warmth” (p. 54) . Instead of considering her predicament or the government responsible for such injustice, Katniss is “too tired or too numb to cry. The only thing I feel is a desire to be somewhere else. So I let the train rock me to oblivion” (p. 54) .

This pattern of interruption and silence continues in Catching Fire . Returning for her bouquet during the Victory Tour to District 11, she accidentally witnesses the execution of the old man who whistled Rue’s song. Katniss steps back in to see the Peacekeepers “Forcing him to his knees before the crowd. And putting a bullet through his head” (p. 62) . The shooting provides a shocking ending to Chapter 4, but as Chapter 5 opens, Katniss is whisked away. In response to Effie’s questions, Katniss is silent. Peeta redirects the conversation by replying, “An old truck backfired,” and shifts the conversation to complaints about his treatment and the real purpose for their Victory Tour: convincing the Districts that they are not rebels, just two kids in love (p. 63) .

Readers know Katniss is upset by the shooting because she sits down on an inferior piece of furniture: “[A]ll I’ve done today is get three people killed, and now everyone in the square will be punished. I feel so sick that I have to sit down on a couch, despite the exposed springs and stuffing” (Collins, 2009, p. 65) . Despite the shock, she remains aware of material culture. Readers know Katniss is vaguely aware of the poverty in District 11, but “Everything is happening too fast for [her] to process it” (p. 68) . This pattern of interruption and silence creates the fast-paced plot, but it also distracts and diverts the reader: “‘Come on. We’ve got a dinner to attend,’ says Haymitch” (p. 68) . In order to resist the pace of the text, readers must recognize that opportunities for self-reflection or connection to current culture are quickly undermined by dinner parties and fantasy makeovers. Just as television shifts from reports of tragedy to commercials advertising face cream or automobiles, questions about power, social justice, and the complicity of the entertainment culture in sustaining oppressive policies are pushed aside by a new dress, new food, and the excitement of sudden celebrity.

Throughout the series, Katniss does not understand the situations she finds herself in and cannot anticipate the results of her actions. Her limited understanding of the political environment makes her dependent on others for information and explanation, but the first-person narration limits the voice of adult characters who might educate Katniss and the reader. Therefore, readers must work to see what she cannot. A striking example of Katniss’s inability to observe and decode the world around her occurs at the dinner party in Catching Fire . Her mockingjay pin, now “a new fashion sensation” among the Capitol residents, appears on the unique gold watch of the new Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee.

Plutarch has run his thumb across the crystal face of the watch and for just a moment an image appears, glowing as if lit by candlelight. It’s another mockingjay. Exactly like the pin on my dress. Only this one disappears. He snaps the watch closed. “That’s very pretty,” I say. “Oh, it’s more than pretty. It’s one of a kind,” he says. (pp. 82–83)

Alert readers may recognize that Plutarch is not what he appears to be, but Katniss does not figure out until the denouement that Plutarch is part of the rebellion. Following her rescue, Haymitch admonishes Katniss for her political naïveté, “‘So it’s you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.’ I stare at him uncomprehendingly” (p. 384) . The first-person narrative glides past serious interrogations of power and resistance, so, understandably, many fans remain at the surface, engaging in games of tug-of-war, dress up, or reenactments with Nerf guns.

Gender and Power

The second element readers need to attend to is the performance of gender. Many readers find Katniss “incredibly brave” (Minzesheimer, 2012, p. D1) . Katniss’s independent spirit and hunting prowess are viewed as evidence of a new, powerful female character, but this reading, as appealing as it is, overlooks the many ways the books reinforce conservative gender codes. 3 Understanding Katniss’s performance of gender is important because, as Vallone (1999) writes, “Arguably, it is in adolescence that girls need feminism most” (p. 197) . Rubinstein-Avila (2007) observes that female characters in young adult literature “strive to meet the expectations of a socially conservative and sexist patriarchy” (p. 363) . Representations of girls and women in the Hunger Games reinforce the idea that becoming an object of desire and finding fulfillment in a heterosexual relationship is a primary goal for femal characters in young adult literature:

One way to contain the girl who has learned to imagine her future as a healthy, strong, well-educated professional is to teach her that romance is at the core of life; that without erotic satisfaction—without eliciting male desire—she will be forever unfulfilled. The man, rather than the self, becomes the focus of her interest in the strong and active years when she might be developing her own potential. (Mitchell, 1995, p.188)

Katniss may be tough, she may be feisty, but her survival hinges on her ability to become an object of desire; thus, she evokes a fantasy of female power that does not disturb conventional conceptions of gendered behavior for teenage girls. Throughout the series, Katniss is nurturing, beautiful, submissive to adult male authority, and, above all, chaste.

The numerous makeovers in each book reinforce and validate the importance of physical beauty for female identity. Despite her token resistance, her newfound beauty brings Katniss attention and pleasure:

The creature standing before me in the full-length mirror has come from another world. Where skin shimmers and eyes flash and apparently they make their clothes from jewels. Because my dress, oh, my dress is entirely covered in reflective precious gems, red and yellow and white with bits of blue that accent the tips of the flame design. The slightest movement gives the impression I am engulfed in tongues of fire. I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun. (p. 128)

The transformational makeovers take Katniss beyond “pretty” or “beautiful” to an appearance that is transcendent, yet, her appearance is out of her control. She does not own her image or her body, and she is incapable of wielding either. Her stylist, Cinna, uses fashion to express political resistance 4 ; Haymitch coaches her actions and modifies her reactions; Katniss remains unaware. Even after she becomes the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion, Katniss resists authority or leadership. She remains an image; any power she may have is an act.

What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. . . . I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution. . . . I won’t have to do it alone. They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances—as if that doesn’t sound horribly familiar— and all I have to do is play my part. (Collins, 2010, p. 11)

In order to see how Katniss conforms to stereotype, it might be helpful for readers to consider how different the story would be if Katniss was not beautiful. What if Peeta and Gale did not desire her? What if Katniss embraced her leadership role and was an active member of the rebellion? Instead, her nurturing impulse, her pleasure in each makeover, and her resistance to leadership reinforces conventional gendered behavior for girls: be attractive, nurture others, keep quiet, and let the boys lead.

If, as Seelinger Trites asserts in Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (2000) , “Young adult novels are about power” (p. 3) , then the Hunger Games teaches readers that Katniss’s strengths are her capacity to love and her ability to perform love for an audience. 5 Katniss nurtures virtually every character she encounters: Prim, Rue, Peeta, Haymitch, her allies, and, of course, her own mother. Her strengths reflect a modern feminism that values “[s]uch virtues as connectedness, caring, and personal accountability” (Clark, Kulkin, & Clancy, 1999, p. 73) .

The limits Collins places on Katniss’s political awareness and capacity for leadership, however, reduce her performance of gender to a tradition in which women resist engaging in the public sphere. At the Reaping, she appears to emulate masculine heroes who step forward to fight for their people or defend their nation, but Katniss does not step forward for District 12. It is Prim’s “untucked blouse forming a duck-tail” (p. 22) that triggers her instinctive response to defend her “child.” In contrast, Peeta, who as a baker and artist seems to bend or transgress traditional gender roles and is valued for his capacity to love and his acts of selflessness, understands the political system they inhabit and attempts to subvert it. Throughout the series, Peeta is able to work the crowd and, until he is tortured, resist the Capitol. The night before their first Hunger Game he articulates his desire to maintain his identity, “I want to die as myself” (Collins, 2008, p. 141) .

Interrogating Katniss’s gendered silence may be one of the most productive ways for readers to resist the sensation of the text. Gale and Peeta describe the oppression of Panem and voice their disgust and hatred for the Capitol. Katniss may think angry thoughts, but she has been effectively silenced: “I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask. . . . I avoid discussing tricky topics” (Collins, 2008, p. 6) . Katniss listens as Gale “rant[s] about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another” (p. 14) .

Readers should ask why acts of resistance are rarely of Katniss’s making. Katniss’s dramatic gamble that the gamemakers will prevent their double suicide is a reaction to Peeta’s understanding of how the games are used for political purpose—“We both know they have to have a victor” (pp. 343–344) —and his decision to sacrifice himself for Katniss by opening the tourniquet on his leg. In Catching Fire, aghast at the excess and gluttony of the Capitol, she silently remembers the starving children in District 12. Peeta, however, verbalizes his revulsion and translates it into thoughts of rebellion:

“Maybe we were wrong, Katniss.” “About what?” I ask. “About trying to subdue things in the districts” (p. 81) .

But the most significant moment of silence occurs in Mockingjay when Gale and Beetee devise a bomb that will kill civilians and those who aid the wounded.

“That seems to be crossing some kind of line,” I say. “So anything goes?” They both stare at me—Beetee with doubt, Gale with hostility. “I guess there isn’t a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being.”

“Sure there is. Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta,” says Gale.

Cruel, but to the point. I leave without further comment. I feel if I don’t get outside immediately, I’ll just go ballistic. (p. 185)

Despite their difference of opinion about the ethics of warfare, Katniss does not challenge the men or attempt to prevent their work. Readers may decide that her response, “Cruel, but to the point,” legitimizes the plan. Her silence at this moment avoids discussion of the plan’s immorality or the ethics of using the same tactics as the Capitol. Her silence allows readers, again, to avoid making connections between the text and America’s use of torture and twelve years of war by diverting the narrative and minimizing reader discomfort.

Despite her courage, strength, and training, Katniss’s gendered performance is also visible in her physical and sexual vulnerability. The bow and arrow symbolically link Katniss to Artemis, the virgin huntress and goddess of transition who guides young boys and girls to adulthood, but it also protects her from direct contact with bloodshed. In The Hunger Games , she is quickly overpowered by the knife-wielding Clove. In contrast to Katniss, Clove is aggressive and sexual. 6 Clove sits astride Katniss and taunts her with references to Peeta, her “Lover Boy.” Cato has promised to let Clove “have” Katniss so that she can give the audience a “good show” (p. 285) . Clove uses her knife in a suggestively phallic way to threaten Katniss: “I clamp my teeth together as she teasingly traces the outline of my lips with the tip of the blade” (pp. 285–286) . Helpless, Katniss is rescued by Thresh’s powerful masculinity.

After Thresh kills Clove, Katniss uses her gender to avert Thresh’s attack. She reminds him that she nurtured his fellow tribute, Rue. I “‘buried her in flowers’ I say, ‘and I sang her to sleep’ . . . . ‘To death. I sang until she died’” (p. 288) . The contrast in this scene alludes to the virgin/whore dichotomy and draws attention to the muted role of sexuality in the series. Despite their freedom from parental control and the harsh reality of their world, neither Katniss, Peeta, nor Gale succumb to desire or use sexual pleasure as a means of escape.

Although Cato’s death is described in detail over the course of four pages, references to sexual desire or activity in the Hunger Games is almost nonexistent. There are chaste kisses and a brief allusion to sex and power in Finnick’s back story—he has been threatened into prostitution—but the traditional romance triangle reassures readers and avoids uncomfortable questions that might arise about Katniss’s sexuality. Who will Katniss choose? The kind, thoughtful, handsome Peeta? Or the rebellious, impulsive, tall-dark-and-handsome Gale? Questions about gender politics and power, and the fate of Panem, are smoothed over by the love triangle; the only question that matters is resolved on the last pages of the last chapter of the last book. In the epilogue of Mockingjay Katniss fulfills the role of literary heroine by committing to Peeta and bearing his children. Hope is restored through the heterosexual nuclear family.

Beyond Sensation

Journalist and author Darer Littman (2010) draws direct parallels between the citizens in Mockingjay and Americans during the Bush presidency. This moment in time, she writes, is an example of when “the American public preferred to lose themselves in ‘reality tv’ than pay attention [to] the erosion of civil liberties during the War on Terror; ‘asking no more’ in the way of evidence from their government when confronted by policies that so clearly contradict our laws and our national values” (p. 175) . Darer Littman asserts that The Hunger Games is “a brilliant book for our time” and hopes that “it will encourage all of us to become more politically aware and active, and not to ever allow ourselves to risk the erosion of our democracy and civil liberties for panem et circenses ” (p. 178) . In contrast, Muller (2012) asks whether there is “a danger that the texts become what they condemn, a simulacrum that eventually fails to move beyond its own terms of reference” (p. 62) . Reader and fan response supports Muller’s analysis: the series evokes that which it seeks to condemn.

However, Collins’s message that audiences play a role in perpetuating violence and that citizens must not be passive when faced with oppression is valuable for young adult readers. Therefore, educators who choose to engage dystopian literature must also be prepared to make the connections between the text and American culture explicit. This includes domestic and foreign policy and entertainment culture. Dystopian literature “is largely the product of the terrors of the twentieth century . . . [such as] exploitation, repression, state violence, war, genocide, disease . . . and the steady depletion of humanity through the buying and selling of everyday life” (Moylan, as cited in Booker, 2013, p.4 ). Interrogating the text, as opposed to consuming it, requires acknowledging the political impulse of dystopian literature and actively resisting the passive reading the books create. Readers of the Hunger Games series should consider propaganda and news reporting, discuss what the use of torture at Abu Ghraib means to America, and discuss how the government’s decision to not show images of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan alters our perception of war. Teachers need to talk with students about the bombing at the ending of Mockingjay and consider what the consequences are for accepting assassination of a leader. Simulating the odds of a Reaping or performing Tribute interviews are safe ways to engage the text, but these activities will not move readers past the sensation of the story. 7 Instead, readers excited by the physical, mental, and emotional carnage of Panem will continue to consume reality television, paint their nails in Capitol colors, and view reports of war and poverty on television as another form of entertainment.

When readers understand what is at stake in Collins’s text, and make explicit connections to twenty-first century culture, then they will no more play at the Hunger Games than play at the release of the infant in The Giver (Lowry, 1993) , the enslavement of African Americans in Kindred (Butler, 2004) , or the sexual exploitation of women in The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1998) . Reading against the text, reading self-reflectively, and looking critically at one’s culture and political institutions are not easy at any age; neither is dystopian literature.

Margaret Godbey is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, Language, and Literature at Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina, and coordinator of the English Education concentration. Her areas of research include nineteenth-century British literature, children’s literature, and illustration.

Scholastic reported in 2012 that The Hunger Games had been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 200 consecutive weeks and that there were over 50 million copies of the book in print (Scholastic, 2012) .
Dr. Julia Klimek of Coker College first brought the Capitol Nail Colors advertisement to my attention.
My reading is influenced by Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble.
See Clark, 2010, “Crime of Fashion.”
Borsellino offers a strong argument about the importance of love.
Katniss and Clove are not the only women who reinforce traditional gender roles. Katniss’s mother, subject to crippling depression, and younger, emotional sister, are nurturing healers who remain undeveloped characters. Coin, with her two sides, evokes the stereotype of the older woman threatened by the younger, more beautiful woman. Coin reinforces fears about women in positions of power, for she, ultimately, is more depraved than President Snow. She orders the horrific carnage that concludes the series, makes sure Prim is part of the emergency response force, and seeks to re-instigate the Hunger Games using children of the Capitol.
These are from a sampling of activities suggested by online teacher resource sites, blogs, and Hill (2012) .

Search for New Editor of Voices from the Middle

NCTE is seeking a new editor of Voices from the Middle . In May 2016, the term of the present editors (Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp) will end. Interested persons should send a letter of application to be received no later than August 29, 2014 . Letters should include the applicant’s vision for the journal and be accompanied by the applicant’s vita, one sample of published writing (article or chapter), and two letters specifying financial support from appropriate administrators at the applicant’s institution. Applicants are urged to explore with their administrators the feasibility of assuming the responsibilities of a journal editor. Classroom teachers are both eligible and encouraged to apply. Finalists will be interviewed at the NCTE Annual Convention in Washington, DC, in November 2014. The applicant appointed by the NCTE Executive Committee will effect a transition, preparing for his or her first issue in September 2016. The appointment is for five years. Applications should be submitted via email in PDF form to [email protected] ; please include “Voices from the Middle Editor Application” in the subject line. Direct queries to Kurt Austin, NCTE Publications Director, at the email address above or call 217-328-3870, extension 3619.

All about The Hunger Games. (2012, March). [Collectors’ special issue]. People Magazine .

Atwood, M. (1998). The handmaid’s tale . New York, NY: Anchor. (Original work published 1986)

Blasinghame, J. (2009). Interview with Suzanne Collins. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52, 726–727. Booker, M. K. (Ed.). (2013). Critical insights: Dystopia . Ipswich, MA: Salem.

Borsellino, M. (2010). Your heart is a weapon the size of your fist. In L. Wilson (Ed.), The girl who was on fire (pp. 29–39). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.

Butler, J. (2006). Gender trouble: Gender and the subversion of identity . New York, NY: Routledge.

Butler, O. (2004). Kindred . Boston, MA: Beacon. (Original work published 1979)

Cadden, M. (2012). All is well: The epilogue in children’s fantasy fiction. Narrative , 20, 343–356.

Clark, B. L., & Higonnet, M. R. (Eds.). (1999). Girls boys books toys: Gender in children’s literature and culture . Baltimore, MD: John’s Hopkins University Press.

Clark, R., Kulkin, H., & Clancy, L. (1999). The liberal bias in feminist social science research on children’s books. In B. L. Clark & M. R. Higonnet (Eds.), Girls boys books toys: Gender in children’s literature and culture (pp. 71–82). Baltimore, MD: John’s Hopkins University Press.

Clark, T. (2010). Crime of fashion. In L. Wilson (Ed.), The girl who was on fire (pp. 127–140). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.

Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games . New York, NY: Scholastic.

Collins, S. (2009). Catching fire . New York, NY: Scholastic.

Collins, S. (2010). Mockingjay . New York, NY: Scholastic.

Darer Littman, S. (2010). The politics of Mockingjay . In L. Wilson (Ed.), The girl who was on fire (pp. 163–177). Dallas, TX: Smart Pop.

Drew, D., & Merchant, N. (1992). Candy everybody wants. On Our time in Eden [Vinyl record]. Bearsville, NY: Elektra.

Ellis, J. (2009). The performance on television of sincerely felt emotion. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , 625, 103–115.

Grossman, L. (2009, September 7). Catching fire : Suzanne Collins’ hit young adult novels. Time . Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1919156,00.html .

Hill, C. (2012). Dystopian novels: What imagined futures tell young readers about the present and future. In J. A. Hayn & J. S. Kaplan (Eds.), Teaching young adult literature today (pp. 99–115). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Hintz, C., & Ostry, E. (Eds.). (2003). Children’s literature and culture, Vol. 29: Utopian and dystopian writing for children and young adults . New York, NY: Routledge.

Hopkinson, D. (2009, September). A riveting return to the world of the hunger games. Retrieved from http://www.icyte.com/saved/bookpage.com/709820?key=01960d5b69b1798b78 5bf40673472e589d79a408&CITATION_NAME=Hopkinson% 2C+D.+%28n.d.%29.+A+riveti .

Interview with Suzanne Collins. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2013, from Scholastic International School Book Club website. http://world.clubs-kids.scholastic.co.uk/clubs_ content/18832 .

King, S. (2008, September 8). Book review: The hunger games. Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved from http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20419951_20223443,00.html.

Lowry, L. (1993). The giver . New York, NY: Random House.

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Miller, L. (2010, June 14). Fresh hell. The New Yorker . Retrieved from [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge2010/06/14/100614crat_atlarge_miller](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge2010/06/14/100614crat_atlarge_miller].

Minzesheimer, B. (2012, March 19). Hunger games fans switch arenas. USA Today, D1–2.

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Muller, V. (2012). Virtually real: Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy. International Research in Children’s Literature , 5, 51–63.

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Plot Summary

The hunger games, by suzanne collins.

'The Hunger Games' is a young adult dystopian novel set in a post-apocalyptic universe where children are pitted against each other in a battle royale to the death.

Article written by Neesha Thunga K

B.A. in English Literature, and M.A. in English Language and Literature.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins follows the story of Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who offers herself as a tribute in the annual Hunger Games in the post-apocalyptic world of Panem . Katniss undergoes several trials and tribulations as a part of the Hunger Games, which is a battle royale to the death of children aged between 12 and 18.

‘Spoiler-free’ The Hunger Games Summary

During the annual “ reaping ” in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, one male and one female child aged between 12 and 18 are chosen as tributes for The Hunger Games. In the 74th edition of the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen , a young self-sufficient 16-year-old girl offers herself as a tribute from District 12 in place of her younger sister, Primrose. Peeta Mellark , a boy who went to school with Katniss is chosen as the male tribute.

Katniss and Peeta make their way to the Capitol , where the Games are always held. They try to make themselves presentable with the help of various stylists and advisors – to gain sponsors during the Games for food and tools for survival.

During the Games, Katniss and Peeta undergo several chilling trials in their attempt to stay alive. They end up winning the hearts of the public as “star-crossed lovers” (as quoted in The Hunger Games), but the oppressive Capitol is not too happy when they begin rebelling.

The Hunger Games Summary

Spoiler alert: Important details of the novel are revealed below

The novel begins in a post-apocalyptic nation known as Panem. Panem was formerly North America and has now been divided into the Capitol, a wealthy and autocratic state that exploits 12 districts (that exist in varying degrees of poverty) for their labor and natural resources. Each year, a battle royale to the death in the form of The Hunger Games is held. The Hunger Games were enforced as punishment for a failed rebellion by District 13 , which was obliterated by the Capitol. Thus, every year a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen as tributes from each of the oppressed districts to attend the Hunger Games.

In the 74th edition of the Hunger Games, Katniss’s younger sister, Primrose, is chosen as tribute from District 12 – during the televised event of the reaping . However, Katniss, the 16-year-old heroine of the novel, volunteers herself as a tribute instead. Peeta Mellark, a boy who went to school with Katniss and offered her family bread when they were starving, is named as the male tribute from District 12.

Katniss and Peeta make their way to the Capitol. During their journey, they are advised by a drunken mentor called Haymitch Abernathy , the only living victor of the Hunger Games from District 12, as well as their chaperone, Effie Trinket to enhance their public perception. This would enable Katniss and Peeta to gain sponsors for life-saving gifts during the Hunger Games.

A stylist named Cinna designs specialized costumes for both Katniss and Peeta to help them stand out from the rest of the participants. Katniss’ costume, which is based on the theme of fire, earns her the moniker “Girl on Fire” when she is introduced to the public at the Capitol.

Katniss surprisingly earns the highest score during an evaluation by the Gamemakers , while Peeta reveals his long-standing love for her during a televised interview with Caesar Flickerman . Although Katniss is taken aback by this revelation, she accepts that his words made her look desirable. Haymitch proceeds to promote the image of Katniss and Peeta as star-crossed lovers from District 12.

Katniss develops an amicable relationship with the female tribute from District 11 – a petite 12-year-old girl named Rue . Soon, the Hunger Games begin. It results in a bloodbath right at the beginning, as the tributes fight to grab weapons for their survival. Katniss takes Haymitch’s advice to flee the scene immediately and manages to escape the notice of the other tributes.

Katniss soon ends up encountering the tributes from Districts 1,2 and 4, also known as the “ career tributes ” i.e., tributes who train throughout their lives to compete in the Games. These tributes are ruthless and one of them almost always emerges as the victor in the Games. Katniss is horrified to find out that Peeta has ganged up with the career tributes, who are bent upon killing Katniss. The Careers move away from Katniss, however, and she remains safe.

Katniss wanders further and further away from the other tributes as she goes in search of water. An artificial fire is created by the Gamemakers to push her closer to the others, and she hides in a tree to escape from the Careers.

During the night, Katniss and Rue (who was hiding in a nearby tree) plot to bring down a nest of “ tracker jackers ,” on the pack of Careers. Tracker jackers are violent insects that have been genetically modified to target those who disturb their nests. They shoot venom into the fear-housing part of the victim’s mind and cause hallucinations. The nest of tracker jackers ends up killing two of the career tributes and drives the rest of them away. Meanwhile, Katniss is stung as well and starts having hallucinations.

Peeta comes back and instead of killing her, he tells her to run away and fends off one of the Careers. He later informs her that he had been trying to protect her. Katniss escapes and passes out in a ditch. She and Rue team up once again to destroy the supplies of the Career tributes, but Rue is fatally wounded by the male tribute from District 11. Katniss kills Rue’s killer in return and keeps Rue company while she lays dying. She pays tribute to Rue by spreading flowers over her body, and District 11 sends her a loaf of bread in gratitude.

Just then, a rule change is announced in the Games. Instead of a single victor, the Gamemakers allow two tributes from the same district to win as a team. Katniss and Peeta thus team up, but Peeta has been severely wounded due to his fight with the Career tribute .

Katniss pretends to be in love with Peeta to receive gifts from the sponsors. She risks her life to obtain medicine for Peeta. On the way, she encounters a Career tribute who tries to kill her but is killed himself by the male tribute from District 11 named Thresh . Thresh spares Katniss for what she has done for his partner, Rue, and Katniss is able to obtain the medicine and nurse Peeta back to health.

Thresh is killed by the last remaining Career, Cato . Katniss and Peeta are forced to encounter Cato by the Gamemakers, only to find him being chased by mutant wolves. Cato is torn to shreds but is left to die a slow death. Katniss shoots an arrow through his head out of mercy.

Thus, Katniss and Peeta emerge as the last two survivors in the Games. However, in a cruel twist of fate, the Gamemakers announce a rule change once again. They ask Katniss and Peeta to kill each other and provide them with a dramatic finale. Katniss and Peeta, however, decide to rebel against the Capitol and prepare to consume the “ nightlock berries ” – highly poisonous berries – together. Realizing that the duo was going to kill themselves, the Gamemakers hurriedly end the Games and declare both of them as the winners.

Katniss and Peeta thus return home to a hero’s welcome from District 12. However, Peeta is heartbroken to realize that Katniss merely played the role of a girl in love to gain sympathy from sponsors during the Games. Haymitch also warns Katniss that the Capitol would not stay quiet in the face of her rebellious act. Katniss steels herself for what comes next, even as she struggles with the ramifications of the Games.

Why is The Hunger Games a banned book?

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is not banned per se. However, it has continuously remained controversial ever since its publication. In 2016, it became number 5 on the most challenged books list of the American Library Association for “insensitivity, offensive language, violence, anti-family, anti-ethic and occult/satanic values.”

Is The Hunger Games okay for an 11-year-old?

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a young adult dystopian novel that has been deemed by Scholastic to be appropriate for children aged between 11 and 13. However, parents are concerned that it might be too violent for young children and that it might be too graphic at times. It is also commonly categorized as a Young Adult novel meant for 12 to 18-year-olds.

Why did Katniss kill herself?

Katniss does not kill herself at the end of the Hunger Games. However, she does attempt to commit suicide as an act of defiance against the Capitol, along with her partner and male tribute from District 12, Peeta Mellark. She does not go through with her suicide, as the Gamemakers allow her to return home along with Peeta.

Who does Katniss actually love?

Before she goes to the Hunger Games, Katniss harbors strong feelings for her long-standing friend, Gale. However, she develops an unbreakable bond with Peeta Mellark during the Hunger Games. She also plays the part of a lover to gain sympathy from the sponsors during the Games. As a result, she emerges with confused feelings at the end of the book.

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About Neesha Thunga K

Neesha, born to a family of avid readers, has devoted several years to teaching English and writing for various organizations, making an impact on the literary community.

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Argumentative Essay On Dystopian Fiction In The Hunger Games

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Literature , The Hunger Games , Wellness , Poverty , Books , Life , Society , Sociology

Published: 03/29/2020

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Dystopian literature is well evident in the book “The hunger games” by Suzanne Collins. The book defines various social contracts that are usually expressed through dystopian literature. Different social contracts have been identified in the book and they represent extensive range on the bases of the Panem districts. Through exclusive analysis of the capitol various tools were used to indicate the social contract defined in the book. The elements are uniquely portrayed through the tools used by the author of the book. Through excellent presentation in the book, Suzanne Collins has been able to delineate unique elements that label social contracts in the in Panem. The first element that has been illustrated is the existence of social class. There is exclusive evidence that there existed super power in the region. There is an indication that there is presence of single absolute rulers with extensive power. Also, there are people in the middle class who just survived by their lives. Lastly, there are poor class people who do not have anything. “I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about district 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far off city called the capitol” (Collins 6). These are word that resulted from Katniss who was an actor in the book. This is a suggestion that since the first class individuals are powerful the lower class people are scared of them as well as their consequences. The lower class people will always have big trouble. This is because they have to always stake their life on the line to do something that they may be unnecessarily free to do. The individuals are always lacking on the basic needs, which includes lack of money. According to the author, the poor had to be happy as well as satisfied of what they have “No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog” (Collins 11). These are words uttered by soup seller in district 12. This line indicates that people will be jovial that they can have a taste of meat instead of being choosy on whether it was a goat, cow, pig, or any other type of meat. The poor are in deep trouble as they starve and no individual has the right to be choosy on what comes their way. Suzanne Collins defines a set of districts in Panem. Although, there are no ways by which the districts could have been similar, the author succeeds to bring in some similarities as well as differences that would make them viable to form Panem. This is indicated through consistent comparison that runs the book o the activities that took place in different districts. These comparisons have been able to bring out extensive differences among the districts that form Panem. The author pens “A monstrous boy who lunges forward to volunteer from District 12. A fox faced girl with sleek red hair from District 5.A boy with a crippled foot from District 10.” (Collins 45). This is an indication that the different districts experienced different problems, which are shown through the children that described in the above quote. However, though out the book there have been extensive comparisons of the rest of the district to district 12. This is another affirmation that there are exclusive differences among the counties in question. Liberty is a choice that any region may choose. In this case, all districts at Panem had unique traits that portrayed private existence. Hand holding supportive of each other, district 12 showed peace and love. It was the choice of every district to have uniqueness defined in terms of behavior and conduct towards a given social element. The extensive differences would be significant to define the choices that every society was at liberty to choose. Some of the liberties are common one of the common liberties is existence of leadership by the rich only who are referred to as the first class in the region. Capitol has been extremely creative in promotion of social contracts in the book. Hunger games are some of the tools that have been used to define the social contracts evident in the book. Also, the capitol has involved other competitions in form of dances that would have been useful in defining the status of different districts in Panem. Social elements such as corruption and hatred are other tools used to define the social contracts that exist in different districts. Dystopian fiction has become a trend of writing which has been embraced by different authors. They find it as a unique tool to enable them to define key social elements concerning the societies that they target. The author tries to critique social contracts concerning the kind of leadership that is witnessed in the region. She is against the form of government that can only be led by the rich people. She is also critiquing existence of extremely hungry individuals from certain districts while others are satisfied. Her critique is effective as all people in any society should be eligible to govern provided they have necessary skills. Also, all parties are subjected to proper feeding for healthy living for the members of the society.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. Print.

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The Hunger Games Character Analysis

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The Endless Struggle To Adapt Stephen King’s Possibly Unfilmable Dystopian Novel

It's been a long journey for this King story, and many directors have not had the endurance to go the distance.

The Big Picture

The Long Walk by Stephen King, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, has been close to adaptation but remains unfilmed.
The story's focus on psychological conflict and its rule against violent harm poses challenges for potential filmmakers.
Despite past attempts to adapt The Long Walk , debates continue on whether the story's essence should be preserved in future adaptations.

One game that's fun to play is to try and imagine how much money has been spent, in total, adapting the work of Stephen King to the screen. A billion dollars? Ten billion? (You can just say increasingly big numbers, you don't have to actually try and figure it out.) America's master of horror is a prolific writer, and it seems that as soon as he's set his idea to paper, there's a plan to adapt it into a limited series. Some of his work has been adapted multiple times. Sometimes whole movies – even entire franchises! – are adapted from King short stories in the single digits of pages. And yet, there remain blind spots. Of course, even for these yet-to-be-adapted King properties, there have been attempts made , and for some, release could be right around the corner . One title in particular has been close to adaptation multiple times, with multiple directors attached over the years: The Long Walk . The Long Walk is a dystopian novella that King published in 1979, under his hard-boiled pseudonym, Richard Bachman. It concerns an annual contest held by a future authoritarian government, in which children are pitted against each other until there is only one survivor. That might remind you of one or two existing hugely successful franchises. But there are many who think that the reason The Long Walk hasn't been adapted is that the story is simply unfilmable.

What Is 'The Long Walk' About?

A few years after his writing career took off, Stephen King began writing additional novels under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. These novels, which included The Running Man and Thinner , veered away from the horror genre. Misery would also have been published under this pen name as well, but King was unmasked as Bachman in 1985. The four novels were collected as The Bachman Books , (and reclassified as novellas according to the King page-length scale.) He wrote an introductory essay explaining that he'd developed the Bachman pen name to write without the pressure of harming his newly developing brand. When the book was republished in 1996, he wrote a new essay , elaborating that the Bachman "persona" also enabled him to write in a new voice . He described Richard Bachman as "despairing even when he is laughing," and "not a very nice guy."

The Long Walk is not a nice story. It is set in a future, dystopian America , ruled by a leader known as The Major. Every year, there is an event known as "the Long Walk." A hundred American males are selected, none older than 18. Beginning at the Canadian border in Maine (naturally), the boys walk down Highway 1. They walk non-stop. If a contestant's speed drops below 4 mph, they get a warning. After the third warning, they are executed on the spot. The last kid standing receives unfathomable wealth, as well as the granting of a single wish.

The story covers the events of a single iteration of the Long Walk. We follow Ray Garraty, a 16-year-old from Maine (naturally), and meet several of the other Walkers through his perspective — some kind, some sadistic, and some mysterious. What begins as a physical endurance test becomes a psychological test as well. The kids, all of whom have signed up voluntarily, become friends, but must learn not to help each other as their bodies wear out, because it prolongs all of their suffering. One by one, they lose the will to go on.

'The Long Walk' Has Nearly Been Adapted Many, Many Times

Unsurprisingly, there have been many attempts to adapt The Long Walk . George Romero , the legend behind The Night of the Living Dead , was attached to adapt the story in the late 1980s . That version doesn't appear to have gotten very far, although Romero would go on to adapt King's novel The Dark Half , about a novelist whose "not-a-nice-guy" writing alter ego somehow manifests himself into real life. Of course, that novel was inspired by King's experience writing as Bachman.

Frank Darabont , whose The Shawshank Redemption , The Green Mile , and The Mist are all Stephen King adaptations, also held the rights to adapt The Long Walk . He talked about his thoughts about an adaptation in several interviews around the time The Mist was released, in 2007. While acknowledging it was a project on the back-burner, he spitballed that, due to the nature of the story, a film adaptation would be " low budget " and " more of an art house film. " Darabont never got around to making that movie — in 2010 he went to work on The Walking Dead , and in the meantime, his option expired.

If Any '80s Stephen King Movie Needs a Remake, It's This One

James Vanderbilt , who wrote the script for David Fincher 's highly acclaimed true crime thriller Zodiac , before pivoting into more mainstream horror in the rebooted Scream franchise, was the next writer up. A longtime fan of the story, Vanderbilt had reportedly written a draft on spec even while Darabont still had the rights . After Darabont's option lapsed, Vanderbilt secured them with the intention of developing the film with New Line Cinema , which at the time was enjoying the success of its remake of King's It . Norwegian director André Øvredal , known for his cult classic Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe , was attached to direct, and he praised the Vanderbilt script for its faithfulness to King's story.

Ultimately, the project did not move forward with Øvredal , but in late 2023 there was more positive momentum as Francis Lawrence was attached . Relevantly, Lawrence directed the last three entries in the Hunger Games franchise, including the most recent The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes . The Hunger Games , of course, is that other story about a dystopian last-teenager-standing contest, so the attachment is a little on the nose. There has also been a lot of talk about Lawrence directing a sequel to Constantine , his extremely 2000s debut feature. It's not certain which project will move forward first.

Is 'The Long Walk' Really Unfilmable?

First things first: no Stephen King property is "unfilmable." Productions have already demonstrated they will strip a King story to the bones and start from scratch. Most famously, The Lawnmower Man, about a scientist who uses advanced virtual reality technology to address a patient's disability, which transforms him into a killer being made of pure energy, changed the (far more lawnmower-focused) source material so much that King sued, and won .

The more interesting question to ask is if there is something special about the source material that fans should be keen to protect. For example, The Long Walk , notably, does not explain how its dystopian world came about, leaving that to the imagination. An adaptation that decides to shoehorn in a lot of additional backstory would be disappointing . However, as we've seen in the recent Civil War , as well as in comparable math-y authoritarian-dystopian horror movies like Cube and The Platform , leaving out the backstory can work well, and is perhaps even the genre norm.

This Aspect of 'The Long Walk' Should Be Preserved in Any Adaptation

But there's one particular rule of the Walk that an adaptation cannot dispense with: the rule preventing the contestants from harming each other . The Hunger Games , Battle Royale , Squid Game , and even zero-budget The Long Walk ripoff The Human Race are all about competitions where the rules are designed to produce only one survivor ( more or less ). But in all of those movies and shows, the contestants can kill each other, and the story relies on that external tension. The Walk is different in that it is purely an endurance test, no violence allowed. That makes the story peculiar, internal, and "art house." But it also gives the story its heart.

As the story begins, we start expecting it to come down to a two-man competition between our (arbitrarily) favorite competitor, Garraty, and our least favorite, the racist Barkovitch. But King swerves dramatically away from expectations. The horror instead derives from watching children befriend each other, and then fight their own instinct to help each other survive – all while knowing that this is a fate that they volunteered for. This element is most of what makes the story feel "unfilmable." The story focuses on a lot of internal conflict.

Richard Bachman has, figuratively, taken on a life of his own. He's canonically older, grittier, and meaner than King. Would Bachman allow The Long Walk to be transformed into a violent brawl? Perhaps. But it's important to remember, Bachman didn't write The Long Walk . He may have written The Running Man , or Thinner , insofar as Stephen King was in Bachman Mode when those stories were written. The Long Walk is different; King actually wrote it in high school and college, and put it in a drawer. The grizzled Bachman was invented to be the name on that novel, but it was written by a teenager. The Long Walk wasn't written by Stephen King, successful author. It has a certain sincerity to it that's unique in his large ouvre. Turning it into a Hunger Games clone would make it easier to film, but a lot would be lost with that fundamental alteration to the story's DNA.

What's Next for Stephen King?

For Stephen King, there is no such thing as a lull period. Having written over hundreds of novels, short stories, and anthologies, you can expect a new work by the horror master at any moment. His next publication, You Like It Darker , comes out on May 21 and features 12 short tales, some of which have never been seen by the public. A long-awaited adaptation of King’s Salem’s Lot is set to release on Max in 2024 on an unknown date. The film, directed by horror staple, Gary Dauberman, who worked on King’s It 2017 adaptation, and the Annabelle and Nun series, initially planned for a theatrical release, but it was pushed to straight-to-streaming after numerous post-production delays . Pennywise fans also need to look out for Max's Welcome to Derry , a prequel series about the events that lead up to IT .

Another contemporary horror visionary, Mike Flanagan , is currently in post-production of his feature adaptation of King’s The Life of Chuck , a genre-bending novella about the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz. The film stars Tom Hiddleston , Mark Hamill , Chiwetel Ejiofor , and Karen Gillan . Production of Flanagan’s film was delayed due to the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. No official release date has been confirmed.

The Hunger Games is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix

COMMENTS

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PDF ALAN
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