Gender Roles In The Hunger Games

Women in society are often viewed as lesser and are expected to have more feminine like roles in many situations. However, in other situations they are expected to have more masculine roles. In The Hunger Games, by the director Gary Ross, shows this way of thinking in society throughout the movie. The Hunger Games uses rhetorical moves to appeal to pathos, ethos, and logos to show how society has unrealistic views on women in today’s society by expecting them to have both feminine and masculine roles.

Panem, in which the movie is set is a post war society in North America is divided into 12 districts each one specializing in a certain resource. Select children from these districts compete in the annual hunger games, a game where they battle

In the beginning, when Katniss leaves to go hunt, to get food for her family, her boots are shown. Later on in the movies when she is about to the arena for The Games her boots are shown yet again. However when Katniss is in the Capitol she was never shown wearing boots. So the boots were a representation of where she was expected to act more masculine rather than feminine. At home she was expected to provide for family since there was no fatherly role and she was the older sibling, so doing that affected her to have a more masculine role at home. Such as Katniss hunting with a bow and arrow to provide food for the family which is a traditionally masculine quality. In The Arena she was expected to kill multiple people and fight for her life. With that she had to act more like a man and kill like one. Whereas, when Katniss is located in the Capitol she is expected to act more like a women because she is a piece of entertainment and goes to events to get the audience to like her more. Logos was used to show how Katniss was expected to have different gender qualities in various situations. This is an unfair expectation from the Capitol due to her having to adjust her personality throughout her

Rue and Katniss are allies, and when they are separated Katniss hears Rue screaming for so she runs screaming for her. Katniss finds Rue and helps her get out the trap she was in, but while she was doing that she gets a spear thrown at her causing her death. While she was dying Katniss comforts her with a song that causes the effect to be sadder due to the slow song. She then covers Rue with daises from a field after her death. When Katniss comforts Rue she was using feminine characteristics, which The Capitol wanted while she was not in the games. However, when she in the games they expected her to with a more masculine approach to everything; therefore, not showing emotions to events that would usually cause emotion. This appealed to pathos by showing the various emotions it caused. The Capitol was unfair to Katniss by wanting her to act in a different manner while she was in the games from when she was in The