Hunger Games Rhetorical Analysis

Catering to the Audience

Throughout the Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, the Capitol deprives many of the tributes of their spirit and authenticity. The tributes have to manipulate themselves physically and mentally to appease an audience anticipating their immanent death. They are put on display to fight and murder other tributes until a lone victor remains. A significant factor in the survival of the tributes is their holding of sponsors, who send them gifts in the arena that could mean the difference between life and death. Sponsors pick their tributes based off of how much the tributes appeal to them. The biggest opportunity for the tributes to demonstrate themselves as desirable is the interviews. From page 111 to page 112, Haymitch

He tells her that she has to “delight” him as if he is a potential sponsor. This implies how the role of the tributes is to please the audience. The specific denotation of the word delight implies that she has to charm or thrill them, because she is essentially a performer and serves the purpose of providing them entertainment. Of course, this enrages Katniss and she relates herself to a “trained dog trying to please people [she hates]”. This comparison further develops the metaphor that Collins is attempting to relate the tributes to entertainers. Having Katniss compare herself to an animal dehumanizes her, and makes it seem as though her sole purpose in existing at all is for entertainment. Many performers in different forms of entertainment throughout time have experienced this same dehumanization for the purpose of pleasuring an

Her spirit has been broken down, and “By the end of the session, [she is] no one at all.” Because her personality cannot match what the audience wants, any of her other traits do not matter. As a matter of fact, neither does she. If she cannot pull off a pleasing persona, she is not important or significant to her audience. This demolition of her character causes her to lash out as if she is nothing more than an imprisoned animal. She expresses her anger at Haymitch and the Capitol by shouting and “smashing dishes around [her] room.” The pressure of contorting her personality to the whims of a group of people whom she can’t stand is too much for her to handle. The criticism of the Capitol causes a mental strain similar to that of Brittany Spears in 2007. During this year, she lashed out constantly, shaved her head and went digging through the trash., Many other entertainers in the music industry rebel in similar ways. This is one of the reasons so many performers become abusers of drugs and alcohol. It has become a method of coping with stress, and the stress of dehumanization and manipulation is usually more than one can endure without a method of