The Hunger Games: Portrayals Of Dystopian Societies

The Hunger Games and Divergent: Portrayals of Dystopian Societies

Dystopian literature, a genre of writing used in many famous novels, is a style of writing in which protagonist is going against the society or community. Dystopian societies were present in ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins and ‘Divergent’ by Veronica Roth. The Hunger Games and Divergent showed great examples of dystopian communities because the people are terrorized by the government, the people lack any rights of freedom, and the government controls most of the society.

One of the factors that showed people in The Hunger Games and Divergent were living in a dystopian society is that they were being controlled and terrorized by the government. One example of the people being terrorized was when Katniss is describing The

One example from The Hunger Games is when Katniss talks about the Capitol limiting boundaries for District 12. “Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal, more people would risk it if they had weapons.” (Collins 5). The people of Panem are being limited to freedom in this situation because they should be allowed to go into the woods to hunt for food if there isn’t enough in the society. “I will decide on a faction; I will decide the rest of my life” - Tris (Roth 2) Tris’ dialogue to herself shows that the people's freedom is also being limited by the government in Divergent because the government forces the people to pick a faction, or else you’ll be factionless - living without a home or society. When you pick a faction, you also have to stay there permanently. You can’t change factions once you have chosen one at the Choosing Ceremony. As shown in these two examples from Divergent and The Hunger Games, the people living under dystopian governments lack all freedom to do anything they