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The hunger games as a dystopian novel and sociological imagination
The hunger games as a dystopian novel and sociological imagination
Sociology in the hunger games
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The Hunger Games as a Psychoanalytic Theory
The Hunger Games at first, seems to be your average teen novel, but later is actually a story about a nation that requires young adults to kill each other for entertainment. During the story you wonder what the message the writer, Suzanne Collins, is trying to convey throughout the plot. The story is themed on corrupt politics, greed, and starvation. Is the message that she is trying to deliver tells us that if our economy and society continues what is doing now, that we may end up like Panem?
The country Panem is corrupt as is with its dictatorship government and politics. Panem is based on a social hierarchy ranking with the Capitol being the leader and districts one through twelve being ranked
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in order from highest to lowest. One half of the country lives a high life of luxury and wealth, while the other half of the country lives in poverty and struggle. Poverty being a struggle for Panem shows how corrupt and negligent their government is. Politics in this novel increases as its government’s mistreatment begins an uprising rebellion by the citizens. Panem is a post-rebellion country that in response, hosts the Hunger Games as a reminder to all the citizens and rebels that the Capitol has full power and cannot be destroyed. Twenty-four children, one male and one female from each district, is chosen to fight to the death leaving one victorious. President Snow of the capitol has no guilt or regret in killing his country’s youth, as long as fear is created amongst the citizens of Panem as a weapon to prevent another rebellion. Even though we may not find murder as entertainment, we do find it as entertainment in the form of television, movies, and also video games. The people of the Capitol out of the rest of its nation, finds entertainment in the slayings during the Hunger Games. We exceed our morals in our society with our need for entertainment. We live in a society that depends mostly on media and entertainment with everything centered on the idea of it. The Capitol dominates the lives of its citizens by hosting the Hunger Games and using its citizens as entertainment. Even though the Capitol finds the Hunger games as entertaining, they nullify the idea of it being psychotic and morally wrong. Throughout the book, readers try to imagine a world where the government would force its citizens to participate in such games.
The reader must look deeper into story to find the message that Collins is trying to impose in the story. There are actually multiple messages that exist within the story. There is a political context that’s not apparent, but exists instating the idea the society of the Hunger Games is much like ours. The social message that lies within the story is about hunger but not only the literal meaning of hunger. Everyone in the society is fighting for hunger, hunger for increasing social hierarchy, political freedom, and actual hunger.
Hunting in the Hunger Games appears many times in the story. Katniss, is a hunter that spends most of her time hunting and uses what she can find or kill in the woods to feed her and her family. Hunting is what helped her survive during the Games when found couldn’t be found. Although hunting animals was “easy” for her and provided her food, hunting humans for competition is much different and took an emotional toll on her. These different types of hunting in the Hunger Games are the all same as viewed by the Capitol, but hunting to Katniss shifted from a positive thing to completely
negative. The Capitol uses its Hunger Games as a way to suppress the people to keep them from retaliating. The districts in the Hunger Games are more like feuds. All of the countries are loyal to the central power, the Capitol, but they are not loyal and fight each other. Even though the countries are supposed to be united together to prevent another rebellion against the government, they rebel and fight each other. This is the tool the government uses to prevent another uprising, they make the districts fight each other and form hatred to mask their corruptness.
In both books they share some traits, even though they may not look anything alike they are. both of these novels are dystopian novels and many characters share similarity’s.
The book The Hunger Games is full of critical scenes. A critical scene is a type of scene that is necessary for the book to have a story. One very important critical scene is when Prim was chosen at the reaping. When she was chosen Katniss decided to take her place as a tribute. Why did Katniss take her place? What could have happened if she didn't take her place?
Collins has embedded a very strong moral behind her writings, which she has made quite clear through the morals of Panem and its Capitol. The Hunger Games could be described as a massive, national television show with a little – well, big – twist. Like reality television in our day and age, it is extremely popular with plenty of drama; except, perhaps the drama is a little too dramatic, involving the brutal murder of tributes and the literal back-stabbing of fellow ‘allies’. Essentially, the Hunger Games is a large sport and source of entertainment, where the tributes must face atrocious perils such as fireballs, mutated, dogs, along with tracker-jackers – wasps genetically modified to create hallucinations and kill with merely a few painful stings. Although this is a bit too extreme for our reality television, there are still many similarities.
The Hunger Games are basically the embodiment of society's off sense of entertainment. It combines the oddities that are violence and reality TV. However, what is it that insinuates the tones for this type of movie? Initially, there's a scene that addresses the fact that the society of this movie is conducting the games as though it was a standardized athletic tournament. In the movie, Haymitch Abernathy brings up how there are sponsors who deliver supplies to the “contestants”. Basically, sponsors influence the who will live or die, incidentally affecting the course of the games. During this scene, he claims, “And to get sponsors, you have to make people like you.” This scene mentions the thought on how people living in societies today work
As the American people’s standards and principles has evolved over time, it’s easy to forget the pain we’ve caused. However, this growth doesn’t excuse the racism and violence that thrived within our young country not even a century previous. This discrimination, based solely on an ideology that one’s race is superior to another, is what put many people of color in miserable places and situations we couldn’t even imagine today. It allowed many Caucasian individuals to inflict pain, through both physical and verbal attacks, and even take away African Americans ' God given rights. In an effort to expose upcoming generations to these mass amounts of prejudice and wrongdoing, Harper Lee 's classic novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, tells the story of
The Hunger Games was a good movie when it came out. This movie refers to a dystopia world in which there are 12 districts and a capitol who rules with an iron fist, in which the districts must provide a tribute to fight in an annual Hunger Game as a punishment for a past rebellion. Katniss Everdeen is a hunter from the 12th district, which Gale, her friend gives her tips on hunting. One day her sister, Primrose Everdeen, is chosen for the Hunger Games, and in order to save her, she volunteers instead to serve in the Games along with Peeta Mellark. During a TV interview, Peeta confesses her love for Katniss Everdeen, which causes the enragement of the latter; however, she later forgives him as he explains to her that it was only to gain sponsors. During the Hunger Games, she did not receive a lot of supplies except some medicine to cure a wound, but Districts 1 and 2 almost won the Game due to their training, and amount of supplies which Katniss destroys but cannot recover any of them. The Hunger Games was one of the best movies I ever watched because it has a little bit of everything and it captures the real-life survival game that we live on a daily basis.
The novel ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins (2008) is a novel about a teenager named Katniss Everdeen who volunteers to compete in a death reality television show called ‘The Hunger Games.’ I agree that the text shows the people with power are controlling and manipulating the powerless. Firstly I will be discussing how the capitol manipulates and alters reality. Next how the Capitol controls the districts and how the districts a limited. Finally how if the capitol didn’t edit the hunger games the districts will erupt into rebellion.
Complete governmental control develops as an apparent theme of both 1984 and The Hunger Games. 1984 uses the concept of big brother for the sole purpose of instilling a dependence on the government for every aspect in the citizens’ lives. Similarly, the capitol of Panem in The Hunger Games censors information from the people so that any idea of revolution will be instantaneously
Both texts demonstrate the influence that hope has on an oppressed society which accompanies destabilisation of superior powers. Hope in both narratives is expressed as the pinnacle of human nature and an intrinsic part of any society. However, although these traits are recognised by the leaders in both texts, both also understand that hope must be contained in order to ensure that an uprising does not occur. President Snow, in ‘The Hunger Games’, enforces the Hunger Games to
The Hunger Games- “a futuristic dystopian society [Panem] where an overpowering government controls the lives and resources in twelve different districts” (The Hunger Games). The overpowering government lives in the Capitol of Panem and from there controls the citizens of the twelve districts through propaganda and other means. The Capitol has all of the economic and political power in Panem; they have complete control. The leader of the capitol is the harsh, dictator-like figure, President Snow. President Snow’s methods for keeping order in the districts are through Peacekeepers and the annual Hunger Games. The Peacekeepers are an army that monitors each district. Any sign of rebellion, and the Peacekeepers take care of it, usually by killing the rebel in some way. The annual Hunger Games are used to remind all of the citizens of Panem about the uprising in the now obliterated District 13. The Hunger Games, in a way, brainwashes all of the citizens, but a select few such as Katniss Everdeen, to believe that an uprising would be horrible and is not necessary and that the Capitol does what is best for all of the citizens. In
Entertainment can come and be enjoyed in many different forms. Television shows and movies are some of the different forms of entertainment can be in. The lives of famous actors from shows or movies are constantly scrutinized on and off screen. Within the world of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins a version of reality entertainment is the televised murder of innocent children. Those who are chosen to be within the Hunger Games become a scrutinized celebrity. Katniss and other tributes that are forced to fight and kill show how human identity can become lost as they become objectified for the people of Panem. The Hunger Games helps represent the harm that reality television can have by using the glorification of death with the objectification
Emrah Peksoy wrote an article called “Food as Control in the Hunger Games Trilogy” and compared food to a controlling aspect used in society. He discusses how dystopian writers use food as a concept and an underlying image to show how important food is to a culture. The connection Peksoy makes with Collins’ novel is how she uses “… constant employment of food related discourse and food vocabulary metaphorically show characters’ own political, cultural and personal understandings of the society…” (79). This connection goes to make the imagery of food stronger for the reader to understand the power hunger has over a person. Peksoy made a point about how the novel revolves around food even if it seems unintentional to the reader. He states about the way Collins wrote how “one of the key scenes in the novel takes place between President Snow and Katniss while they are having tea and cookies” (82). Even though the food is not significant to the importance of the scene, it is a subliminal message given by Collins showing the prominence of food by making an important section in the novel surrounded by
When Gary Ross’ 2012 adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ famous novel ‘The Hunger Games’ exploded on screens, it was received as an action-packed, thrilling story of survival, determination and over-coming corruption. Audience’s watched in equal parts awe and horror as Katniss was thrust into Panem’s battle arena and fought for justice, family and friendship. However, if we as an audience think more critically about the film; if we think beyond the wild costumes, gripping action and skilful performances, we can see that the story explores complex philosophical ideas that strongly relate to the experiences of humanity in the real world.
I believe “The Hunger Games” series hold a strong political message. The Hunger Games is about the Capitol (rich) and districts (poor) of Panem. Every year the capitol forces the districts to participate in The Hunger Games as a reminder of the day the Capitol rose and dominated the districts and placed them in poverty and tyrannical oppression. Two tributes from each district is placed in an arena to fight until death basically for the Capitol’s entertainment. This series plays a lot on social inequalities and political authority.
The Hunger Games, a film based off of a novel written by Susan Collins, was released in March of 2012. The film, and the book it was based on, chronicles the struggles of a girl named Katniss Everdeen, a girl who lives in a poverty stricken province or “District”, until untimely circumstances forces her to play in the Hunger Games, a gladiatorial like contest where children between the ages of 12 and 18 are forced to fight to the death. A contest that was set up by an oppressive and authoritarian government, and has thus far been sustained via the forced obedience of the rebellious Districts, the brainwashing and conditioning of Districts 1 and 2, and the conditioning of the residents of its Capitol. The movie has a variety of messages, most especially in regards toward social control and social conditioning. With these ideas in mind, a case could very well be made that The Hunger Games, throughout its two hour long run time, shows a very realistic look at a socially conditioned society and what humanity can become with the right amount of conditioning and control by an authoritarian force.