The Inequality Between the Rich & the Poor - The Hunger Games

The genre of dystopian fiction is becoming more popular every day. A recent example of an extremely popular dystopian fiction novel is The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins. The novel is a warning to modern readers suggesting that the inequality between the rich and the poor in our society is very similar to that represented in the novel. Collins' protagonist of the story, Katniss Everdeen, is the victim of financial discrimination from the capitol. The Capitol’s forms of welfare for the disadvantaged provide little assistance, people are having to break the law just to survive and how it would help if the Capitol gave the Districts their fair share of wealth. There are literary devices as well as generic elements used by Collins to place the reader in agreeance with her view of the world.

The tesserae and death payouts are the Capitol's forms of welfare for those who are not well off. The tesserae is a “meagre year's supply of grain and oil” for one person in exchange for one extra reaping entry. This puts forward the idea of the Capitol thinking that a poor person dying is less of a loss to society than a rich person as a rich person has the money to supply their family with what they need to survive. The tesserae is similar to the pension that are given out by the Australian Government. The Australian Government gives money, rather than food, to those in need. This allows for more choice in what the welfare is spent on. The other form of welfare is the death payouts. When Katniss' father is "blown to bits" in a mine explosion, District 12 gave their family enough money to "cover one month of grieving, after which time my mother would be expected to get a job. Only she didn't." Katniss' mother just sat in a chair. She di...

... middle of paper ...

...tralians put them in detention centres and make them wait years before entry is allowed. Australia sounds like a wonderful place. We keep talking about how we need to help those in abject poverty, but that’s all we do. We don’t fix the source, we try to fix the outcomes but it doesn’t solve the problem. We need to make a change, we need to show we actually care for the wellbeing of others. We need to make the rich and the poor equal.

To summarise, Australians need to take action to end the inequality between the rich and the poor. If we don’t, we may end up like Panem where a totalitarian selfish government rules over all. Collins uses generic elements and literary devices to position the reader in a state of agreeance with the way she views the world. Our society does not have far to go before becoming Panem with extreme inequalities between the rich and the poor.