This is a research proposal I wrote for my Senior Seminar class. It focuses on The Hunger Games Trilogy from an academic perspective. Here is a short excerpt:
Katniss and Gale have a friendship built on mutual trust and a mutual understanding of the terrible circumstances they were born into. They both have become the head of their families having to hunt to feed their families, but hunting is against the law. By hunting daily, they disrupt and resist the laws and show the reader the necessity to defy unjust laws for purposes of survival. People deserve more freedom than they are allowed and the Capitol will let all of District 12 die of hunger before it allows them to hunt for their own food. Gale often states that he wants to start a rebellion, and this is ultimately what causes Katniss to be a part of the rebellion later. It is only after she joins the rebellion that she realizes how much hope she has inspired in others.
When I first read The Hunger Games trilogy, I was the same age as the female protagonist, Katniss. This allowed me to identify with her character. I developed a sentimental attachment to the series and found myself within it. Now, years later, as a mother of two girls, I hope my daughters will be exposed to female protagonists such as Katniss. As a character, Katniss embodies a teenage girl on the brink of being a woman, having the capability to not only feed her family, but also to start a revolution. It is important to me that my daughters do not think little of themselves. This world has a way of making people feel small. I hope my daughters will be able to see the kind of change Katniss is able to enact in her world and find within themselves that same power.
Collins presents the possibility for a teenage girl to change the world. Truthfully, Katniss is special. She is one of very few characters to have the knowledge of gathering food outside the District walls. Her father passed down this knowledge before he died in the mine explosion. This food gathering knowledge is what gives Katniss an edge or advantage in the Games. This, in turn, gives female readers the hopeful realization that she too can effect change.
The scene of “the reaping” shows Katniss’ sensitive or human side. Up to that point in the story, Katniss has been brutally honest and a bit calloused. Collins shows the reader that Katniss is human after all, that her lack of emotional attachment to most things does not mean that she is incapable of feeling. She does so by having her volunteer to take her younger sister’s place in the Games. Out of all the scenes in The Hunger Games this scene is the most powerful because it helps the reader identify with Katniss. Collins does a good job of making Katniss a more likeable character through this scene. The reader also gets a taste of the incredible writing the Collins is capable of because this scene has the power to draw some of its readers to tears. Here is a piece of the scene written by Collins: “‘Prim!’ The strangled cry comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. ‘Prim!’ I don’t need to shove through the crowd. The other kids make way immediately allowing me a straight path to the stage. I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps. With one sweep of my arm, I push her behind me. ‘I volunteer!’ I gasp. ‘I volunteer as tribute!’” this is when Katniss bravely takes Prim’s place (22). By taking her sister’s place in the Games, Katniss becomes a heroic character.
The entire paper will follow below.
The Girl in a Burning World: An Analysis of The Hunger Games Trilogy
In reading The Hunger Games trilogy it is important to note the political and social implications the text presents. Suzanne Collins goes a long way to show a corrupt political system that attempts to justify the slaughtering of children. The oppressive nature of the government being presented gives the reader insight into another world system. The fact that Collins uses the remnants of Northern America as the location of the series suggests that she sees the seeds of corruption in our current form of government, the kind that could eventually turn into the totalitarian government of The Hunger Games trilogy. For this and other reasons, it is also important to consider what other literary scholars have found within the series.
In Brianna Burke’s article “‘Reaping’ Environmental Justice through Compassion in The Hunger Games,” she compares the food system in today’s United States to that of Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. Her article argues that just as the people of the Capitol are unaware of where their resources are coming from, people in the United States have little knowledge of their food system. Burke suggests that Collins wanted to point out the risks in such a system. Her main point being that Collins made Katniss a hunter, which suggests that one should not eat meat unless they killed the animal themselves. The independence needed to be a hunter only adds to Katniss’ value as a heroine, especially to young girl readers. Burke focuses on all the mentions of food in the series and suggests that the road to a totalitarian government is paved by first giving up one’s knowledge of food gathering.
Another critic, Lykke Guanio-Uluru, similarly, applies the series to the world today with a focus on technology. The article attempts to prove the function of technology in The Hunger Games trilogy as both a healing and destructive power. The Capitol engineers new medicines that claim to be superior to any herbal concoction Katniss’ mother can create. The Capitol also engineers weapons and the arena that the Games take place in. Both examples represent the destructive power of technology. The arenas built for the Games are specifically designed to make survival unlikely. Guanio-Uluru suggests that Collins juxtaposes these two functions of technology as warnings about technological advancement overwhelming a just society.
Another critic Caroline Jones goes in a completely different direction with her article, focusing mostly on four characters and their roles in the series. She applies character archetypes to Gale, Peeta, Haymitch and Katniss, the four main characters of the series. These archetypes are important to understanding the development of these four characters, specifically, how they all end up being a big part of the revolution. Katniss a reluctant hero rises as a symbol, the Mockingjay, to unite the resistance against the Capitol’s authoritarian power. The Mockingjay brings hope to a world with little life left. Katniss makes sense as a reluctant hero, because she did not choose her hero status; others saw something in her that she could not see in herself. Jones claims that Gale, Peeta and Haymitch are all instrumental in Katniss’ rise as the Mockingjay.
Katniss and Gale have a friendship built on mutual trust and a mutual understanding of the terrible circumstances they were born into. They both have become the head of their families having to hunt to feed their families, but hunting is against the law. By hunting daily, they disrupt and resist the laws and show the reader the necessity to defy unjust laws for purposes of survival. People deserve more freedom than they are allowed and the Capitol will let all of District 12 die of hunger before it allows them to hunt for their own food. Gale often states that he wants to start a rebellion, and this is ultimately what causes Katniss to be a part of the rebellion later. It is only after she joins the rebellion that she realizes how much hope she has inspired in others.
When I first read The Hunger Games trilogy, I was the same age as the female protagonist, Katniss. This allowed me to identify with her character. I developed a sentimental attachment to the series and found myself within it. Now, years later, as a mother of two girls, I hope my daughters will be exposed to female protagonists such as Katniss. As a character, Katniss embodies a teenage girl on the brink of being a woman, having the capability to not only feed her family, but also to start a revolution. It is important to me that my daughters do not think little of themselves. This world has a way of making people feel small. I hope my daughters will be able to see the kind of change Katniss is able to enact in her world and find within themselves that same power.
Collins presents the possibility for a teenage girl to change the world. Truthfully, Katniss is special. She is one of very few characters to have the knowledge of gathering food outside the District walls. Her father passed down this knowledge before he died in the mine explosion. This food gathering knowledge is what gives Katniss an edge or advantage in the Games. This, in turn, gives female readers the hopeful realization that she too can effect change.
The scene of “the reaping” shows Katniss’ sensitive or human side. Up to that point in the story, Katniss has been brutally honest and a bit calloused. Collins shows the reader that Katniss is human after all, that her lack of emotional attachment to most things does not mean that she is incapable of feeling. She does so by having her volunteer to take her younger sister’s place in the Games. Out of all the scenes in The Hunger Games this scene is the most powerful because it helps the reader identify with Katniss. Collins does a good job of making Katniss a more likeable character through this scene. The reader also gets a taste of the incredible writing the Collins is capable of because this scene has the power to draw some of its readers to tears. Here is a piece of the scene written by Collins: “‘Prim!’ The strangled cry comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. ‘Prim!’ I don’t need to shove through the crowd. The other kids make way immediately allowing me a straight path to the stage. I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps. With one sweep of my arm, I push her behind me. ‘I volunteer!’ I gasp. ‘I volunteer as tribute!’” this is when Katniss bravely takes Prim’s place (22). By taking her sister’s place in the Games, Katniss becomes a heroic character.
Collins also shows the reader a lot about the world that Katniss lives in by having the other District 12 members show their gratitude for Katniss. The reader sees a community that dreads “the reaping” and does not want to see a twelve-year-old girl get picked. They have a collective mindset as the oppressed in a society, structured to keep them from doing anything outside the bounds of the government rule. By adding this part to the scene, Collins pulls the reader into her world and shows that though the members of the District normally avoid each other, they do have commonalities that bind them together. Later in the series, it is through these commonalities that the people of the Districts are able to form a resistance movement. This binds the reader to the dilemmas presented too, and especially provokes a young girl reader to assume responsibility for enacting change in her life, her community, and her future.
This trilogy is especially important for our political times, and young girls primarily can find their strength by identifying with this hero character, undaunted by the challenges she faces and overcomes. When Collins created Katniss, she was not just creating a hero for the people of Panem, she wrote Katniss as an inspiration to all young girls. She does so by painting a clear picture of corruption in the government and allowing Katniss to be a hero, even if a bit reluctant at first. It is actually, Katniss’ reluctance to be a hero that makes her more relatable. She did not choose to change the world, she was chosen. Her own resistance of the Capitol’s ideals and compassion towards others, inspired most of Panem to fight against the totalitarian government.
Works Cited
Burke, Brianna. “‘Reaping’ Environmental Justice through Compassion in The Hunger Games.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 22, no. 3, 2015, MLA International Bibliography, pp. 544–567.
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic Press, 2008.
--. Catching Fire. Scholastic Press, 2009.
--. Mockingjay. Scholastic Press, 2010.
Guanio-Uluru, Lykke. “Katniss Everdeen’s Posthuman Identity in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Series: Free as a Mockingjay?” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, no. 1, 2017, Literature Resource Center, pp. 57-78.
Jones, Caroline E. “Changing the World: Faces of Rebellion in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 27, no. 2, 2016, MLA International Bibliography, pp. 225–247.
Macaluso, Michael, and Cori Mckenzie. “Exploiting the Gaps in the Fence.”Complementary Index. Politics of Panem, Jan. 2014, pp. 91-108.
Tyson, Lois. “Structuralist criticism.” Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006, pp. 209-247.
Works Consulted
Connors, Sean P. “ ‘I Try to Remember Who I Am and Who I Am Not’: The Subjugation of Nature and Women in The Hunger Games.” The Politics of Panem: Challenging Genre, edited by Connors, Sense, 2014.
Dreyer, David R. “War, Peace, and Justice in Panem: International Relations and The Hunger Games Trilogy.” European Political Science, no. 2, 2016, pp. 251-265. Gale Academic OneFile.
Fitzgerald, Jon, and Philip Hayward. “Mountain Airs, Mockingjays and Modernity: Songs and Their Significance in The Hunger Games.” Science Fiction, Film and Television, vol. 8, no. 1, 2015, Gale Academic Onefile, pp. 75-89.
Gant, Tammy L. “Hungering for Righteousness: Music, Spirituality and Katniss Everdeeen.” Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy, edited by Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark, McFarland, 2012.
Lem, Ellyn, and Holly Hassel. “‘Killer’ Katniss and ‘Loverboy’ Peeta: Suzanne Collins’s Defiance of Gender-Genred Reading.” Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy, edited by Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark, McFarland, 2012.
Annotated Bibliography:
Burke, Brianna. “ ‘Reaping’ Environmental Justice through Compassion in The Hunger Games.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 22, no. 3, 2015, MLA International Bibliography, pp. 544–567.
Brianna Burke takes the food system in the United States and compares it to Collins' food system in The Hunger Games. She specifically analyzes how the oppressive government uses food as a weapon, against its own citizens. Katniss notices that having the ability and know-how of gathering food, a lost knowledge, is key to her survival. She is one of very few people who know how to find food in the wild and bring it home for her family. Katniss learned how to hunt from her father before he died. Burke argues this is Collins’ way of criticizing the amount of distance between American citizens and the food we consume. She believes as citizens we should be aware of where our food comes from and not just blindly consume.
Burke also zeros in on the way Collins portrays acts of compassion as being the beginning of the revolution. It is in these rare compassionate actions that the citizens of Panem become unified. They are made to view each other with hatred. The Capitol does not want them to know enough about each other to sympathize. The more Katniss learns about each person, the harder it is for her to imagine killing them or even merely watch them die. When Katniss is able to show compassion for her fellow tribute Rue, by giving her a ceremonious burial, of sorts, it inspires the entire District 11 to show her the same kindness with an expensive gift of bread, the first District gift to another District member (7-8).
This article gives a different perspective on The Hunger Games, one that directly compares it to the world we live in now. Burke makes a good case for it and brings a good argument for how Collins was basing her tightly controlled food system on the actual food system in the United States. Most people today do not know where there food is coming from, and in many ways, we are not meant to. The article is a good example of what I hope to accomplish with my project. The Hunger Games trilogy has so much more to it than the typical triangle love story.
The second part of the article that looks at the compassionate acts of Katniss and other characters as being the sparks of the revolution is important because it is an unusual way of starting a revolution. People would mostly expect a revolution to begin with grief and anger, but Collins portrays a different kind of revolution. One where the people have been isolated from one another to keep them weak, and the best way for them to fight back is for them to come together. Each time someone in the story has a moment of kindness towards someone they are not bound to, it sparks others to reciprocate that kindness. In turn the compassionate acts cause others to view each other as human beings again.
Guanio-Uluru, Lykke. “Katniss Everdeen’s Posthuman Identity in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Series: Free as a Mockingjay?” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, no. 1, 2017, Literature Resource Center, pp. 57-78.
In this article, Guanio-Uluru takes a posthumanist look at The Hunger Games trilogy, specifically, how the series uses the main character, Katniss Everdeen, as a symbol for the rebellion through the “mockingjay” creature, a hybrid between natural, a mockingbird, and artificial, a jabberjay (57). Guanio-Uluru makes the connection between Katniss and the mockingjay through a careful analysis of the costumes, created by Cinna, her stylist for the Games, and the use of “song versus silence,” and the fusion of natural and artificial (58). Guanio-Uluru also points out the physical way in which Katniss becomes a part of the Capitol’s culture by the medical alterations they perform on her to erase the blemishes on her skin, arguing that for Katniss, this physical change is also a change to the way she identifies herself as a person (75).
The article goes deeper into the discussion to establish how the series takes a stance on technological advancements. Through Katniss’ eyes, the reader sees technology having the capability to heal, but also to destroy. It is this power of destruction that Katniss tries to escape, while also making a point to be astonished by the healing capabilities the technology can possess. Guanio-Uluru argues that by having two opposite uses for the technology, the series creates both amazement and weariness towards technology as a whole (77). Guanio-Uluru shows a focus on the romanticized view of nature as an aspiration of the main character but also represented as an impossibility (65-76).
This article is important because it looks at multiple aspects of The Hunger Games trilogy under multiple lenses. Guanio-Urulu makes connections in the series that are key to understanding the relevance it has, outside of the story itself. The way Collins uses bird imagery in the way she characterizes certain characters, such as Katniss, Rue and Katniss' father, is instrumental in Guanio-Urulu’s reading of the series. Also, the consideration of song and silence is a key part of how Katniss expresses emotion throughout the series. At times she sings to comfort another; other times she is silent out of fear, but most of all she hardly ever sings out of happiness because happiness is a rare occurrence in her world.
Guanio-Urulu expresses a full understanding of Katniss’ character and her identity. Throughout the series, Katniss is being formed into others visions of who she is, rather than who she really is underneath. This is a key struggle for her character in the series. She has to figure out how she defines herself before she can truly be free. Whether it is the Capitol, or the rebellion attempting to control her image, she remains a person underneath it all. It is easier to trust the article, seeing the knowledge Gaunio-Uluru has of the protagonists’ internal struggle about her outward appearance.
Jones, Caroline E. “Changing the World: Faces of Rebellion in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games Trilogy.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 27, no. 2, 2016, MLA International Bibliography, pp. 225–247.
Caroline Jones outlines the use of hope in the Hunger Games trilogy, specifically through four characters and their roles in the story: Gale as the “frustrated rebel-hero,” Peeta as the “pacific resistor,” Haymitch as the “subversive survivor,” and Katniss as the “reluctant hero” (230). She points out that not all of the four characters suffer real starvation. Peeta is part of the richer side of District Twelve and he has never wanted for food. Haymitch is a victor of the Games and has more than enough food, while Katniss and Gale both have struggled with real hunger, but Haymitch has a hunger of the “soul” (238). The main point is that they all four must work together for the resistance to work. Each of the other three characters influence Katniss in such a way that defines her action and inaction in the series going forward.
Katniss herself could not rise to be the hero of Panem. She needed the push from Gale, Peeta and Haymitch. Her relationships with these three men help her to see past other people’s words. Ultimately, they are the reason she is able to deliver a Panem with a chance at justice. Jones argues that the Katniss who was at the beginning of the story, has changed drastically by the end because of the influences of Gale, Peeta, and Haymitch. The four of them make up the main cast, but their roles in the story are outlined in this article as being a driving force for the resistance against the Capitol (230).
This article is a good example of using a structuralist approach to the Hunger Games trilogy. By using the archetypal models, Jones designates a position in the resistance for each of the four main characters. She goes into depth about how each character fits the structure and then shows how that structure leads to the ending of the series. Each of the four characters are irreplaceable in the series. Without Gale’s “passion” for justice, Peeta’s sense of “integrity” and Haymitch’s ability to “avert expectations” (239).
Beyond this article, my project will take a similar approach to the Hunger Games trilogy. There is plenty left unexplored in the series, especially when coming to character archetypes and roles within the narrative. More than that, Jones does not spend much time exploring the politics of Panem, the subtle ways Katniss and various other characters have to manage themselves in the oppressive world in which they live. The very nature of a world that isolates citizens from one another, making them hate each other in order to make rebellion seem impossible, is a part of what is missing in this article.
Macaluso, Michael, and Cori Mckenzie. “Exploiting the Gaps in the Fence.” Politics of Panem, Jan. 2014, Complementary Index, pp. 91-108.
Michael Macaluso and Cori Mckenzie challenge what other scholars have said about The Hunger Games through Michel Foucalt’s principles of how power works and where it resides. They challenge the presence of a government with “absolute power” in Panem, claiming that the Capitol is not, in fact, totalitarian. Using Foucalt’s principles of power, the authors break down power into four categories: “Sovereign, Disciplinary, Pastoral and Biopower” (94). When applying these types of power to The Hunger Games, the authors come to the conclusion that it is the combination of all these modes of power that allow Peeta and Katniss to win the Games.
Macaluso and Mckenzie go into detail about each instance of the different modes of power. They explain how something simple, like Cinna’s costume designs, were actually a use of power. In fact, Cinna’s character is actually one of the most rebellious, in the early part of the series. His designs actively disrupt the Capitol’s agenda towards Katniss and Peeta by making them human. They also take note of the power Haymitch had over Katniss and Peeta’s lives, while they were in the Games he was the one who had the power to send them gifts that could save their lives (91-95).
This article only looks at the first novel in the Hunger Games trilogy, and so misses the opportunity to apply these ideas about power to the series as a whole. Also, by not taking into account the second and third novel of the series, the article misses some key changes to the power structure. Some of the statements made in this article, are only true of the first novel and by the second and third, they are no longer relevant. Otherwise this article has some useful information about power dynamics and the way they apply to The Hunger Games.
At the end of the article, the authors present an idea that anyone could have been the hero, Katniss is merely the one who found and “exploited” the weaknesses of the Capitol (107). The way they present this idea is a little off because they ignore the fact that it is the ordinary quality that Katniss possesses that makes her a potential hero. Sure, someone else could have found the weakness and used it against the Capitol, but the reader connects with Katniss because she is like anybody else. If she were someone from a better circumstance, the story would be harder to follow. Readers might wonder why someone who lives in good conditions would want to disrupt that system.
Tyson, Lois. “Structuralist criticism.” Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006, pp. 209-247.
In Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today, specifically the “Structuralist criticism” chapter, she goes through a lengthy description of what “Structural criticism” is. Reading works with a Structuralist point of view means to find an underlying structure that informs the “human consciousness” (211). The basic idea is that we, as humans, impose order on the world, so any structure we observe, is something purposeful. Structure is defined as something complete, that is capable of change within its own boundaries.
This concept can be applied in many ways. One way to apply the principle of Structuralism, is to look at Grammar structure within a work. Other ways include looking at the structure of linguistics in a text, or applying it to the nature of the genre that the work falls into. All of these are explored in Tyson’s chapter. She also applies it herself to The Great Gatsby. This last application of the principles outlined give a better understanding of the theory altogether (220-240).
Tyson’s book is useful for my project because it outlines the Structuralist approach that I plan to use. The Hunger Games trilogy is a series built with many different structures, some are merely character archetypes, but there is more to discover throughout the series. This Critical Theory Today would be a useful tool for applying these concepts to my chosen text. The idea of social convention, as outlined by Tyson, applies to the series because Collins creates an entire community about which, we as readers, know very little. The way that the characters define certain concepts and ideologies has to be explained or shown in the series.
In the section of the chapter that applies Structuralism to The Great Gatsby, Tyson displays the structure of the plot. She shows that the structure repeats in the different characters storylines. This provides a good basis for applying the chapters overall concepts to a text. She breaks down how the structure adds to the story and ultimately decides what the characters can and cannot have.
