A Comedy for the Rich, a Tragedy for the Poor: Political Satire in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games

In Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008), the fictional future state of Panem has, for at least three quarters of a century, used the annual Hunger Games as a control mechanism to maintain the uneven power balance between the rich and the poor. The country’s history, for which Collins draws on a range of real-life historical sources, has proved this to be a pervasive method for the totalitarian regime to monitor and diminish its masses as well as to enforce Panem’s dictatorship status. This essay is a literary analysis of Collins’s young adult novel, exploring social criticism as it is presented by the author and examining the faults of society through the relationship between democratic deficit and the common people in a totalitarian state. Offering Marxist and post-colonialist perspectives of The Hunger Games, the essay brings forward the main arguments concerning the true horrors of totalitarianism by means of political satire and effective polemic. It analyses and evaluates the main character’s role in the social criticism through the eyes of the narrator and heroine, Katniss Everdeen, thus raising questions about the injustice forced on the poor through oppression and violence. Finally, the essay investigates the theme of suffering as entertainment from the point of view of the Capitol, by which the Hunger Games tributes are taught to embrace the schadenfreude aspect of the show. In order to cast a light upon these matters, Collins ensures that The Hunger Games transcends its status as a young adult novel with an impressive and compelling social message that further exerts the importance of democracy and the full adherence of human rights.

Author dc:creator

• Bylgja Júlíusdóttir 1990-

Contributors dc:contributor

• Háskóli Íslands

• Enska
• Collins, Suzanne, 1962-
• The Hunger Games (skáldsaga)
• Bókmenntagreining

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1946/17899

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:skemman.is:1946/17899