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The Hunger Games:A Proxy Family’s Gender Roles and
The Female Heroine’s Rebirth in Dystopian Allegory
Linda BrachENGLISH 5770
Adolescents are confronting the
collapse of their childhood verities.
Authority figures [begin to] appear despotic which
Further alienates the teen protagonists who must now assert their independence.
-Screen Education, 6/1/12
Why the dystopian appeal?
Comes from a military family Early 2000s
“Reality” TV Live war footage (Iraq and
Afghanistan)
S. Collins Inspiration for the Hunger Games
Setting: sometime in the future. PANEM – an
area of 12 “districts” after a revolution (presumably the United States) the CAPITOL – the governing city of PANEM
Two “tributes” from each district – one female, one male, ages 12 – 18 are selected to “fight to the death” in an “arena” created by the “benevolent” (hegemonic totalitarian) state. This fight is designed for the entertainment of the capitol’s citizens. (Think Gladiators, bull fights, boxing.)
Synopsis
Katniss – 16 year old heroine of District 12 –
coal mining district (rural poverty, Appalachia) Effie – female advisor Cinna – male, tribute stylist Haymitch – male, alcoholic, previous Hunger
Games winner, mentor to Katniss and Peeta tributes.
Characters
“Heteronormative ideals of tough males and
submissive beautiful females are often present in YA fiction [and film] girls are passive and peripheral…and often tied to traditional feminine norms and representations… needing rescue and confined to domestic roles.” -Journal of Youth Studies (16. 8) 2013
Katniss Everdeen, heroine in Hunger Games, defies these ideals.
Young Adult Lit and Film
Literally, as she climbs beyond the barbed wire
limits of District 12 to hunt in the forest
Figuratively, as she goes beyond feminine gendered norms. She asserts herself, rather than passively deferring to the masculine by taking risks and taking the advice of loving paternal proxy figures.
Katniss violates boundaries
Katniss commands attention by shooting the
apple
Nagging judgmental maternal figures: “Proper manners, behavior,
etiquette and appearance”…ILLUSIONS!
Effie
Haymitch: warnings about the arena and
cornucopia
Cinna: belief in Katniss and she prepares to be reborn
Paternal Proxies
(over)exposure/vulnerability
Silence: Deafness and Drowning
Rebirth and rites-of-passage
Katniss’s “rebirth” into the Arena: mean girls, bullying and Walmart