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