...Book Report The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins, appears to be your average teen romance trilogy, but upon second glance one realizes that this is not the case. Collins writes about a future nation that requires its children to kill each other as a form of entertainment for the people of the Capitol. The plot makes for a very exciting story line, but as the reader one cannot help but wonder what message Collins is trying to get across. Does she believe that if we continue down the path that society is currently taking we will someday face a world similar to Panem? That this fiction could someday become a reality on certain levels? Within these novels, Collins includes several important themes, including: corrupt politics, starvation vs. greed, and the obsession with entertainment. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in the nation of Panem, a post-apocalyptic North America, with her mother and younger sister, Prim. Her family resides in District 12, the poorest of 12 districts ruled by the wealthy Capitol. Katniss provides for her mother and sister by hunting with her friend Gale in the forbidden woods nearby. As punishment for the districts' rebellion attempt years earlier, the Capitol holds an annual televised event called The Hunger Games. Each district must draw the names of a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18. These 24 youths become contestants, called tributes, who must fight to the death in a vast arena created by the Capitol Gamemakers. The lone survivor...
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...film The Hunger Games there are a lot of themes that mirrored in our society today. First and foremost there is the politics of Panem. The government, or “The Capitol,” is corrupted. Their control over the country “Panem” is very iron like in the fact that they control everything from resources to where you can go and what you can do. After awhile of this the districts get fed up and rebel. The capitol succeeds in quelling this rebellion and then to prevent any more rebellions actions or from being embarrassed, they, the Capitol, ensure their power/superiority over their people through a “holiday” they created called the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a fight to the death between two tributes from the twelve districts displayed on a television program which is mandatory and to be enjoyed. One of the themes that's present in our society and the movie is the obsession with celebrities and fame. I found myself finding a lot of similarities between the Hunger Games contestants and those on shows like American Idol and The Voice. Both have stylists that dress them up to make them look more dazzling and attractive, and both have mentors that help guide them through the process. There is a spectacle of fashion, makeup and style that has gone wild within the “elite class”. The style and fashion of the “elite class”(people who live in the high-tech cities of Panem) seems to be echoed right out of a modern-day parade. People are adorned with bright, excessive clothing and garnishing...
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...may portray a society of dystopia. A utopian society is a place, state, or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics,laws, customs, and conditions. A dystopian society is a futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. In both Fahrenheit 451 and The Hunger Games, citizens live in a society with a fear of the outside world, individuality compressed, and the illusion of a perfect utopia life. The two are set in a realistic futuristic society that shares numerous similarities. The citizens of Fahrenheit 451 and The Hunger Games share a fear of the outside world. In Fahrenheit 451, no one has the desire to go outside or be apart of it. Citizens in The Hunger Games are gated into their communities by electric fences to keep them from going beyond the boundaries. Though the circumstances keeping each from leaving are different, neither are often questioned. The outside world is kept as a segregated part of society in both Fahrenheit 451 and The Hunger Games....
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...Being a ‘Team’ Player: The Linguistic Alteration of Identity in Online Communities Dedicated to The Hunger Games In the first chapter of Gender and Language, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet discuss how the connection between language and gender enables a “continual performance” of gendered interactions (33), which, in turn, enables “social reproduction” founded on the separate categories of male and female. They argue that language not only reflects gendered categories but “constructs and maintains these categories” (34). Being such strong categories, they claim it is “impossible” to escape gendered behavior and not influence others to give gendered responses (50). In a later chapter, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet discuss how “gender schemas and ideologies” are implied and interpreted (203). Using an example from a university setting, the authors illustrate their point that the assumption of gender may not result from “the particulars of our exchange but in familiar gender stereotypes” (204). If no specific clues or pronouns are given during the exchange of information, presuppositions relying on stereotypes often emerge. Not only do stereotypes and behavior fill the linguistic gaps, but the power in individual words alone is a cause for concern. Sally McConnell-Ginet explores this further in her article “Words in the World: How and Why Meanings Can Matter.” She argues that single words can carry multiple meanings in each use whether the speaker means them to or not...
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...Title Annually in the country once known as North America, the nation of Panem uses their dictatorship, they call the Capitol to rule over the twelve districts they have created. The Districts have all had major revolts, as a response to these rebellions the government of the Capitol has enacted a cruel intimidation tactic called The Hunger Games. It is a violent event televised nationally throughout all of the districts where a male and female from each district is picked as a Tribute. These Tributes must fight each other to the death and only one survivor will remain. The Hunger Games is the governments approach of displaying the amount of power they posses over the demoralized people of the twelve districts. The character of Katniss is rare todays society, a complex character with fearlessness, intelligence, and on a mission for survival. Different from the other Tributes, Katniss kills in means of self-defense. Katniss is not only fighting for survival but for fairness and justice as well within the social classes and political power. This character fights for what she believes is right in order to end the class struggle of the Districts and the Capitol. The Feminist views of Katniss make her unique because she is not portrayed as a sex object but as a tough action heroine who fights for what she believes in on her way to victory in an attempt to end the class struggle of the rich vs. poor in her society would also provoke a Marxist reading of the Hunger Games. The...
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...Chapter Fifteen The Roman Empire at its Zenith (to 235 CE) In retrospect we can see that a decline of the Roman empire began in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), when the Germanic barbarians along the Rhine and especially the Danube discovered that the Romans were not well equipped to fight wars on two fronts. When the emperor, that is, was preoccupied with a war against the Parthians in Mesopotamia, the Roman frontier along and beyond the Danube was poorly defended, and the barbarians could make raids deep into the Roman provinces. Despite the danger of wars on two fronts, the Roman empire was able to manage well enough from the 160s until 235, when the decline became precipitous, and brought with it radical economic, cultural and religious changes. This chapter, therefore, will look at the empire in its relatively golden period, from the first century until the death of Alexander Severus, the last of the Severi, in 235. The classes This was a stratified, hierarchical society in all ways. In civic status the top of the pyramid was the emperor, followed by Roman provincial governors, senators and other officials, then by the local gentry, and next by the rank and file of Roman citizens. Of all the free men in the empire, only about a third ranked as Roman citizens. Right behind the Romans were the Hellenes (in the Greek-speaking eastern provinces the Hellenes were enrolled as such in the municipal census), then came Judaeans, and finally the other barbarians. So in...
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