The Hunger Games Literary Analysis Essay

This essay will critically examine on how the female figure is represented throughout a very “selective” media outlet (the film industry), and how society is depicted in the film medium. The chosen media text for analysis is The Hunger Games, a theatrical adaptation of the novel written by Suzanne Collins and directed by Gary Ross. The film is centred on Katniss Everdeen - a teenage girl who volunteers on behalf of her sister, to fight in the annual Hunger Games- and the male District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark, with whom she shares quite an intense past. Both characters embark on a journey that will test their physical and emotional boundaries, while being hunted by the other 22 competitors who all fight for the same objective: survival.
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The film follows a classic narrative arrangement delineated by Todorov. The movie begins with an equilibrium, the people of District 12 live in a miserable penury, which leads to Katniss looking after her family (adopting a patriarchal role, as it was mentioned before). Later on, there is a disequilibrium, Katniss volunteers to take part in the Hunger Games in order to save her sister’s life. And then a new equilibrium arises at the end, as Katniss wins the Hunger Games, consequently finishing an archetypal Hollywood three part story arc. Another narrative structure theory that can applied to the film is Propp’s study on narrative, in this case, the functions of characters. There are six distinct characters present in the storyline: a villain/s (President Snow and Cato); the hero (Katniss); the donor/s (Cinna and Haymitch); the helper/s (Rue, Peeta, Haymitch and Cinna); the princess (Peeta is the “princess” in the film, as he definitely seems to be rescued by Katniss); and the dispatcher (Effie, she randomly selects the participants for the