Hunger Games Allegory

Lazy parents and teachers prone to spouting clichés will often tell apathetic adolescents that it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. Assuming that we are not meant to take this literally, though in the case of out-state puppy mills and Michael Vick 's backyard perhaps we should, these sage mentors are trying to tell us that the game of life is hard. This has never been truer than in the kid-kill-kid world of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Set in a dystopian future The Hunger Games can be read as an allegory for the game of life and the struggle of teens to reach self-actualization.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 located in what is now Appalachia. Because she has lost her father to a coal mining accident and her mother to clinical depression she must struggle to survive before she can even think of define herself. She is the sole provider for the family which includes her younger sister Prim. Her life has settled in to a version of normalcy. Her hunting skills and ability to haggle in the black market she enable her to

I have found essay calling it pro-capitalism and pro-socialism. Katniss refers to the tributes from richer districts as “careers,” but in District 12 the “word tribute is pretty synonymous with the word corpse.” The reader is teased with a conflict between the one-percent and the rest of us, but it never really goes anywhere. It could be a commentary on society’s obsession with reality television. In the first fifty pages the media is referred to as “buzzards” and “insects,” but once Katniss enters the games the cameras become less and less obtrusive. I tried seeing it as a lesson on civic responsibility. I mean Katniss does step and volunteer. However by the time that we get to part 2 most ideas are shot down by a shot from Katniss’ bow. What follows is a series of action set-pieces that do little to add to the characterization or develop any of the nascent