The Hunger Games: Crossing a Line What makes entertainment? Is it something that humanity uses as escapism? Humans have always felt the need to be entertained in some form or fashion. From public executions and gladiator games, to plays and television of today; the definition of entertainment can be wonderful or terrifying. Historical events like the gladiator games used real human lives to give a similar atmosphere of a Saturday night football game today. When real lives are played with like fiction, a certain line is crossed. This line is shown in the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. In The Hunger Games, North America is now a country called Panem after an apocalypse that ruined many parts of the world. Panem controls most of its population with fear and hopelessness. They do this by forcing every child twelve through eighteen besides the rich and elite to put their names in a bowl to compete to the death in an annual televised event called the Hunger Games. The book The Hunger Games has an underlying subtext exploring how entertainment and desensitization …show more content…
Today movies and television are rapidly consumed by the public. With resources like Netflix and Hulu, binge watching can draw a viewer in and entice them to forget about reality for a little bit of time. Or as binge watching goes, more than a little bit of time. One of the other differences of today’s entertainment versus entertainment of the past seems to be that people want to be entertained more on their own. Rather than a crowd excitedly cheering for an execution, one person may cheer at a fictional character getting graphically killed. Yes, there is obviously a difference between the two, but it is important to remember that watching anything for a long period of time will desensitize someone to the initial shock or effect that it first
The article also talks about how the hunger games draws the children. Rea, Steven. A. A. Rea. “The Hunger Games: A fantasy film reflecting reality”. Inquirer Movie Critic.
Science fiction writers create a particular setting not only to entertain readers but to give clues on lessons they believe human beings are struggling to understand. In both books, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are introduced as the main characters to project the criticisms made by the author. Susan Collins creates a Dystopian society ruled by the Capital. Different areas of their country, named Panem, are separated into different districts. Two kids from each of the twelve districts are chosen at random to fight in an arena until 1 tribute is left, this is called The Hunger Games Both Peeta and Katniss fight together during the hunger games as a team from District 12. Between the two books, Collins portrays the idea that humans tend to be disrespectful and insulting, depending on another's wealth and/or authority and power. Both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire connect with readers but also indicated the problem with certain human behaviors that most people don't notice or fail to
Fahrenheit 451 and the Hunger Games are both intertwined with a futuristic version of human entertainment and a society absent of religion. Both societies are subjected to gruesome and brutal activities as a form of enjoyment. The desire for a thrill and an adrenaline rush dominates the minds of most people. In Fahrenheit 451, it’s very likely that many people succumb to their deaths from accidents but can easily replaced by members of the parlor family who they accept as their own. In the same way, The Hunger Games consists of exactly what the title suggests. They are annual games, which include starving and murder and serve as society’s primary source of entertainment. Most people don’t enjoy watching the games but, the Capitol forces the districts to watch for it believes they are a good source of entertainment. Seeing how the Hunger Games are basically murdering each other until the last child is standing, it relates closely with the kind of entertainment that the society of Fahrenheit 451 provides with the adrenaline and thrill of the same kind. The people in Fahrenheit 451 like their source of entertainment in the way they approach it but the instances of conformity remains the same. This is unlike that of the people of the districts in The Hunger Games. There is indeed a difference between the two societies yet, in the Hunger Games there is less time for many because so many people are working toward survival, while in Fahrenheit 451, entertainment is something that people do daily. The existence of adrenaline entertainment is similar in both societies. Yet they differ in whether or not the people actually like the entertainment.
Suzanne Collins has, through her writings, used great imagery to expose the meaningful side of ‘The Hunger Games’, the side that is not all about what takes place in the arena. The Capitol’s rule over the districts, the reality-show part of the Hunger Games and the Mockingjay pin are all fragments of deeper meanings that create the basis of all that the story is. Suzanne Collins has depicted the country of Panem as a place overruled by a large city, known as the Capitol. The Hunger Games is apparently a means to keep peace and a fair punishment for the rebellion of the districts, where district 13 was obliterated in the mess. However, Collins has spun this interpretation around and unveiled a different perspective – that The Hunger Games is
A dystopian text often consists of a society that is based on a utopian ideal of a “perfect” society. Despite being a fictitious setting, the more realistic a dystopian text seems, the more disturbing it is for the audience. The novel The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, takes place in the Republic of Gilead that was formerly the state of Massachusetts. Massachusetts has been reformed to a place where puritan traditions and beliefs are the only customs allowed. Gilead and its totalitarian government oppress women to the extent where rape is a norm in their society. The novel The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins, is about a contest held in the country of Panem, where twelve teenagers are forced to fight one another until only one survives the battle. The people of Panem are mandated in watching this contest, as a reminder of the previous uprising that was stopped by their totalitarian government called the Capitol. Atwood depicts Gilead in a way where it is almost possible for the society in Gilead to
Suzanne Collin’s novel The Hunger Games, explores the blurring boundary between private and public life, a process amplified by the entertainment industry, and draws a commentary upon the parallels existing in our society.
... Thus, it is with these three key points that the government of Panem has been able to keep the Games going on for so long, without the system collapsing in on itself. Furthermore, The Hunger Games also shows us just what we as a species could become with the right to social influence and conditioning by an authoritarian force. The peoples of the Capitol and Districts have been taught and conditioned for decades to accept the Hunger Games, especially so in the case of the Capitol, where its citizens applaud and enjoy the Hunger Games, much like many Romans enjoyed the Colosseum in ancient times. It is a rather frightening, but realistic, look at what any of us could become with the right social influences and conditioning.
Entertainment can come and be enjoyed in many different forms. Television shows and movies are some of the different forms of entertainment can be in. The lives of famous actors from shows or movies are constantly scrutinized on and off screen. Within the world of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins a version of reality entertainment is the televised murder of innocent children. Those who are chosen to be within the Hunger Games become a scrutinized celebrity. Katniss and other tributes that are forced to fight and kill show how human identity can become lost as they become objectified for the people of Panem. The Hunger Games helps represent the harm that reality television can have by using the glorification of death with the objectification
Does entertainment influence society's attitude towards violent behavior? In order to fully answer this question we must first understand what violence is. Violence is the use of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another; examples of this would be rape or murder. Violence in entertainment reaches the public by way of television, movies, plays, music, and novels. Through the course of this essay it will be proven that violence in entertainment is a major factor in the escalation of violence in society, once this is proven we will take all of the evidence that has been shown throughout this paper and come to a conclusion as to whether or not violence in entertainment is justified and whether or not it should be censored.
In the Hunger Games, Author Suzanne Collins presents the idea that people become desensitized to violence because of distractions and control. This is a universal idea because it is presented from the book to the real world. One of the big references to desensitization in the book are the people in the capital. In the book, they are constantly cheering and shouting for a glimpse of one of the tributes that are going to kill each other in less than a week. One of the quotes from the book is “ The people begin to point at us eagerly as they recognize a tribute train rolling into the city”(Collins 59). They know that the people in the train are going to fight to the death for their pure entertainment. And they don’t even realize or even give a thought to how the
The Hunger Games that follows, the term that defines a dystopian fiction. One main belief that defines Dystopian society is the development into a “hierarchical society” (“Dystopia”). A hierarchical society plays a big part in the story that outline the whole plot. For example, Capitol is wealthier than all the districts. Some districts are more privileged than others. The Careers, being tributes from districts one to three, are prepared and trained for years before the games. However, this is illegal, but because of the support towards District two from the Capitol, they are let off, along with District one and District four, the other richer districts. In this cas...
In a not-too-distant, some 74 years, into the future the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 13 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games; these children are referred to as tributes (Collins, 2008). The Games are meant to be viewed as entertainment, but every citizen knows their purpose, as brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts. The televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eradicate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. The main character throughout the series is a 16-year-old girl from District 12 named Katniss Everdeen.
The film “The Hunger Games” directed by Gary Ross is base on the novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. It takes place in a fictional world, in the country of Panem. After a civil war the whole country was split in twelve different districts and one Capitol. Every year, each district must offer a man and a woman between the ages of 12 and 18, to serve as tribute for the so-called hunger games; an event enforced onto the twelve districts by the capitol, where the tributes from all districts are force to fight each other to death until only one tribute is left alive. The hunger games should stop the districts from starting another civil war.
The Hunger Games- “a futuristic dystopian society [Panem] where an overpowering government controls the lives and resources in twelve different districts” (The Hunger Games). The overpowering government lives in the Capitol of Panem and from there controls the citizens of the twelve districts through propaganda and other means. The Capitol has all of the economic and political power in Panem; they have complete control. The leader of the capitol is the harsh, dictator-like figure, President Snow. President Snow’s methods for keeping order in the districts are through Peacekeepers and the annual Hunger Games. The Peacekeepers are an army that monitors each district. Any sign of rebellion, and the Peacekeepers take care of it, usually by killing the rebel in some way. The annual Hunger Games are used to remind all of the citizens of Panem about the uprising in the now obliterated District 13. The Hunger Games, in a way, brainwashes all of the citizens, but a select few such as Katniss Everdeen, to believe that an uprising would be horrible and is not necessary and that the Capitol does what is best for all of the citizens. In
Introduction The Hunger Games is the first book of the trilogy of the same name written by Suzanne Collins between 2008 and 2010. This dystopian novel takes place in a fictional country called Panem, which consists of a wealthy city, the Capitol, and 12 poorer districts. Every year, two children from each district called tributes, and aged between 12 and 18 are chosen to participate in a compulsory death match that is organized by the Capitol and broadcasted on television: the Hunger Games. In the first novel of this trilogy, the reader follows the adventure of the 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mallark, both living in District 12 and chosen to participate to the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen volunteered for the Hunger Games