The Giver and The Hunger Games: Novels that Exemplify a Totalitarian System

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1. Aspects of the Totalitarian Systems in the Novels The following section wil analyse how the totalitarian systems in the novels are constructed and list the important aspects they consist of. Due to word-limitations the concentration is put only on the main aspects: The head of the system, laws and punishments and the concept that the systems are constructed up on. 2.1 Who is Head of the System The head of Panem is Coriolanus Snow. He calles himself President Snow, even though he is an absolute ruler and there are no votes. He is portrayed as very strict and scrupulous. His resident is in the Capitol, the capital of Panem. The Capitol has all the wealth of Panem and is the host of the ‘Games’. In contrast we have the ‘Committee of Elders’ in The Giver, with the ‘Chief Elder’ at their top. They are a group of elderly people, which lead the Community: they make all the decisions , choose the Assignment for the people and can change rules . Another part of the leadership in The Giver in the ‘Receiver’. He is part of the Committee of Elders, however he is isolated from them because he bears the memories ot the Community. These should give him wisdom so that he can be questioned by the committee when new and difficult problems occur. A parallel between both novels is the close supervision the leaders have on their citizens. In The Giver we can see that they are monitored via speakers and that “[a]ll private ceremonies are recorded” . In The Hunger Games we learn about the supervision in the secound book, Catching Fire, when Snow pressures and thretens Katniss by knowing everything about her life, also about the kiss with Gale . 2.2 Laws and Punishment Right from the beginning it is obvious that in the community in The Giver the... ... middle of paper ... ...n impossible as there is no real differntiation between male and feemale and as there are no religions. Another foundation of the community is the lack of choises for the citizens. All choises have either been settled in the past or are adopted by the Committee of Elders. The only real choice that the citizens have over their live is weather to have an familiy unit and, for the students, where to spend their volunteer hours . This was a needed action for the community to prevent the citizens of making wrong decisions. As the Giver said, every member of the community lives a life that was created for him or her . An additional quality of the community is that it is very constant. There is rarely any change and if, then very slow and little. The Committee of Elders do not exept anything new or foreign, as they have no memories and only have knowledge of the momentary.

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