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Societal beauty demands
Literary analysis essay on the hunger games
A literary analysis of the hunger games
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Appearance and fashion are important factors that drive our societies today. We live in a world where people are judged by the way they look, dress and carry themselves. This phenomenon is display by Suzanne Collins in her New York Times bestseller trilogy the “Hunger Games”. In this book, Collins presents a dystopian world, a world that is awful and terrible. The different themes used in this book are violence, corruption, obsession, inequality and physical appearance and they somehow related to our world. She compared Panem with our world. The goal of the book is to warn people that if we don’t used resources efficiently, if we don’t help each other, if we still obsessed with money we will end up killing each other. During the games, look and appearance were surprisingly one way to win. Like the Hunger Games, people nowadays are giving too much importance in their look because society has leaded them to. It may seems unexpected to compare the Hunger games to our world but unfortunately, look became an important factor of decisions. Suzanne Collins does an amazing job in her book by warning us of how the future could be if we do not change our behavior, but what are the links and signs to our actual world and how is that a danger for societies?.
In our society, appearance and its importance might not look like a problem because of how much it is present in our lives and how it has been presented to us but it is important because we face problems like bullying at every level from child to adult and lower self-esteem that are highly correlated to suicide. The problems that we face today related to appearances are important so this topic deserve attention. Because it affects children, parents, models, teenagers and everybody, we s...
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... if we give appearance and look the importance they do not deserve. In today’s world, children kill themselves, celebrities use drugs, people fake personality because they think that they don’t fit the standard and they don’t want to be judged and view based on the way they look and who they are. We are all different so to enjoy each other differences and learn from one another, we should take away those imaginary standards and live by each other free and confident.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Adolescent girl and Body image.” National Association of Social Worker. National Association of Social Worker Web. 18 Nov 2013
“Bullying and suicide.” Bullying Statistics. Web. 18 Nov 2013
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Game. London: Scholastic Ltd, 2009. Print
Marcus, Stephanie. "Celebrities With Money Problems." Huffpost Celebrity. Huffingston Post, 06 12 2012. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Women are told that in order to get anywhere in life they must constantly worry about their outer appearance. In Jennifer Weiner’s article, “When Can Women Stop Trying to Look Perfect?” she delves deeply into how today’s society women’s worth is based on how they look. Weiner believes that women who do not meet the standards of beauty do not have as many opportunities.
The media and how it affects our society has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Our population of children who spend a lot of time in front of the television or on social media continues to increase, creating a superficial view of themselves and who they should be. This superficial outlook has been created by the media because it preaches to our society that looks matter. Not only are there millions of advertisements saying to lose weight and buy certain products to be beautiful, but there has been a specific standard of beauty set for models and actresses to obtain. These standards include big eyes, volumino...
In our Society when you don't follow the rules, you become an outcast to the rest of the society. Suzanne Collins’ novel series, The Hunger Games criticizes our society and its demands for people of specific genders to act in certain ways and become certain things. Stereotypes concerning gender are prevalent in our society and all over the world. However, The Hunger Games gives a very refreshing tone of “mockery” to these stereotypes. Katniss Everdeen isn’t your typical 16 year old girl, and neither is Peeta Mellark a typical 16 year old boy, especially when they are fighting everyday just to survive. The Hunger Games is a work of social commentary, used to convince us that there can’t and shouldn’t be any defined “roles” based on gender. A mixture of “stereo-typical” gender roles within a person and their actions is what people need just to survive in our world that is changing every day.
Who sets the standards for beauty? What must one do to truly look beautiful? What does feeling beautiful mean? When considering the concept of beauty one must differentiate between the universal and relative perception of beauty. Among the components of universal beauty are harmony, symmetry and utility. However, perception of beauty is also relative, when it is defined by the standards of the time that are subjective to the socio economic values of the era. One of the ways these values are communicated is through images portrayed in art and in modern times through the media. ‘Fashion’ is the carrier of theses values though physical appearance and self-image that define power, rank, acceptability and belonging. Having ‘fashion’ as the medium of these relative values bring advantages and disadvantages. Although there are benefits of matching the fashion of the time, positive self-image and satisfaction with a feeling of acceptance these are temporary because fashion is ever changing. On the other hand not conforming to the contemporary standards can have a detrimental impact on self-image that leads to feeling a sense negative self worth and marginalized. Eating disorders are a powerful manifestation that fashion has on the psyche. The underlying idea of what fashion ‘is’ is value. Amongst all the change of fashion, value remains ever present.
Because young girls and women around the world are beginning to alter themselves to fit a certain mold, people are starting to realize that a pretty face and one’s youth is a factor that has been hurting the world for many years. So much so that a person is willing to kill to obtain beauty. This is truly and amazing yet sickening fact and the more we emphasize on one’s appearance the more catastrophes like this will happen.
The Hunger Games is not simply a thrilling film that has gained the interest of people both young and old. It is a warning for the people of this nation to stop and examine the world in which they live and the social norms, rituals, and the economic and political system in which they participate. Greed and power have for too long driven and dictated the way in which Americans live their lives. If we are not careful, there is a possibility our society could end up the way that the futuristic society in The Hunger Games ended up. This movie is tale of caution that must be heeded.
“People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder,” according to Salma Hayek. Society should have a positive outlook on body image, rather than face a disorder that can change one’s whole life. Negative body image can result from the media, with photoshop and editing, celebrity fad diets, and society’s look at the perfect image. Negative body image can lead to dangerous eating disorders, such as bulimia and anorexia. It can also take a risk to unhealthy habits, such as smoking, alcohol, and drugs. It is important to stress the effects of body image, because the world still struggles with this today. Society should not be affected by media, disorders, and pressure by making unhealthy choices and having a negative outlook on body image.
Often in my life I have felt trapped by the boundaries and expectations that those around me have set for how I ought to behave, think, and feel. Here in suburban America, these boundaries are often set by peers and family, as well as by the media and celebrity figures. The expectations that they have set often dictate ideas that, deep down, I greatly disagree with. One of the most prominent of the ideas is that my worth is reflected in my outward physical appearance. In this world which has declared war on th...
Society is often found judging each other based on physical appearance. Beauty and physical appearance play a major role in society today, whether we are aware of it or not. For hundreds of years, women have been treated with disrespect by society. Throughout history, women have been told they need to look a certain way. In the 1900s, women were told they had to be big and curvy to be sexy, and today women are told they need to be skinny, but still have curves in order to be sexy. If someone does not look the right way, they are ridiculed and made fun of, and not being thin enough can lead to major problems with one’s self esteem. Feeling ashamed of how they look and how they feel can then lead to even bigger problems, such as eating disorders. Within the novels The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, and the play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, one can concur that society treats people differently based on their beauty, and one’s physical appearance can lead them to feeling ashamed, used, or disrespected.
In a growing world, relying on education and intelligence, judgments in a social environment are still continuously based off of appearance. A study of the importance of outer looks was produced through a TV game show. Contestants fought to answer questions correctly to improve their personal score. At the end of the game, the player with the highest score was asked to eliminate a team member. Although many times an unattractive player would have higher scores and could be more beneficial than another teammate, only 27% of unattractive members were chosen to advance to the next round (Belot, Bhaskar, and van de Ven 852-853). When society overlooks qualities and characteristics of high value for looks, discrimination conquers.
In this essay, I will compare people that are obsessed with physical appearance and appearances. It is not strange for individuals to worry about physical appearance. In fact, we could argue that we are living in a culture that weighs the most up-to-date trends or newest fashions more heavily than more pressing issues that affects society. As a result, many people become obsessed with their physical appearance in order to keep up with trends and fashions.
Appearance matters because some facial qualities are useful in guiding adaptive behavior that even a trace of those qualities can create an impression. Specifically, the qualities revealed by facial cues that characterize emotion and identity, which are overgeneralized to people whose facial appearance resembles the unfit. Although people tend to admonish the statement ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, they also repeatedly defy that warning in their day to day routines, responding to people on the basis of their physical
Susan Bordo states in her article “Never Just Pictures”, that children grow up knowing that they can never be thin enough. They are thought that being fat is the worst thing ever. The ones responsible for this are the media, celebrities, models, and fashion designers. All of these factors play a big role on the development of the standard and how people view themselves. Everyone at one dreams about being the best they can in any aspect. But to achieve that most believe that one of the big factors is outer beauty. So people look at celebrities and fashion designers, and believe that to be accepted they have to look like them. That’s when they take drastic measures to change their appearance because they’ve been influenced by the Medias idea of “beautiful.” This feeling mostly happens in women but in recent years the gender gap has become smaller. Now men also feel the need to look good because of the media. On the TV, instead of having infomercials ...
Teenagers constantly worry about their body image. Magazines, newspapers, and television don’t exactly help to boost their confidence. The portrayal of stick thin woman and body building men forces teens to believe they need to achieve that “perfect” body and look. The biggest issue of these images being broadcasted to teens is the effects that the images have on them. Teenagers who obsess over their body image can experience stress due to trying to impress others, develop an eating disorder, and neglect, and even jeopardize, important aspects of their lives when they focus too much on their body image.
Beauty is defined as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” The secret of beauty has been a quest of humans for centuries. It has been determined that women and some men spend up to one-third of their income on products and procedures that enhance their looks. We spend way too much time looking in the mirror, scrutinizing, worrying, fretting, and wishing we could change something about ourselves. We dream of looking like the girl at work because she has great hair, or the girl we met at a party because she was skinny, with the perfect nose. This happens because we are constantly being bombarded with messages from social media. We look at magazines that show us airbrushed models and TV shows that consist of actors that spend hours in hair and makeup. Daily we see ad campaigns for stores that feature women whose looks are unattainable. Do we put ourselves through the torture because we think outer ...