The young adult novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of the most popular science fiction novels among generation z. The novel’s popularity might be surprising considering the plot is the government forcing children to kill one another, which is a chilling thought in itself; however, what might be the most chilling is how similar Collin’s world is to the United States. Collins portrays the wealth inequality within the districts, between the districts, and between the capitol and the districts through the comparison of food and clothing.
Collins begins the novel by illustrating life in the twelfth district. Katniss has to hunt for food to keep her family alive, and they are often better off than the rest of the citizens. Katniss describes her home as “‘District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety’” (Collins 6). Starvation is not an uncommon fate in twelve; it happens to “Older people that can’t work. Children from a family with too many to feed. Those injured in the mines” (32). Similar to people in poverty in the United States, if they are unable to keep up labor due to an injury or old age, they struggle to survive. Collins then compares this life to the life at the Capitol when Katniss volunteers for her sister Prim in the Hunger Games. On the train to the Capitol, Katniss and Peeta have a dinner with multiple courses, and both Peeta and Katniss have to fight to “keep the food down” because neither of them are “used to such rich fare” (52). Effie even makes a comment on their dining manners saying, “‘At least, you two have decent manners…the pair last year ate everything with their hands’” (51). The extremely wealthy citizens in the capitol never have to worry about where or when their next meal will be similar to the wealthy citizens of the United States. According to CBS News, around 25% of adults in the U.S have food insecurity. In the novel, people at the capitol are unaware of the struggles of the people in poorer districts, leading them to make comments like Effie does. Wealthier citizens of the U.S most likely do not know that a large portion of the population struggle with the basic need for food because they are so distant from these poorer areas.
Food is an important symbol in the novel but clothing plays an important role as well. It is a big deal when Katniss gets to wear her mother’s beautiful blue dress on the day of the reaping; most of the time she wears hunting boots and plain clothes. Collins depicts the appearance of the rest of the citizens in twelve as “Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails” (Collins 4). However, once Katniss is on the train to the Capitol, “There are drawers filled with fine clothes” with everything at Katniss’s disposal (48). Collins describes the citizens of the capitol as “oddly dressed people with bizarre hair and painted faces” (68). Effie wears her pink wig as many other people who wear colors that look artificial. The extravagance and outlandish clothing, makeup, and hair symbolizes the excess wealth in the hands of the people at the Capitol.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-in-four-americans-food-insecure/
I completely agree with your analysis of how hunger is portrayed in the novel. Another detail that I find interesting is that once Tributes are selected and sent to the Capitol, they are given all the luxuries of a Capitol resident – the clothes, the rooms, and the food – to experience for a short time. For example, when Katniss has lunch with Cinna, he can simply press a button for food to instantly appear, which is a new phenomenon to Katniss. On top of that, Katniss reflects on how she could recreate that decadent meal at home, ultimately deciding that it would take “[d]ays of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then it would be a poor substitution for the Capitol version” (Collins 65). After a few days of living the extravagant life, Tributes are sent straight into the Hunger Games where they must survive off a scarce diet. Further, it is eerily similar to providing them with a last meal before their probable death in the Games. Also, another real-world implication that the novel reminds me of is the concept of food deserts, which are communities that have little or no access to affordable and healthy foods. In District 12, the only way for Katniss and Gale to obtain substantial food for their families is to risk breaking the law because they receive little support from the Capitol (Collins 5). Similarly, impoverished communities are forced to risk their health by eating unhealthy foods due to the lack of government intervention in providing access to nutritious foods.
ReplyDelete