The Hunger Games Trilogy

329 Pages·2016·3.835 MB·English

by  Lana A, Whited (editor)

C R I T I C A L
CRITICAL
INSIGHTS
Whited I N S I G H T S
T
h
Lana A. Whited is editor of the Th e Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a
The Hunger Games
Literary Phenomenon and coeditor, with M. Katherine Grimes, of Critical Insights: The e
Harry Potter Series. An internationally recognized expert on the Harry Potter series,
Whited has contributed essays on Harry Potter to publications such as Th e Lion and H
Unicorn and Th rough the Looking-Glass and annually teaches a Hogwarts Academy
course in a middle-school enrichment program. Whited is professor of English u Trilogy
and director of the Boone Honors Program at Ferrum College in the Blue Ridge
n
Mountains of Virginia.
g
Among the essays in this volume:
e by Suzanne Collins
“Lotteries and Scapegoats: Literary Antecedents and Influences on Th e Hunger
Games Trilogy” by Tina L. Hanlon r Edited by Lana A. Whited
“His Fordship in the Capitol and Big Brother in the Districts: The Hunger Games
G
and the Modern Dystopian Tradition” by Amy H. Sturgis
“Th e Presidents and Power: Machiavellian Elements in The Hunger Games Series”
by Todd Ide a
“Pavlov, Peeta, and PTSD: Historical and Contemporary Research on Scientifi c m
Principles Underlying Hijacking” by Louise M. Freeman
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CRITICAL
INSIGHTS
The Hunger Games
Trilogy

CRITICAL
INSIGHTS
The Hunger Games
Trilogy
Editor
Lana A. Whited
Ferrum College, Virginia
SALEM PRESS
A Division of EBSCO Information Services, Inc.
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GREY HOUSE PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2016 by Grey House Publishing, Inc.
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Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)
Names: Whited, Lana A., 1958- editor.
Title: The Hunger Games trilogy / editor, Lana A. Whited, Ferrum College,
Virginia.
Other Titles: Critical insights.
Description: [First edition]. | Ipswich, Massachusetts : Salem Press, a division
of EBSCO Information Services, Inc. ; Amenia, NY : Grey
House Publishing, [2016] | Critical insights | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-61925-844-0 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Collins, Suzanne--Criticism and interpretation. | Collins,
Suzanne. Hunger Games (Series) | Young adult fiction, American--21st
century--History and criticism. | Dystopias in literature.
Classification: LCC PS3603.O4558 Z68 2016 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
First Printing
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Contents
About This Volume, Lana A. Whited vii
The Book and the Author
On Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy, Lana A. Whited 3
Suzanne Collins: One Life, Three Acts, Scripted by War, Laurie Adams 17

Critical Contexts
Lotteries and Scapegoats: Literary Antecedents and Influences on
The Hunger Games Trilogy, Tina L. Hanlon 27
Dystopian Copycat or YA Lit on Fire? The Critical Reception of
The Hunger Games Novels, Lana A. Whited 50
Rebelling Against the Rebellion: Frustrating Readerly Desire in
Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay, Jackie C. Horne 76
His Fordship in the Capitol and Big Brother in the Districts: The
Hunger Games and the Modern Dystopian Tradition, Amy H. Sturgis 88
Critical Readings
“You love me. Real”: Gender in The Hunger Games Trilogy,
Danielle Bienvenue Bray 105
Game Macabre: Fear as an Essential Element in
The Hunger Games, Rebecca Sutherland Borah 122
“Where you can starve to death in safety”: Appalachia and
The Hunger Games, Elizabeth Baird Hardy 139
“What I did was a radical thing”: Panem’s Corrupted
Gift Economy, Amy Bennett-Zendzian 161
“As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve”: Consuming
Katniss in The Hunger Games Trilogy, Stephanie Dror 175
Pavlov, Peeta, and PTSD: Historical and Contemporary Research on
Scientific Principles Underlying Hijacking, Louise M. Freeman 196
Labyrinthine Challenges and Degenerate Strategies in
The Hunger Games, Lars Schmeink 224
v
The Girl within the Mockingjay: Roman Allusions, Repercussions of
War, and Ideological Transformation, Amalia L. Selle 239
The Presidents and Power: Machiavellian Elements in
The Hunger Games Series, Todd Ide 254
The Hunger Games Series as Text for the Democracy, Justice,
and Civic Engagement Classroom, Sandra Via 270

Resources
Chronology of Suzanne Collins’ Life 287
Works by Suzanne Collins 293
Bibliography 295
About the Editor 301
Contributors 303
Index 309
vi Critical Insights
About This Volume
Lana A. Whited
When plans for this book were in the very early stages, the number
of people who wanted to write essays for it flabbergasted me. I was
well aware of the popularity of The Hunger Games1 series, but I
really had no idea just how seriously the books were being taken
by literature professionals—teachers, librarians, creative writers,
employees of publishers, and graduate students in literature, film,
popular culture, and other fields. I received thirty-eight proposals,
enough for about three volumes of essays.
A number of important and interesting topics concerning The
Hunger Games novels came up in the proposals but did not ultimately
find space in this book. Several potential contributors wanted to
write about gender, including the theme of motherhood: both real
mother figures, such as Katniss’ own (who are often ineffectual),
and the mothering roles Katniss must adopt for the well-being of
other characters (including her own mother, Prim, and, sometimes,
Peeta). There is a tremendous amount of interest in what sort of girl
Katniss is in the pages of Collins’ novels, what sort of woman she
might become, and how the hero myth applies to her. Some writers,
including Meghan Lewit of The Atlantic, waited tensely as the first
Hunger Games film was cast, to see which actress would play “the
most important female character in recent pop culture history.”
There were essays focusing on the theme of identity, including
identity as a fluid construct that might be shaped or changed through
the intensity of the arena; anticipating that intensity, Peeta says, “I
want to die as myself … I don’t want them to change me in there.
Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not” (Collins 141).
There were proposals for essays about technology and celebrity
culture and materialism. There were comparisons of The Hunger
Games novels with other works in which a government forces
its own children into combat, such as Battle Royale. There were
proposed discussions about how the series fits into the context of
vii
dystopic literature. There were allusions to the classical world—
the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, the story of Spartacus, the
gladiators in the Roman Coliseum. There were thematic approaches
about wildflowers and food and instruments of surveillance. There
were pitches for articles about game theory. There were proposals
about citizenship and presidents and power. And there were multiple
proposals about several of these topics.
Choosing was hard, so I asked a colleague to read the proposals,
too. As a primary criterion, we tried to choose proposals that did not
merely repeat arguments already existing in the handful of Hunger
Games-themed critical anthologies already published. In some cases
of multiple proposals on the same topic, we opted for the best writing.
We settled on the four essays in the Critical Contexts section, all of
which, I’m happy to say, were obvious choices, as well as fourteen
other essays that would comprise Critical Readings. We chose ten
essays, and then I begged the editor for two more that I couldn’t
bear to exclude. Over the months of work, there were a few roster
changes caused by unforeseen developments in contributors’ lives.
The final result is a collection of fourteen essays that I would
put up against any other volume in the arena of Hunger Games
literary criticism. Reading only through the Critical Contexts
section, a person would gain a sense of how the three novels have
been appraised by book critics (Lana A. Whited), a deep familiarity
with the series’ literary lineage (Tina L. Hanlon), an understanding
of the two predominant strands of dystopian fiction and how they
appear in Collins’ series (Amy H. Sturgis), and an illustration of
how Reader-Response Criticism applies to Mockingjay (Jackie C.
Horne).
The Critical Readings section comprises essays as diverse as
their authors, whose day jobs cover territory that stretches from
Thailand in the East to Michigan and Cincinnati in the Midwest,
reaching as far north as Toronto and including the University of
Hamburg. Katniss’ inability to accept gifts from anyone but Prim
and the role of “radical gifts” in the transformation of Panem are the
subject of Amy Bennett-Zendzian’s “‘What I did was a radical thing’:
Panem’s Corrupted Gift Economy.” The gender discussion is handled
viii Critical Insights
deftly by Danielle Bienvenue Bray, author of “‘You love me. Real’:
Gender in The Hunger Games Trilogy,” who argues for Suzanne
Collins’ sympathetic presentation of any characters demonstrating
traditionally feminine attitudes and behaviors, regardless of those
characters’ gender. In “Game Macabre: Fear as an Essential Element
in The Hunger Games,” Rebecca Sutherland Borah investigates
Collins’ use of horror and terror to achieve emotional resonance in
her depiction of the oppression and debauchery of the Capitol and
the monstrosity of war. Stephanie Dror discusses “The Nature of
Consumerism” in the first novel from an ecocritical perspective,
positing that Collins illustrates “the postmodernist claim that we
inhabit a prosthetic [simulated] environment” rather than a natural
one; thus, from an environmentalist standpoint, one of the dystopian
author’s cautions here is against humanity’s destruction of the
ecosystem via a cycle of consumerism like the Capitol’s (Buell 5).
From concerns grounded in the natural sciences in Dror’s essay,
we move to the social sciences and Louise M. Freeman’s essay
“Pavlov, Peeta, and PTSD,” a primer on the scientific principles
underlying hijacking in which Freeman explains how Pavlovian
conditioning models help clinicians understand post-traumatic
stress disorder. Freeman’s essay also accounts for the usefulness
of a number of Peeta’s therapies, including counterconditioning
(rediscovered by Prim); the “real, not real” game; and art therapy.
“‘Where you can starve to death in safety’: Appalachia and The
Hunger Games” is the contribution of Elizabeth Baird Hardy, a
resident of western North Carolina, where much of The Hunger
Games filming took place. Hardy identifies the physical, cultural,
and historical elements of Collins’ narrative that allow readers to
locate Katniss’ home region on a real map, while also examining
how traditional stereotypes of Appalachian people are manifested
in the series.
The volume concludes with four essays, two each dealing with
political aspects of the novels (Todd Ide and Sandra Via) and Collins’
debt to classical culture and characters (Lars Schmeink and Amalia
L. Selle). Ide applies theories of gaining, using, and holding power
from Niccolò Machiavelli’s 1517 treatise The Prince to President
About This Volume ix