AV����̳

2026 Minnie E. Wells Contest Winner

Bread, Berries, and the Body Politics:

Class, Power, and Gender in The Hunger Games

Written by Margaret Thomas

WHY THE HUNGER GAMES?  
EXAMINING A DYSTOPIA THAT REFLECTS OUR OWN

There is an miriad of amazing American literature to choose from, but for me, there is one collection and author that stands above the rest. Suzanne Collins was inspired to write The Hunger Games trilogy while flipping through the channels “between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War” (NYT 2018). Driven by this dichotomy, and the propaganda that justified the brutality of the "War on Terror,” Collins set out to write about the concept of the "just-war theory” (NYT 2018): What can the government truly do in the name of justice, and how far is too far? In asking these questions, Collins’ series The Hunger Games (THG) touches on so many hallmarks of both great American literature and literature as a whole; transcending the continental barrier, all while writing in the highly underestimated genre of Young Adult fiction. In fact, despite its YA label, THG, with its abundance of very adult themes, can be substantially critiqued through most methods of standard literary criticism: From Foucault to Marx, from race to gender to ecocritical studies, THG is dripping with relevant and modern political commentary. In this essay, I will examine the ways in which just a few of these standard methods of literary criticism apply to THG, focusing primarily on her act of rebellion with the berries at the end of the first book and ending with a review of the overall political relevance of Collins’ trilogy, The Hunger Games. In doing so, this essay will highlight why Collins and her series deserves a place among the ranks of America’s greatest authors.

BREAD AND CIRCUSES:
A MARXIST READING OF CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE HUNGER GAMES

When one hears the name Karl Marx, or the associated term “communism”, alarm bells tend to go off. Communism is Bad, America has made that abundantly clear. However, the works of Karl Marx are often distorted by the fear of totalitarian regimes which operate under the guise of Communism, creating a deep-rooted misunderstanding of Marx’s work. What is it then that Marx is trying to say? What is his message, what is it that he is seeing in the world, and how does it relate to THG? To answer these questions, we will refer to Sophie Pettersson who breaks down both Karl Marx and his relevance to THG in her 2023 article “Economic Inequality in Suzanne Collins’ the Hunger Games”. First, it’s important to understand the basics. Marx’s work outlines two groups, or classes, in society: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He theorized that “The bourgeoisie is the dominant group, containing mainly capitalists, whilst the proletariat is the subordinate group, made of oppressed working class and the poor”; additionally, Marx believed that “the rise of conflict ... [is] inevitable because of the unjust distribution of resources between the two groups” (Pettersson 8). Furthermore, the resources of society are unjustly distributed entirely because “the bourgeoisie controls the means of production ... and exploits the working class by paying them less than the value of their labour” (Pettersson 8). Additionally, whenever the working class inevitably tries to fight back, Marx believed that the bourgeoisie, “[would] always attempt to remain in control through various means, such as media and other institutions that promote capitalistic interests and suppress dissent” (Pettersson 10). Now at this point, if you are familiar with THG, you may already be seeing the correlations between Panem and the Marxist theory of Class Conflict; but let’s go ahead and break them down anyway.

The government of Panem is totalitarian. While we do not know the exact year, we do learn from THG prequel novels, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020) and Sunrise on the Reaping (2025), that the leader of Panem, President Snow, became president sometime between the 10th and the 50th hunger games. Based on context from the Sunrise on the Reaping, and the way Young Haymitch talks about President Snow with fearful reverence, one can guess that he has been president for at least as long as Haymitch has been alive. Being that Snow is president in Sunrise on the Reaping, the year of 50th hunger games, when Haymitch is 16, and that Snow is still president at the time of the 75th hunger games, we can assume that at the start of THG trilogy, he has been president for at least 40 years – if not longer. There are no elections and no choice in the matter from the citizens of Panem. As Pettersson puts it:

President Snow ... maintains an iron grip on power through uncompromising control ... [he] uses a combination of propaganda and fear to maintain the oppression and subsequent control of the outlying Districts. In school, the children must listen to a “weekly lecture on the history of Panem [which is] mostly a lot of blather about what [everyone] owes the Capitol” ... and every year the mayor reads “The Treaty of Treason, a document created by the Capitol to ensure peace and discourage thoughts regarding a rebellion” ... In addition to the propaganda, [he] has also placed Peacekeepers in all the Districts to ensure that [order is] upheld. (Pettersson 16 – 17; Collins 2008)

This is just a brief summary of the environment Snow has created, but we don’t see his sinister nature until the end of the first book when we learn of Seneca Crane’s execution. As the Head Game maker, Crane called the shots in the 74th hunger games, which ended poorly.

To understand the execution, we must understand the context of Crane’s “crime.” Katniss and Peeta had spun a story of star-crossed lovers from District 12, and when put in the arena, they generally avoided each other. As the games neared the end, however, with only six tributes left, the Capitol decided they needed the games to be juicier, more entertaining. Katniss had done an amazing job of hiding from the other tributes, surviving fairly well, and not giving much of a show. So the Capitol comes over the intercom with an announcement: “There’s been a rule change! ... Under the new rule, both tributes from the same District will be declared the winners if they are the last two alive” (The Hunger Games 295). It is clear what the Capitol is saying: they want Katniss to go and find Peeta, to give the citizens of the Capitol a romance to die for.

They make it all the way to the end and are the last two alive. Peeta is on the brink of death, and both have suffered greatly. But when the victory fanfare doesn’t play, they are confused. They were promised a dual victory. Then the voice comes over the intercom again: “Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed ... May the odds be ever in your favor” (The Hunger Games 416). With this betrayal, and the impending moment where one would have to kill the other, Katniss has an idea. Rather than give the Capitol what they want, they will rob them of their victor. They mutually decide to eat a handful of poisonous berries at the same time — a double suicide. But as the berries are in their mouth, the voice comes back over the intercom, frantic: “Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games,” (The Hunger Games 419). By refusing to submit, Katniss forces the Capitol to give up their power, showing their weak underbelly; and President Snow executes Seneca Crane for this lapse in judgement. The execution is never detailed in the books, however, in the movies, after the games have ended, Seneca is marched into a room containing nothing but a bowl of nightlock berries on a pedestal. The implication is that he must either kill himself or let Snow do it for him.

Now, on the surface, this appears to just be a longwinded way of saying that President Snow has complete and total control over Panem; that there are no checks and balances to moderate his behavior, and he can take out his enemies as he pleases. But it’s more than that. This series of events reveals another, equally sinister, Marxist undertone: exploitation. There is the obvious exploitation of the workers in the Districts; Katniss’ own father was killed in the mines of District 12, and coal mine fires and explosions were common occurrences. Not to mention that the citizens of the Districts aren’t paid enough to feed themselves, causing them to take government issued food rations, with each ration entering another slip into the drawing for their children (hence the name: the hunger games). But, as Pettersson aptly explains:

Beyond serving as a stark reminder to the citizens of Panem of the government's authority, the Hunger Games are also seen as a festivity and are designed to cater to the amusement of the wealthy inhabitants of the Capitol ... It is a crucial part of survival [in the games] to come across as likeable because the people watching ... can choose to sponsor their favourite tribute ... Katniss ... quickly figures out that the best way to receive the viewers’ affection is to capitalise on her fake romantic relationship with Peeta ... so she continues playing up their romance with kisses, deep conversations, and confessions of love ... From a Marxist perspective ... although American reality shows lack the utter brutality of the games ... the exploitation of its working-class citizens is the same as in Panem. (21)

Pettersson goes on to reference other competitive shows, such as Big Brother and Survivor, likening the hunger games to these shows that lift up working-class people, giving them a chance to win an unreal amount of money for the small price of surviving on a deserted island. These too are mere popularity contests, and they are arguably a form of exploitation. And like those same reality TV shows, the hunger games themselves serve as more than just punishment for an uprising attempted in generations past – but as a form of exploitative entertainment which doesn’t end with the games. The victors go home with the scars of the Capitol’s power. They live in the Victor’s Village, a neighborhood of mini mansions in their home District, and they are given money and food and riches to survive on for the rest of their lives – but at a steep price. Every year, the victors are forced to serve as mentors, forced to coach the children of family and friends, and in some cases, their own children, to their inevitable deaths. And when they aren’t serving as mentors, the attractive ones are forced into sex work, being “rented” by wealthy Capitol citizens.

Marx’s work is often criticized because he predicted a massive revolt against the bourgeoisie, which has yet to happen. The people of capitalistic societies around the globe have not thrown off their shackles and overthrown the rich, creating an equitable utopia. Put simply: We haven’t been pushed to that point. But Collins, in her speculative, dystopian future America, starts the novel “on the cusp of a rebellion, with only the signal of something, or someone, required to start a revolution” (Pettersson 24). And while Panem does not end in a utopian, communist society – Collins’ work depicts what Marx predicted. Class consciousness, rebellion, and the end to capitalist exploitation.

PANEM’S PANOPTICON:
FOUCAULT’S THEORIES OF SURVEILLANCE AND POWER IN THE HUNGER GAMES

To maintain the level of control that Snow enacts requires a constant and pervasive level of surveillance. Michel Foucault, in his 1975 book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, draws upon Marx and his beliefs about power in society, and outlines a system of control over a group of people through the metaphorical “Panopticon” (a concept originally developed by Jeremy Bentham). The Panopticon is a structure with a centrally located watchtower. The rooms of the building are backlit, and the person in the watchtower can view everyone in every room; but from the rooms, the watcher is obscured by curtains and other barriers. From the rooms, whether they house prisoners, workers, school children, or hospital patients, one can never know when or even if they are being watched. The watchtower could be abandoned, and the occupants would never know. Foucault states that the “major effect of the panopticon [is] to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (201). In short, the Panopticon is a self-driving machine. The fear of always being watched, listened to, or observed keeps the occupants from slacking off, misbehaving, or in the case of The Hunger Games, rebelling. THG is set in an undated future America, now called Panem. Wrecked by famine, nuclear war, and rising sea levels, the citizens are trapped. Trapped in their Districts, trapped by hunger, trapped by fear: for the Capitol has extended their surveillance into every corner of the country in a variety of ways.

First, there is the upfront surveillance from the Peacekeepers, officers from the Capitol that reside in every District to “keep the peace”. They are the visible reminder that the Capitol is watching, and they provide physical punishment when the threat of being caught does not stop disobedience. This includes public floggings and hangings. Second, there is the more insidious video surveillance. I call it insidious because, while some of the surveillance is known, such as the televised hunger games, where viewership is mandatory for every citizen, most of the surveillance is covert and constant.

In the previous section, I described the situation for Katniss and Peeta in the arena of their first games: They were playing the part of star-crossed lovers (or at least Katniss was). This got them sponsors, attention, and in the end, an unprecedented dual victory. As previously mentioned, this weakened the Capitol’s position. They were forced to allow them both to leave the arena alive because Katniss threatened them with no winner at all. Without a winner, without at least one child coming home alive, a broken symbol of the Capitol’s inescapable power in the Districts, the Capitol is just killing 24 children for no point. It makes the Capitol look ruthless, when what they are going for is generous, gracious even. To quote President Snow in the film adaption of THG:

President Snow: Seneca... why do you think we have a winner?

Seneca Crane: [frowns] What do you mean?

President Snow: I mean, why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the Districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster.

[Seneca just stares, confused]

President Snow: Hope.

Seneca Crane: Hope?

President Snow: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained.

Seneca Crane: So...?

President Snow: So, CONTAIN it. (Director Gary Ross 2012)

While this conversation does not happen in the books, and while the information that Crane was executed is not even revealed until the second book, Collins did help write the movie's script. This conversation tells us a lot about what the Capitol is doing, and why. They are punishing the Districts, yes; but by giving them a victor, by returning one child home to the District, every parent can maintain a modicum of hope that the horrors will not touch their family this year; every District has something to root for, and the Capitol has sent them a living reminder of the breadth of their reach.

The threat of the Panopticon is that someone might always be watching. Disobedience, illegal behavior, and acts of rebellion are constantly visible. And in the case of the arena, with cameras in the very bark of trees, even if they aren’t being actively watched, they are being recorded. Someone could, and probably would, go back and watch what happened at any time. For Katniss, this meant she could never, not once, let up on the star-crossed lovers bit. There were many instances where she was forced to hold her tongue or was forced to perform in a way that she didn’t feel authentically because she was constantly being watched. If they, she and Peeta, wanted to get out of the games alive, she had to commit. But she already knew this; she knew from watching the games her whole life that they were recorded, and that the cameras were stealthily hidden. She knew to behave. In fact, there is a constant inner dialogue throughout the novel where she is thinking through what the Capitol might be showing, when, and to whom, and then moderating her behavior even in the worst circumstances because of it. But when she leaves the arena, when she gets back to District 12, she is met with a sickening realization: She is being recorded there, too.

At the beginning of the second book, Catching Fire, not long before the next Reaping, President Snow appears in District 12. He waits for Katniss to return from her morning hunt, sitting in the study of her new mini mansion in the Victor’s Village. What does he want? To tell Katniss about the spark her berries have caused; to confront her about her Sunday trips into the woods with Gale, another boy from District 12. Someone who Katniss never really had romantic feelings for, but who she’d been best friends with for a long time. It was clear in the narrative that Gale expected that their friendship would transition into romance one day, but they were never more than friends; Katniss considered him her confidant and hunting partner. That was all. However, for safety’s sake, when Katniss comes back from the Capitol her family pretends that Gale is her cousin to prevent any talk – it's not an unrealistic claim, most people in 12 were at least distant cousins – but Snow is unconvinced: of the cousin status, and of her love for Peeta, despite the continuous efforts they have gone through on their return home.

“Speak, Miss Everdeen. [Gale] I can kill off if we don’t come to a happy resolution,” [Snow] says. “You aren’t doing him a favor by disappearing into the woods with him each Sunday.”

If he knows this, what else does he know? And how does he know it? Many people could tell him that Gale and I spend our Sunday's hunting. Don’t we show up at the end of each one loaded down with game? Haven’t we for years? The real question is what he thinks goes on in the woods beyond District 12. Surely they haven’t been tracking us in there. Or have they? Could we have been followed? That seems impossible. At least by a person. Cameras? That never crossed my mind until this moment ... If we’ve been watched ... what have they seen? Two people hunting, saying treasonous things against the Capitol, yes. But not two people in love ... Unless ... It only happened once ... but it did happen. [A few weeks after the games, while hunting] [Gale] took my face in his hands and kissed me. (Catching Fire 28-32)

In the movies, this scene is played out with Snow showing Katniss a recorded clip of Gale kissing her; while in the books, Katniss recalls the moment when they were returning through the fence to the District after a day of hunting. She isn’t sure what or how President Snow knows. But as he leaves, he confirms her fears when he whispers in her ear, “By the way, I know about the kiss” (Catching Fire 35). Once again, Collins has taken the implication from the books and displayed it more overtly in the movies, but the point remains that there is an intimate level of surveillance happening in the Districts that the citizens are not aware of; a level of surveillance more secure and reliable than the Peacekeepers, who have been known to turn a blind eye for the right price.

Now, surveillance doesn’t mean much if nothing happens, or if one can remove oneself from the situation. This last aspect of surveillance is especially important to Foucault’s theory, and that is the freedom (or lack thereof) to leave. In their 2025 journal article, “View of a Foucauldian Analysis of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games”, Farah and Sana Hasan dissect the linchpin of the Panopticon: Freedom. “There can be no power dynamics if one cannot run away or escape” (7). This is evident in every corner of Panem, where “residents of the Districts are not permitted to cross the barriers” (5), as demonstrated by the “land mines which have been [supposedly] deactivated” in District 3, the Tracker-Jacker hives left outside the Districts (The Hunger Games 225), or the electric fence that is only sporadically activated in District 12. The Capitol uses these various forms of fences, some literal, some metaphorical, to keep the citizens from leaving. Katniss, though, was raised by a father who hunted, and who had been going under the fence to hunt as far back as twenty-five years prior (Sunrise on the Reaping 371). After he died, Katniss became the provider of the house, carrying on the tradition of slipping beneath a section of fence that was loose to hunt for her family. But, in the second novel, Katniss finds herself on the wrong side of a suddenly electrified fence. This is shocking, no pun intended, because, as Katniss explains in the first novel, the electricity was so sparse and sporadic out in the Districts that it could only be relied upon during the hunger games for viewing purposes. She had so rarely seen the fence electrified that she nearly didn’t recognize the tale-tell hum. And we know from the newest novel, Sunrise on the Reaping, wherein we see Katniss’ father and his friends going out into the woods, that it likely had only been consistently active during the early days after the revolution, when it had first been put up. It was no accident that Katniss was able to safely leave, only to find the fence electrified upon her return. It was an intentional exercise of power and discipline. Katniss had already been scolded for disappearing into the woods with Gale, and technically, going into the woods at all was illegal. After Snow’s visit to Katniss, he installed new Peacekeepers in District 12, ones who had not become attached to the people. Ones who would monitor her behavior and be willing to impart punishment for even the smallest, historically accepted, transgression.

As for the way Foucault’s methods of Discipline and Punish play out in the plot of THG, he “contends that one can be provocative in ‘practices of freedom’, even if one may never be completely free from power relations” (Hasan 7), and we see this all throughout the trilogy. Katniss and Peeta both use the Panopticon to their advantage. First, Katniss volunteers herself as a tribute for the reaping when her 12-year-old sister is chosen, which serves as the first stirring of the rebellion. Then “when Rue dies, Katniss drapes her body in flowers, performs the three-finger salute [an old District gesture], and looks directly into the camera” (Hasan 7). Not to mention that Katniss, both before and after the games, defies the borders of her District, crossing the fence to hunt, and selling the game to the very Peacekeepers who could kill her for what is a strictly illegal act: poaching from the Capitol. Then there are her dresses made of fire, the Mockingjay wings she displays during her interview for the third Quarter-Quell, and the videos of her fighting back against the Capitol once the revolution begins. And, as mentioned previously, there are the berries that shake the entire system to its core. Katniss, with her “practices of freedom”, pushes back against the Panopticon of Panem and becomes the symbol of the revolution; and her displays of defiance, resistance, and love inspire the rest of the country to stand up and fight back, essentially destroying said Panopticon from within.

RADICAL TENDERNESS:
HOW FEMININE STRENGTH UNDERMINES THE CAPITOL’S CONTROL

So far, this essay has examined Collins’ trilogy from very classic and rigid methods of criticism. Marx and Foucault, while important baseline methods of examining literature and the world as a whole, are really only single-faceted lenses. They represent ideological thinking, and neither method alone takes into account the nuances of marginalized groups, or the layers of systemic oppression that these groups face. Other methods of criticism, however, are grounded in lived experience, taking marginalized groups into account. Here are a few categories of “lived experience” methods of criticism: Cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies (Feminist studies), Black and Indigenous studies, and ecocritical studies. These methods provide a wider, multifaceted, and intersectional lens through which we can view text. And while we could examine THG through every one of those approaches, in this section, we will be critiquing THG through the Feminist lens. This approach examines a text from a Feminist vantage point, dissecting structures of power and cultural influence in relation to the women, and sometimes, the men of the story. This approach can do several things: it may damn a piece of literature for reinforcing negative stereotypes about women; it might praise a piece for the way the women challenge stereotypes; or it might take a nuanced approach, examining the structures of power within the fictitious world and highlighting why, for example, what may appear to be a negative stereotype about women is really a form of commentary from the author. The field of gender criticism is wide and varied, with many different opinions; and in this way, it serves as a stark contrast to a solely Marxist or Foucauldian approach.

So far, we have established a major event in the first installment of the trilogy, The Hunger Games, in which Katniss and Peeta, at Katniss’ behest, threaten to kill themselves rather than succumb to killing each other. We have analyzed this through the lens of Marx and Foucault; essentially, through the lens of power. Primarily through the ways that the Capitol and President Snow exact that power. We analyzed the ways in which Katniss cunningly subverts power and resists, but this arguably leaves her in a somewhat passive role; things happen to her, rather than her trying to do something about it. And it is true, throughout the series Katniss is used by those around her, both by the Capitol and by the Resistance in the second and third novels. But now we will look at the ways in which Katniss’ uses her gender and femininity as a weapon against the Capitol; not passively subverting the Capitol but actively using performative gender roles to make a stand.

At first glance, this might seem like an odd statement. A big part of Katniss’ character is that she is not stereotypically feminine. From a young age, her father had taught her to hunt, and when he passed away, she used those skills to support her family. In fact, while in the arena with Peeta the first time, she realizes that even though he was from the wealthier merchant District, he lived merely on stale bread, while she and her family lived on fresh meat – meaning that even though she came from the poorest part of the poorest District, the Seam, she was a strong enough provider to eat better than many of the wealthier citizens. Katniss is a fighter, a protector, and a hunter, which are all stereotypically masculine traits. Even her appearance is more masculine, as she typically wears pants, boots, and her father’s old hunting jacket. However, as June Pullium explains in her 2014 article “Real or Not Real – Katniss Everdeen Loves Peeta Melark: The Lingering Effects of Discipline in the “Hunger Games” Trilogy”, which takes both a Foucauldian and Feminist approach to THG, Katniss’ masculine traits stem from the traditionally feminine. “[Katniss] is motivated by feelings that are more stereotypically feminine than masculine ... [her] fearlessness and willingness to put herself in danger, for example, are connected to a feminine need to protect her loved ones rather than a more typically masculine desire to openly defy others” (175 – 176). It is with this in mind that we will reexamine Katniss’ defiance with the berries, as well as a few other key moments, in which Katniss takes an active role against the Capitol and President Snow through the use of her femininity and girlhood.

First, we must ask ourselves how exactly femininity can be used to fight back, when those traits are typically considered “soft”. The answer is interesting and multifaceted, but in the case of Katniss, it boils down to this: traditional gender roles paint women and children as those needing protection. Women and children are weak, and they need protecting from the brutality of war. So, when Katniss displays her deep well of compassion, and when her femininity and girlhood is highlighted, it sparks outrage even in the Capitol. Take, for example, the moment in Catching Fire when Peeta lies to the host of the tribute interviews, Caesar Flickerman, about Katniss being pregnant. In the movie and the book, there is immediate and vocal outrage from the crowd – Katniss is carrying a child, and it transforms her into the embodiment of that which must be protected. As Foucault explains, “the people never felt closer to those who paid the penalty than in those rituals intended to show the horror of the crime and the invincibility of power; never did the people feel more threatened, like them, by a legal violence exercised without moderation of restraint” (63). Katniss’ false pregnancy is not the only example, in fact, all the tributes are made to look more adult than they really are to mask that they are quite literally starving children; but it is a fantastic and easy display of her femininity and womanhood being used to take a stand against the Capitol, and to expose how barbaric the games are. However, the lie was Peeta’s idea, not hers. She wasn’t even consulted. So, let’s look instead at some instances where she acted on her own, and where she used her femininity in protest. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

The first example is much like the false pregnancy. Katniss, who has her name in the reaping bowl twenty times at the age of 16 (The Hunger Games 15), reassures her sister, Prim, that she doesn’t need to worry. This is her first reaping, and Katniss is the one who has registered for food rations, so Prim only has one slip in the bowl. But the odds are never in your favor, and it is Prim’s name, not Katniss’; that is pulled from the reaping bowl that day. Now, it is not unusual for a 12-year-old to be reaped, in fact, one of the other tributes that year, Rue, is only 12. But what stirred the heart of the people was the way Katniss, with her deep well of compassion, risked herself for her sister purely out of love. She threw herself screaming after Prim and volunteered for the games on live, national television. When she is questioned on stage, it becomes clear to the Capitol that that was her young sister, and suddenly they cannot pretend that Prim was anything other than a small, underfed, 12-year-old. And Katniss is so full of love, a traditionally hegemonic feminine trait, that she is willing to sign a death sentence to protect her sister.

The second example is a continuation of this theme, of Katniss’ deep well of love and compassion, and that is Rue. Katniss, who has proven herself with the highest training score, and has spent days in the woods killing game and even killing tributes via a nest of Tracker-Jackers, allies with the youngest and smallest tribute: Rue. Rue is from District 11, an agriculture District, and they live a much stricter life than those in District 12. We learn from their conversations that public floggings are a near daily event in District 11; their lives are brutal. Katniss and Rue develop a sister-like bond, with Katniss seeing so much of her sister Prim in Rue. But, of course, Rue is killed in the arena. Katniss was too late to protect her, and when Rue lay there with a spear in her gut, Katniss sang her to “sleep” and then adorned her body in wildflowers. Knowing she was on camera, she performed a salute, an old gesture from her District, out of respect. I’ve mentioned this event in passing previously, but looking at it through the lens of wielding feminine power gives it a much different tone. And this is an instance where Katniss knows exactly what she is doing, she knows the exact statement she is making:

I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do, there is a part of every tribute they can’t own. That Rue was more than a piece in their Games. And so am I ... They’ll have to show it. Or, even if they choose to turn the cameras elsewhere at this moment, they’ll have to bring them back when they collect the bodies and everyone will see her then and know I did it. (The Hunger Games 286)

Katniss knows that they won’t be able to hide the evidence of love and respect that she has bestowed upon Rue, and she knows that the audience will see how much she cared. This act of compassion and love actually ends up saving her life, too. Thresh, the male tribute from District 11, is in a position to kill her, but instead saves her life “just this once, for Rue”, because he learns of how she took care of Rue up to her dying breath. Collins is making one thing very clear: Compassion is moving, it is feminine, and it is something sacred and untouchable.

Lastly, there are the berries. We’ve talked about this event at length, with the primary goal being to establish how this weakened the Capitol’s power. Now that we know how this act hurt the Capitol, we will analyze the berries as an act of defiance deeply rooted in love. This is a unique example because while Katniss knew that this act would get them out, and while she never really intended to eat the berries, there is an unconscious element of love at play. In short, Katniss had been putting on a ‘show’ of love, but by the time they get to the end, she truly cannot bear the thought of leaving the arena without him or forcing him to kill her. This moment is best described by Pullium:

When the Gamemakers attempt to force Katniss and Peeta as the last surviving Tributes to fight to the death, Katniss offers Peeta the handful of lethal nightlock berries because she cares too much about him to save her own life at the expense of [his] or to force him to murder her so that he can live. Maternal and erotic love are most typically associated with hegemonic femininity. Katniss’ resistance to the Capitol’s domination in these moments arouses the sympathy of viewers because her behavior is consistent with normative femininity and so she does not threaten their deeply ingrained beliefs about how women should behave. (178)

Now, for those familiar with the books, you’ll know that Katniss, up until the very end of the series, denies any romantic feeling for Peeta, and feels she must play the crowd with her sweet words and physical affection. However, her statements and actions when it comes to saving his life are genuine. She experiences real fear, it is not an act, the first time they encounter the berries, and she realized he could have died — she begins to yell at him and chastise him, because he was moments away from death, and she would have been helpless to stop it. It is around this time that Katniss realizes that she would never truly leave the arena if he did not make it out too. Whether the love she discovered in the arena was romantic, erotic, platonic, or even maternal doesn’t matter. It simply does not matter that she was confused by her feelings – what matters is that she Loved him. And that love was broadcast to the nation, and it was this act of true love that forced the Capitol to concede, and which sparked and continued to inspire the revolution.

Regardless, though, of her conflicted feelings at a conscious level, Pullium goes on to explain that her false act of love “defies the Capitol ... [with] a feminine role which positions her as Panem’s sweetheart. This role allows her to subvert authority more effectively than she could as the more masculine Katniss the Hunter, who can readily dispatch those who threaten her ... Peeta’s public confession of love for Katniss recontextualizes her ability to fight in the arena, making it part of her conventionally feminine public persona due to its association with her fierce ability to care, a quality that is most typically associated with hegemonic femininity” (178 – 179). This act as Panem’s sweetheart is what prevents her from being killed by Snow after the game, who recognizes that doing so would only spark further outrage. There are a multitude of further examples of how Katniss, embodying the feminine role, continues to fuel the fire of rebellion and actively resists the Capitol, and we see this all the way through to the very end of Mockingjay. We see her embody “the feminist ethics of caring” (Pulliam 182) as she weighs life and death decisions during the war. Does she let the rebellion trap the military of District 2 in a mountain, to die underground the way her father did, or does she show them mercy? Does she let the rebellion kill Peeta because he is a threat, or does she save his life with the understanding that he has been tortured and brainwashed? Does she eliminate President Coin when she realizes that she is, quite literally, the other side of Snow’s coin? She does not make decisions with a Utilitarian lens like Gale, rather, she is led by kindness and a strong sense of justice, which brings us to the conclusion of Katniss’ story.

There are many who complain that Katniss succumbed to the so-called Marriage Plot. And she does, in the end, marry Peeta; and many years later, after much debate and fear from her past, she decides to have children. But Katniss made a choice, and she chose Peeta because choosing Gale “would mean a betrayal of one of her highest values: the preservation of innocent life ... and she cannot spend the rest of her life with the man whose plot with Coin killed Prim along with many other innocents [medics, the wounded, and children]” (Pulliam 183). Katniss was discharged from the war after killing Coin to protect her during the turmoil; and she spent years recovering from the trauma of the Games, the war, and the death of her sister. Her decision to marry Peeta was not rushed, and she constantly questioned the choice to have children. Pulliam argues that while “Katniss is never able to conclusively say what caused her to choose Peeta over Gale, or to marry at all, Collins’ representation of her protagonist as someone who is always questioning what has shaped her feeling exposes the forces in our world that form girls’ desires. As a result, Collins’ readers can better understand how their own choices are driven by much larger, and often invisible forces” (184). So, I would conclude by saying that Katniss did not succumb to the typical Marriage Plot; instead, she survived trauma and abuse, she survived war, and she battled said trauma for the rest of her life. In the epilogue, when we see her adult life roughly ten years later, she admits that she still has nightmares, she still fears that everything will begin again, and her children won’t be safe.

Regardless of these concerns, the important part of this ending is that she made a choice for herself, and only for herself. Nobody forced her into this feminine role (as she was forced into both masculine and feminine roles during the Games and the Rebellion). Peeta waited years for her to be truly ready, and when she was finally safe enough to let her guard down, to choose to fill her life with the maternal love her own mother could not provide. You will note the key theme I keep repeating: These were all her own choices, and it was not just happily ever after. This is significant because Feminism, in an ideal situation, isn’t about one path being right or wrong, but about being able to freely choose which path you want, to make up your mind and then unmake it. And lastly, when thinking of Katniss’ marriage and her children, it’s critical to remember that she admitted in the very first book that she would consider marriage and kids in another world, a world without the hunger games, and through her deep well of compassion and love, she helped bring that world into existence.

THE REVOLUTION ABOUT TO BE TELEVISED:
PANEM, POLITICS, AND THE PRESENT DAY

There is much that has been covered in this essay so far, with each idea building on the last and working its way through the various methods of literary criticism. Now, we will conclude by analyzing The Hunger Games through an American political lens, a cultural lens, and the lens through which we can reasonably argue Collins’ wrote both the trilogy and the prequel novels. To do so, I will refer to Rebecca Hill’s 2018 article “Capital or the Capitol?: “The Hunger Games” Fandom and Neoliberal Populism”, which highlights the varying ways in which THG can be read through the lens of American politics today, and the way THG resonates with its varied audience. Specifically, her paper “explores how the diverging populisms so visible in the 2016 campaign season converged in an unlikely spot: responses to the popular young-adult (YA) dystopian fiction trilogy The Hunger Games (THG)" (5). I found this article interesting because she sought to “understand how a single political fiction could become a universal allegory for contemporary politics despite a polarized political environment ... [arguing] that ‘neoliberal populism,’ a seeming oxymoron, unites fans of this series, despite their many real political disagreements” (5). With the help of her findings, I intend to solidify my argument that Collins and THG deserves a place amongst the ranks of our best American authors and novels by highlighting the very real and modern relevance of her work.

As I mentioned in the very beginning, Collins was inspired to write THG after flipping through the channels “between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War” (NYT 2018). It was a horrific dichotomy, one that is still ever present today. In fact, it might even be more prevalent today with the increased accessibility to news and on the ground footage that social media has provided. Speaking from personal experience, for the last year and a half, my TikTok feed has been more than just silly videos: it has been an even mix of both humor and actual footage of the atrocities happening in many areas of the world, primarily Palestine. I cannot count the number of videos I have seen that contained uncensored footage of dead men, women, and children; of hospitals and mosques and supposed safe zones obliterated due to supposed association with “Hamas”. Now, after my own experiences, there is a scene in Mockingjay that twists my gut, whether I am reading the book or watching the movie, for the director matched the script (nearly) word for word:

I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District 8, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors ... I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do ... This is what they do! And we must fight back! (Mockingjay 117-118)

Now, you might be thinking that what is happening in Palestine is not at all what happened in Iraq, and that it is not fair for me to compare the two. You are probably thinking that America isn’t dropping the bombs, that we aren’t making these decisions – but it is undeniably our money and our bombs and our supplies, and ultimately, our support that is being sent to Israel. That is no different than if we were to drop the bombs ourselves. In fact, I would argue that what we are doing is distinctly worse in many ways – seeing as how the U.S. Government hides behind the lies told by the nation of Israel, refusing to take ownership, ultimately aiding and abetting the mass genocide and erasure of the Palestinian people.

I watch what is happening and I think I know what Collins must have been feeling when she wrote that scene in Mockingjay, wherein the Capitol intentionally bombed a hospital with the intent to kill the wounded. The explanation of which is only given by President Snow in the movie: “Kill the wounded ... Any association with the Mockingjay symbol is forbidden. Everyone inside that hospital has committed treason. Show them what it costs to be friends with Katniss Everdeen” (Lawrence 2015). Now, this is just one extremely specific and politically charged example; there are a myriad more that detail the parallels of Panem and America today.

As I mentioned at the start of this section, Hill found in her many interviews that groups of various political beliefs felt that THG represented modern political problems that mattered to them. “Progressive fans in the United States ... asserted that THG is a progressive critique of the United States ... liberal, progressive, and left fans delighted in discussing how THG critiqued capitalism, the Republican Party ... and/or the U.S. empire” (7). These talking points speak to the first section of this essay, where we discussed Marx, whose theories were centered on the unsustainability and inherent evil of capitalism. However, “Tea Partiers [which can be described as conservative] and libertarians [less conservative, but nowhere close to “liberal”] ... read THG as an expression of their politics, seeing in it a message about big government. Some critics have explained this phenomenon by arguing that THG is a fundamentally conservative text ... arguing that only the fog of political correctness blinded the left to the way that big government has been used throughout the ages to accumulate wealth for the powerful, to tax excessively those of lesser means, and then to create a huge class who are utterly dependent upon the likes of President Snow, who ends up justifying his harsh policies as a means to ‘peace’” (7). I would add to this conservative reading by also pulling in the heavy government surveillance of Panem. Conservatives are very antisurveillance (to be fair, we all are), but again, speaking from personal experience working for cellular retail, they are so anti-government surveillance that they don’t want you to scan their ID, or use Face ID on their phones. So, I can see how a party who preaches about free speech, freedom in general, small governments, less taxes, and less government control would read THG and President Snow as an example of what Big Governments can be.

However, and this is where we once again get into America today; we have observed how the conservative party has fallen hook, line, and sinker, for Trump’s populist rhetoric. They believe that he is a working man, that he is the Christian choice, that he will lower taxes, lower grocery cost, lower gas prices; all while blaming the left for allowing the inflation and prices to skyrocket. The problem with the way that they read THG is the same problem with the way they believe every word that comes out of Trump’s mouth: they blame everything, even the state of a fictitious country like Panem, on the left. They cannot see that leaders like Trump don’t have the best interest of the people at heart, they can’t see that not only are we approaching an authoritative, totalitarian regime because of Trump; they also can’t see that The Hunger Games is using dystopian fiction to “warn about the possible outcomes of the present world ... [extrapolating] the following features: class division, metropolitan-periphery division, a sadistic reality competition, and state surveillance” (Hill 6). Everything that Collins’ is writing about, Just-War theory, propaganda, surveillance, rebellion and revolution, and an overreaching government that blatantly disregards democracy, goes against what the current conservative party is praising in our current administration and condemning about the left. It is for these reasons, as well as for her use of powerful theories such as Marxism and Power; for her beautifully written women as multifaceted and strong characters; that Collins and The Hunger Games, to include the original trilogy and the following prequel novels, deserve to be considered amongst the ranks of our greatest American authors and novels.

 

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Scholastic Inc., 2020.

---. Catching Fire. Scholastic Press, 2009.

---. The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2008.

---. Mockingjay. Scholastic Inc., 2010.

---. Sunrise on the Reaping. Scholastic Inc., 2025.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books, 1975.

Hasan, Farah, and Sana Hasan. “View of a Foucauldian Analysis of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.” Uobaghdad.edu.iq, 2025, jcoeduw.uobaghdad.edu.iq/index.php/journal/article/view/1719/1467. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.

Hill, Rebecca. “Capital or the Capitol?: ‘The Hunger Games’ Fandom and Neoliberal Populism.” American Studies, vol. 57, no. 1/2, 2018, pp. 5–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44982662. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Lawrence, Francis, director. Mockingjay Part 1. Lionsgate, 2015.

Levithan, David. “Suzanne Collins Talks about ‘The Hunger Games,’ the Books and the Movies.” The New York Times, 18 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/books/suzanne-collins-talks-about-the-hunger-games-the-books-and-the-movies.html. Accessed 21 Mar. 2025.

Pettersson, Sofie. “Economic Inequality in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games: A Marxist Reading.” 2023, www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1776683/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

Pulliam, June. “Real or Not Real—Katniss Everdeen Loves Peeta Mellark: The Lingering Effects of Discipline in the ‘Hunger Games’ Trilogy.” Louisiana State University, 2018. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025.

Ross, Gary, director. The Hunger Games. Lionsgate, 2012.