To Kill A Mockingjay: An Ideological Criticism of The Hunger Games

In 2008, Suzanne Collins released The Hunger Games, the first novel of a trilogy that would become popular to international reading and cinematic audiences. The novel presented a reluctant heroine, Katniss Everdeen, who is trapped in the oppressive nation of Panem. The purpose of this paper is to examine The Hunger Games trilogy through ideological analysis to identify themes of oppression, then compare to current U.S. social systems. The study uses close textual analysis of the trilogy to identify three themes of oppression: economic, political, and social. The three themes are then applied to institutional and individual forces of oppression. The characters and settings of the trilogy are then compared to current U.S. social systems including class inequality and education.