The inequality between rich and poor
In Panem, wealth is heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich,
particularly those people living in the Capitol and certain of the districts,
and the result is a huge disparity between their lives and the lives of the
poor. This disparity reveals itself in numerous ways throughout the novel, but
among the notable is food. In the poor districts, many of the residents do not
even have enough to eat. Katniss notes that starvation is common in District 12,
and she has to hunt illegally in the woods beyond the district’s borders to feed
her family. The novel suggests that most of the district’s residents are not
able to or don’t know how to hunt, meaning even given the little Katniss’s
family has, it is still more than many of the other families in her district.
Furthermore, all but the most basic foods are luxuries. Katniss later learns
that Peeta’s family, which owns a bakery and is thus one of the more well-off in
the district, can’t afford most of the food they bake and eat mostly the stale
leftovers that nobody guys. In contrast, when Katniss arrives in the Capitol,
she is awed by the lavish feasts and elaborately prepared dishes. The food is
rich and abundant, and Katniss, for the first time, tries hot
chocolate.
Perhaps the best example of the inequality between rich and poor can be
seen in the tessera system and the way the tributes are selected for the Games.
In theory, the lottery by which tributes are chosen, called the reaping, is
random and anyone can be picked. But in reality, the poor are much more likely
than the rich to end up as tributes. In exchange for extra rations of food and
oil, called tesserae, those children eligible for the Hunger Games can enter
their names into the reaping additional times. Most children of poor families
have to take tesserae to survive, so the children of poor families have more
entries in the reaping than children of wealthy families who need no tesserae.
They’re more likely to be picked as a result. Moreover, the rich who do become
tributes tend to have an additional advantage, because they are often trained to
take part in the Games and volunteer to do so. These trained tributes, which
Katniss refers to as Career Tributes, are generally bigger, stronger, and better
prepared for the tribulations of the Hunger Games than those poor tributes
selected by chance. They are consequently more likely to survive. For these rich
tributes, it is an honor to compete in the Games, while for the poor tributes it
is essentially a death sentence.
Suffering as entertainment
The Hunger Games present the tributes’ suffering as mass entertainment,
and the more the tributes suffer, ideally in battle with one another, the more
entertaining the Games become. The main draw of the Games for viewers is its
voyeurism, in this case watching the tributes, who are of course children,
fighting and dying. Katniss at various points talks about past Games and what
made them successful or unsuccessful, and the recurring motif is that the
viewers want to see the tributes battling one another and not dying too quickly
(because then the entertainment is over). The principle is best exemplified in
Cato’s slow death at the end of the novel. Once the muttations have defeated
Cato, they don’t kill him immediately, and Katniss realizes that the Gamemakers
want Cato to remain alive because it creates an exceedingly gruesome spectacle.
It is the finale of the Games, and so they want to deliver prolonged suffering
the audience at home won’t be able to turn away from. The suffering, however,
doesn’t have to be purely physical. It can be psychological as well. Katniss’s
and Peeta’s romance, for instance, is the subject of so much fascination because
it is presumed to be doomed. They become the “star-crossed lovers,” meaning
ill-fated, and that promise of suffering adds drama and makes them fun to
watch.
In essence, the Games are the equivalent of a televised sporting event in
which several participants compete to win. Katniss even refers to the tributes
as “players” sometimes when talking about the Games of past years. Most of the
players, however, are unwilling, and winning entails outliving the other
tributes, mostly by fighting and killing them. In both these ways the Hunger
Games recall the gladiatorial Games of Ancient Rome (notably, the gladiatorial
Games were one of the most popular forms of entertainment of their time), in
which armed competitors, some voluntarily and others not, would fight to the
death. That the Games are televised and discussed incessantly in Panem’s media
also, of course, recalls today’s reality television, and the novel consequently
draws a parallel between the gladiatorial Games and reality TV. This parallel
suggests that reality television, though perhaps not quite as barbarous as the
gladiatorial Games, still offers up real life as entertainment, and in doing so
it turns real people into commodities. Their value becomes determined by how
much entertainment they provide, and as such they lose their identities as
people. Reality television, the novel suggests, is a form of
objectification.
The importance of appearances
Throughout the novel, Katniss and her team use her external appearance,
including what she says and how she behaves, to control how other people
perceive her. At the reaping ceremony, for instance, she won’t allow herself to
cry in front of the cameras because she doesn’t want to give the impression of
being weak (and therefore an easy target). Moreover, at the opening ceremony of
the Games, the novel emphasizes how important appearances are by focusing a
great deal on Katniss’s preparations. The main feature of this focus is the
dress Cinna creates for her. It is covered in synthetic flames, earning Katniss
the epithet “the girl who was on fire,” and it makes Katniss stand out among the
tributes. Drawing attention is more than just vanity in the Games. The tributes
that are most memorable tend to attract sponsors, who can provide gifts that may
prove critical during the Games. Katniss hides her tears during the Games for a
similar reason, as self-pitying tributes are unattractive to sponsors. A
tribute’s appearance and behavior can therefore serve as a significant part of
their survival strategy.
Perhaps the most notable part of Katniss’s strategy involves her romance
with Peeta. This romance is not entirely genuine on Katniss’s end. She cares
about Peeta and develops a romantic interest him, but her feelings don’t have
nearly the same intensity as his and she always remains ambivalent about him.
For the cameras, however, Katniss plays up her feelings for Peeta and works to
convince the viewers, and especially the Capitol, that she’s deeply in love with
him. The act is one Haymitch devised for strategic reasons: Katniss’s and
Peeta’s love story elicits more gifts from sponsors than if they’re simply
friends, and it seems even to influence the Capitol’s decision to allow two
tributes to be declared winners rather than the customary one. Consequently, the
act Katniss puts on has a significant effect on both her and Peeta’s survival.
Through these events, the novel suggests that what cameras show, on reality
television for instance, is not necessarily reality, and that appearances are
just as consequential as the truth.
