Big Brother
Government control over citizens, harassment of citizens
Lack of privacy and erosion of civil liberties
Legal penalties for invoking freedom of speech
Using people to spy on each other
Dehumanization
Ultimately, rebellion.
In subsequent chapters, we establish that there’s a huge disparity between the people in the Capitol who have too much to eat, who focus on what they look like, and spend money on plastic surgeries and style, versus everyone else—the starving, the hounded, the impoverished, those lacking even basic human comforts. The “haves” versus the “have nots”—we see them clearly in the world of The Hunger Games, but we also see them clearly in our society.
In our real world, in the United States, the top 1 percent of all households controls 43 percent of the wealth, and the next 19 percent controls 50 percent of the wealth; hence, it’s estimated that 20 percent of all households in the United States control 93 percent of the wealth.
What does this leave for everyone else, the 80 percent of citizens of the United States? Unfortunately, 880 percent of households have only 7 percent of the nation’s financial wealth. And even worse, as Professor G. William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz tells us, “[T]he bottom forty percent of the population . . . holds just 0.3% of the wealth in the United States.”1 These are enormous disparities in resource distribution between the rich and everyone else.
Business Insider puts it bluntly: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Cliché, sure, but it’s also more true than at any time since the Gilded Age. If you’re in that top 1%, life is grand.”2 Statistics show that the disparities are starting to look like what we saw right before the Great Depression. For example, in 1928 the “top one-hundredth of 1 percent of U.S. families averaged 892 times more income than families in the bottom 90 percent,” and in 2006, “the top 0.01 percent averaged 976 times more income than America’s bottom 90 percent.”3
People have lost their homes at a shocking pace, and some reports suggest that the “housing crisis could peak in 2011, as the number of homeowners receiving foreclosure notices climbs to about 20%.”4 Indeed, as of February 2011, CNN tells us that foreclosures are responsible for a whopping 26 percent of current house sales. Further, “nearly thirty percent of mortgage borrowers are underwater on their loans, owing more than their homes are worth”5 and estimates place the losses to banks on mortgages at possibly more than $700 billion.6 People are unemployed with no hope of ever finding jobs again. The understated statistics from the government suggest that the nation’s unemployment rate is 9 to 9.5 percent as of January 2011. However, as many analysts are quick to point out, the unemployment numbers do not include those who have given up all hope of finding work. Estimates place the hopelessly unemployed at 6 million of the supposed 15 million jobless Americans. In addition, 1.5 million people have been out of work for more than ninety-nine weeks. Explains Harvey Katz of Value Line, which does investment research:
Worse, the aforementioned unemployment rate of 9.4% is just a fraction—perhaps half—of the overall jobless rate. That is because this so-called official rate includes only those considered to be technically unemployed . . . the cumulative total is probably closer to 18%—or just under one in five Americans who want fulltime, permanent employment, who are unable to secure such work.7
To avoid a major Depression akin to the one the United States suffered in the 1930s, the U.S. government gave $700 billion to the banks. The government also bailed out the auto industry to the tune of some $25 billion.
Branko Milanovi, lead economist at the World Bank’s research division in Washington D.C., recently told U.S. News & World Report that the wealth of the world has never been as unequally distributed between the rich and everyone else as it is now. He says that the countries with the widest disparities are in Latin America and Africa.8 Professor Domhoff cites a 2006 study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research, whose data is pretty old at this point, from the year 2000, to point out that the financial disparities exist worldwide.9 The study concluded that the top 10 percent of all households in Switzerland owned more than 70 percent of the country’s wealth; in Denmark, they owned 65 percent; France, 61 percent; Sweden, 58 percent, England, 56 percent; and so forth. Again, these are older statistics, and also, as Domhoff points out, the data is “spotty” for many countries. Still, no matter how lenient we are in looking at the numbers, hoping to reduce the inequalities, we can’t get around the fact that the disparities are absurdly wide.
As we all know, wealth leads to power. Before the 2008 presidential election, CNN noted that “The herd of candidates vying for the White House in 2008 may have different positions on abortion, gun control, climate change and taxes, but there is one thing most of them have in common—they’re millionaires.”10Money magazine wrote that the “seven front-runners, those with the highest standings in the polls and the biggest campaign troves, all have assets that would place them in the nation’s top 10% of households, and most of them in the top 0.5%.”11 In 2002, Forbes magazine listed the ten richest politicians in America, and among them were Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, with close to $5 billion; Winthrop Rockefeller, lieutenant governor of Arkansas, $1.2 billion; B. Thomas Golisano, then gubernatorial candidate of New York, $1.1 billion; and John Kerry, then senator of Massachusetts, $550 million.12
Says Branko Milanovi, “. . . you have an entrenched elite that basically maintains its own high position to the detriment of others.”13
How different is our real world, then, to what we see in The Hunger Games? The rich have all the resources. The rich have all the powerful jobs. The rich control everyone else. These are factors, as we’ll soon see, that lead to repression and in many cases, revolutions and rebellions. Perhaps the future as reflected in The Hunger Games series posits a collapse of our civilization as inequalities take hold and the government clamps down on civil liberties and human rights. It’s not all that farfetched.
The term, “Big Brother,” is well known in this country. It symbolizes government power and the collapse of civil liberties and rights. It personifies government surveillance.
In George Orwell’s 1949 novel, 1984, Big Brother is the figurehead of the Party; he may be a real person, he may be just a symbol. He appears as the dictator of Oceania on gigantic telescreens and posters in order to issue propaganda. In The Hunger Games, President Snow, Caesar Flickerman, and the Games are force-fed to citizens via televisions set up in all the Districts. The propaganda is constant.
The Oceania government controls and harasses citizens, spies on everyone, dehumanizes people, and penalizes those who invoke freedom of speech. The same is certainly true in the world of The Hunger Games. A classic dystopian novel, 1984 shows us a future that follows a global war. After the war, three super-states divide the land masses up and then control everyone in their provinces. The individual must do as the government wants, and the government controls everyone and everything. The Proles, or Proletariats, constitute 85 percent of the population, and as in our real world and in the world of The Hunger Games, this vast majority has no power and no wealth, and they serve the whims of the rich. The Inner Party, representing only 2 percent of the population, are like the super-wealthy in our population who have the most power. They are also like the Gamemakers, Peacekeepers, and Mayors in The Hunger Games. Citizens are so dehumanized that they’re known as “unpersons.” And children are used as spies, even against their own parents. As in The Hunger Games, children are pawns of the evil empire, which forces them to do the government’s will and destroy any semblance of free thought and speech by their parents. Remember, the children are tools of the government in The Hunger Games; if the Capitol controls the children and tortures/executes them at whim, then the evil empire has an iron grip on the adults. Basically, the Party in 1984 keeps people impoverished and desperate for basics such as food
and shelter, just as the Capitol does in The Hunger Games. Poverty, hunger, and misery: tools that the governments in both books use to control the people.
Winston Smith in 1984 is “lucky” to belong to the somewhat middle-class Outer Party, which affords him with “luxuries” such as black bread and gin. He lives in a small apartment, where he’s forced to watch Big Brother on the telescreen; if caught “thinking” rebellious ideas, he could be executed.
He eventually rebels against the Party, which arrests, imprisons, and subjects him to beatings, electric shocks, and psychological torture. The Party also arrests and tortures his illegal lover, Julia. The Capitol in The Hunger Games uses similar techniques, and then some (see chapter 6, “Torture and Execution”).
In 1984, the government controls love affairs, as well. Winston and Julia aren’t supposed to be involved in a romance; hence their imprisonment and torture. The two end up discarding each other, both caving into Big Brother.
In The Hunger Games, the government straight up to President Snow, tries to control the romance between Katniss and Peeta to the point of picking out her wedding dress. Both Katniss and Peeta are keenly aware throughout all three books that their romance may be their key to survival. Finally, after shifting out of the severity of tracker jacker hijacking, Peeta clings to his love of Katniss.
Perhaps the most fascinating difference between 1984 and The Hunger Games lies in the conversations between Winston Smith and Julia. Remember, Katniss and Peeta are paranoid about each other’s loyalty during their battles to the death; Katniss tries to save Peeta’s life numerous times; and Peeta is willing to sacrifice himself to save Katniss. But in 1984, Winston and Julia betray each other. She explains that “they” (the government) threaten the people with things that nobody can “stand up to” or “even think about.” She says that, in the end, “all you care about is yourself.” Sadly, Winston agrees, and they both comment that, after a betrayal in which you’re willing to sacrifice someone else to save your own neck, “you don’t feel the same” about the other person any longer.
Yet perhaps the major difference is that in 1984, the police make sure people do not even think subversive things. The government controls thoughts. Unfortunately, as shown in chapter 9, “Hype Over Substance,” in the real world, much of what people think is controlled by mass media, gossip rags, and news conglomerates. In many cases, we know more about Michelle Obama’s fashions than her husband’s politics. We rarely read or view hard facts about the war in Iraq the same way we accessed the same types of facts during the Vietnam War. Back then, we couldn’t go a day without seeing soldiers wounded, fighting, and dying; without reading the appalling statistics about the number dead, the hopeless war situation, and so forth. We were inundated with facts by news organizations. Today, we have to dig to find out the truth about casualties of war; the number wounded, fighting, and dying. Instead of hard journalism, we’re subjected to hundreds of television channels and thousands of Internet news sites that feed us trivia about gossip, fashion, and style. In 1984 the government controls the people’s view of reality in order to control the people. Nobody in 1984 really knows what’s going on around the world. The use of the Big Lie is rampant in 1984, whereby Newspeak words can possess meanings that contradict each other.
If the government hides the truth long enough and if news sources hide the truth long enough, then what are we left with? Will anyone remember why civilization collapsed? They don’t remember the reasons in The Hunger Games, nor do they remember history in 1984; indeed, Winston Smith’s job is to revise the past as reported by news organizations. And in our real world, as the media becomes looser and less able to provide us with real facts, what will happen to our civilization? I leave you with this:
[Hitler’s] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat [a lie] frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
—The United States Office of Strategic Services,
Hitler As His Associates Know Him.14
In general, dystopian fiction portrays a bleak world in which everything is pretty much hopeless. A dystopia is not a fun place to live: people are oppressed, dehumanized, and frightened. Typically, the government is highly centralized and totalitarian. The Hunger Games trilogy is an example of dystopian fiction: The world is bleak, everything is pretty much hopeless, people are oppressed, dehumanized, and frightened; and the government is centralized and totalitarian.
Historically, dystopian novels are indictments against frightening social trends. The authors are warning us that our futures will be terrible if these trends persist.
Perhaps one of the earliest dystopian novels was 1921’s We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which focused on an oppressive social order complete with terrorist force and the elimination of any individuality. Along with George Orwell’s 1984, the novel We is considered a classic example of dystopian fiction.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World differs somewhat from both We and 1984, in that Huxley’s novel shows the oppressive results of brainwashing, blind faith in the government and technology, and a conscious reduction by the government in the intellectual and individual liberties of citizens.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is another classic dystopian novel, very similar to Brave New World in that it also shows the oppressive results of brainwashing, blind faith in the government and technology, and a conscious reduction by the government in the intellectual and individual liberties of citizens. Suzanne Collins references Fahrenheit 451 in Mockingjay when she assigns Katniss to Squad 451.
The key difference among the three works might be that Brave New World gives us a World State without any war yet with extremely stultifying social stability. In 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, things are quite different: everyone’s afraid of enemy attacks and war, and torture and deprivation are commonplace. While people don’t worry about enemy attacks and war in the world of The Hunger Games, they do worry constantly about torture, starvation, and being selected to participate in the Games.
A central idea in Fahrenheit 451 is that people no longer remember history because the government has obliterated it using technology. People watch television rather than talk to and have fun with friends. They believe whatever propaganda the government is spewing on the television screen, and they no longer have a clue as to what’s real and what isn’t real.
In the The Hunger Games world, people no longer remember what caused the apocalypse, though they do remember—thanks to all the government propaganda on the television screens—why they are being oppressed. The know very little about the actual Dark Days, however, and when subjected to government torture tactics, they fail to differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t real. Peeta, of course, is the prime example of this problem.
Both in Fahrenheit 451 and The Hunger Games trilogy, the free flow of information is totally censored, and hence, people don’t know what’s happening in the world. In Katniss’s world, nobody really knows what happens in the other districts, and indeed, they don’t even know that District 13 still exists. When Rue tells Katniss about the harsh living conditions and punishments in District 11, Katniss thinks about how little she knows about people outside of District 12, and “because even though the information seems harmless, they don’t want people in different districts to know about one another” (The Hunger Games, 203).
It’s interesting to note that in the The Hunger Games trilogy as well as in Brave New World, religion no longer exists. When their children are selected for the Games, parents don’t fall to their knees and wail to God. When Katniss is in her darkest moments, depressed and suicidal, being forced to kill other children, wondering if Peeta will survive his leg injury and subsequent infection, wondering if her sister will survive,
and so on, she does not pray to God. It’s as if all religion has disappeared from Panem. In Brave New World, religion is actually taboo, and people are supposed to do little other than make goods and buy them. And yet the goal of government in Brave New World—in addition to maintaining an iron grip on everything and everyone—is to keep everyone dulled down and controlled, “happy” as if on tranquilizers. The leaders of Panem definitely aren’t interested in the happiness of its citizens, even if that happiness is fake.
As an aside, rather than using the term, “dystopia,” to describe Brave New World, it’s often considered a form of utopian fiction. People are so brainwashed and controlled that they don’t know that they’re being oppressed. Sure, they have no religion, no art, and no science, but do they know what they’re missing? No.
Along with no religion, the oppressed people in The Hunger Games districts do not enjoy art, music, poetry, dance, organized sports, or intellectual endeavors that involve science, history, etc. They are completely stifled. Peeta’s artistic abilities emerge from his experiences as a baker. Because he’s decorated so many cakes, the story tells us, he has a knack for painting and camouflage. Only after winning the Games is Katniss encouraged to design clothes. While Rue loves music, particularly bird songs, she does not play a musical instrument, nor is she exposed to symphonies, choruses, operas, and so forth. About the most we see, in terms of music, are some simple tunes and folk melodies. Culture is totally stifled, yet the beauty of these simple tunes endure and offer small glimpses at hope and a different way of life.
The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion Page 2