The Hunger Games Reading Quiz
• After you finish your reading quiz, please turn it in
immediately.
Review on
Dystopia and Dystopian Literature
• Dystopian is a term coming from “utopian” that was first
used to describe a certain type of novel or short story
that featured a repressive and highly controlled society,
often pretending on the outside to be utopian, or perfect.
• Dystopian societies often claim to be or pretend to be
utopias, but if you look closely terrible costs are revealed
in order to achieve this control over society.
• Can you think of some examples of Dystopian societies in
books or movies? Without getting too controversial, can
you think of any societies that tried to be this in real life?
Dystopia and The Hunger Games
• Why is The Hunger Games considered a dystopian novel?
• Take a moment and write a quick paragraph on the
dystopian elements of the Hunger Games that you find
most interesting.
Utopia/Dystopia in
The Hunger Games
• How has the society in The Hunger Games tried to
achieve a perfect society?
• Who thinks they are living in a perfect society and who
does not?
• How does the Capitol in The Hunger Games make sure
that Panem doesn’t have some of the problems in our
society, like war ?
Young Adult Novels vs Adult Literature
• The Hunger Games is marketed as a young adult novel, and
Brave New World as adult literature.
• Beside the obvious sexual content, what differences do you
see between The Hunger Games as a YA novel and Brave
New World as an adult novel?
• Do you find distinctions between “young adult” and “adult”
novels helpful and accurate, or do you see them as simply
marketing tactics?
THE VOCABULARY OF
LITERARY CRITICISM
The Vocabulary of Literary Criticism
• Many literary terms describe how an author communicates
his or her ideas.
• You will see writers of LitCrit essays using these words to
describe the text.
• YOU can use these words in your own essay too!
Look through the text and try to identify some of methods
he or she uses to convey the patterns of ideas you are most
interested in.
• characterization: the author's expression of a character's
personality through the use of action, dialogue, thought, or
commentary by the narrator or another character.
• conflict: the struggle within the story. Character divided against self,
character against character, character against society, character
against nature, character against God. Without it, there is no story.
• dialogue: vocal exchange between two or more characters. One of
the ways in which plot, character, action, etc. are developed.
The Vocabulary of Literary Criticism
• imagery: the collection of images within a literary work. Used to evoke
atmosphere, mood, tension. For example, images of crowded, steaming
sidewalks flanking streets choked with lines of shimmering, smoking cars
suggests oppressive heat and all the psychological tensions that go with it.
• point of view: the vantage point from which the author presents
action of the story. Who is telling the story? An all-knowing
author? A voice limited to the views of one character? The voice
and thoughts of one character? Does the author change point of
view in the story? Why? Point of view is often considered the
technical aspect of fiction which leads the critic most readily into
the problems and meanings of the story.
• symbol: related to imagery. It is something which is itself yet stands for
or means something else. It tends to be more singular, a bit more fixed
than imagery. For example, in Lessing's "A Woman on a Roof," the brief
red sun suit seems to symbolize the woman's freedom and independence
from externally imposed standards of behavior.
• tone: suggests an attitude toward the subject which is
communicated by the words the author chooses. Part of the range
of tone includes playful, somber, serious, casual, formal, ironic.
Important because it designates the mood and effect of a work.
So you know you have to quote….
• ….but what is the BEST way to quote?It’s not a good idea to
simply “drop in” a quote without making it a part of your own
sentence.
Original Quote from the source:
• “He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind
Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill
me.”
• Drop-In Quote:
• Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. “Which also means that kind
Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill
me” (Collins 60).
• Integrated Quote:
• Katniss remains suspicious of Peeta. When she realizes that he is
“already fighting hard to stay alive”, Katniss decides that “the boy who
gave me the bread is [also] fighting hard to kill me” (Collins 60).
The “Quote Sandwich”
• This is a way to integrate quotes into your paper smoothly
and avoid drop-in quotes.
• The first piece of “bread”
• Introduce quote, possibly mention author, connect quote to what
you were saying before.
• The “Meat”
• Your quote, correctly cited with in-text citation.
• The second piece of “bread”
• Interpretation/explanation of quote (NOT simply rewording the
quote), connect quote to what you will say next.
Use the Quote Sandwich method to
structure paragraphs!
By using a detailed quote sandwich, we can
write whole paragraphs using only one
quote/point
Example of detailed quote sandwich using 2 different
sources and comparing them:
Introduce quote
from literature
Quote w/in-text
citation
Analysis of
quote
Introduction of
outside source
Outside source
quote w/in-text
citation
Analysis of
quote and
connection to
thesis and main
point
The poverty that faces District 12 is vividly described in the novel.
The narrator, Katniss, describes how the people are so hopeless and
defeated that they have “hunched shoulders and swollen knuckles” and
they have even “stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken
nails [or] the lines of their sunken faces” (4). In this sentence, Suzanne
Collins describes the conditions of poverty and hopelessness, using
words like ‘sunken’ and ‘hunched.’ All throughout the chapters that
describe District 12 the language portrays a broken down people who
have no hope because of their overwhelming poverty and hunger. Many
readers may think that such poverty cannot exist in real life, or if it does
it is only in other far-away countries. However, research into the
poorest areas of America tells a different story. There are many
communities and neighborhoods that are just as poor, oppressed, and
downtrodden as District 12. In fact, there are many neighborhoods in
the United States where the average salary per household is shockingly
“below minimum wage” and even “two or three full time workers in a
single household may not be enough to pay for basic necessities like
rent, food, and medical care” (Scheckner). It is clear that although
American Society may not be as obviously oppressive as the Capitol in
The Hunger Games, there are still some very serious problems with our
economic system when a hard-working family cannot even afford the
basics without relying on credit cards, government aid, or working like a
slave at more than one job.
Example of detailed quote sandwich using 2 different
sources and comparing them:
Katniss thoughts on the very real hunger in District 12 are shocking: “Starvation's not an uncommon fate in
District 12 […] you come upon them sitting motionless against a wall or dying in the Meadow, you hear the
wails from a house, and the Peacekeepers are called in to retrieve the body. Starvation is never the cause of
death officially. It's always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one” (p. 28). This passage
tells us that the people of District 12 do not receive enough resources to sustain the population and that
those in charge turn a blind eye to the cause of so many deaths. Later, the reader learns that the Capitol is
full of gluttonous people who waste food that could have easily saved thousands of lives across Panem . The
overabundance of food and people's wastefulness are especially clear in Catching Fire, in which it is
revealed that citizens of the Capitol drink a liquid that makes them throw up, effectively emptying their
bellies, so that they can continue to gorge on delicacies provided at a feast . As Katniss witnesses this
spectacle, she thinks, "all I can think of is the emaciated bodies of the children on our kitchen table as my
mother prescribes what the parents can't give. More food" (p. 80). The irony of starving children lying on
the kitchen table, a place associated with bounty and reserved for meals, is not lost on the reader and adds
to the horror of the image while magnifying the wastefulness of the Capitol.
Collins revealed in an interview that "the sociopolitical overtones of The Hunger Games were very
intentionally created to characterize current and past world events, including the use of hunger as a weapon
to control populations" (Blasingame & Collins, 2009, p. 726). Still, hunger as a method of control is not
what initially disturbs the adolescent and adult in the United States; it is the blatant waste of food while
others starve that makes our stomachs twist. Why does it make us so uncomfortable? Because if we look at
patterns of wastefulness in the United States, we are more closely associated with the Capitol, the bad guys,
than with the districts. For example, we over-consume food, which contributes to the country's high obesity
rate, but waste vast quantities at the same time. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(2012), in 2010 approximately 34 million tons of food were thrown away. These facts force us to question
how our standard of living affects others and the environment.
Homework:
• Thursday, May 21
• Topics: Applying Literary Criticism to The Hunger Games
• Homework Due:
• Bring a tentative thesis for your Research Paper
to work on in class.
• Continue to work on your Lit Crit Research
Papers