Panem’s Culture of Manipulation
By Lauren Barbee
In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, the society of Panem is set up in a way that the Capitol maintains control and discipline over the districts by forcing them into rivalry against one another. The culture that has been established and adopted by all of the districts comes with very little sense of community. People are instead encouraged to show pride and support to the Capitol and the nation, but not to their district.
This is done in many ways, the most obvious being that recreation and community activities are not prohibited by the peacekeepers. Citizens are kept under constant surveillance and because of the fear of punishment, they stay inside their homes unless they are going to work, school, or to buy food. As the novel is told by the perspective of a girl from District 12, the district furthest from the Capitol, the peacekeepers are more likely to bend the rules for the citizens. This may be the reason that the rebellion originated in District 12 and the surrounding districts. The sense of community in District 12 most likely comes from the Hobb, or the underground market that has been set up to sell food and other goods that are not authorized or controlled by the Capitol.
In contrast, the Capitol exercises a different type of control over the districts in close proximity to its own borders, as well as the citizens within the Capitol borders, through urbanization. This has been defined as “the reduction of open spaces available for recreation, since land was expropriated for the building of industrial infrastructure” (O’Brien and Szeman, 33). This layout maximizes space for industrial productivity and having living quarters for a large number of workers. This is capitalized on for control by not allowing recreation unless it is sponsored by the governing force, in this case the Capitol hosts the Hunger Games and celebratory events surrounding it in order to entertain the citizens and distract them from being disgruntled about lacking recreation.
As explained by O’Brien and Szeman, it has historically been found that rulers who allow their people recreation time are less likely to be overthrown by a disgruntled group of workers (32). The Capitol chose to trade this for more control, which proved to make the people of Panem unhappy and ultimately led to the rebellion.
To see this in a modern, real world context, explore this site which investigates the effects of inadequate recreational facilities : http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/138902
The districts were also forced to consider each other rivals, instead of being allowed to develop relationships and communication. This is similar to the privatization of land when the agricultural economy was growing during the 1800’s, as the reorganization of space resulted in more enclosure and increased division between families and groups (O’Brien and Szeman, 33). Not only does the Capitol apply this to the division between districts, but to class divisions inside each district. This is seen in 12 when the merchants live in a different section than the coal mining families, and the adopted culture encourages them to not interact with the lower class. As well as being physically cut off from each other and not having any communication between them, the Hunger Games brought the idea of competition between districts, as each district wanted their own children to survive.
Works Cited
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2018.
OBrien, Susie, and Imre Szeman. Popular Culture: a Users Guide. Langara College, 2019.