The Hunger Games as a Captivity Narrative

After reading Mary Rowlandson’s story of her captivity, I started trying to think of modern captivity narratives and their similarities with Rowlandson’s. My first thought, which surprised me, was “The Hunger Games” series by Suzanne Collins. This is a very different kind of captivity narrative, but I was curious to see if the series was written in a way that was similar to Rowlandson’s.

The key difference in “The Hunger Games” and Rowlandson’s narrative is that “The Hunger Games” is strictly fiction. The story takes place in the future in what used to be North America. In the story, North America is called Panem and consists of twelve very poor districts which are controlled by a tyrannical government called the Capitol. All of the power and wealth is concentrated in the Capitol, and the people are powerless against it. The Capitol controls everything, including laws, how much food and resources districts will receive, punishment, and most importantly a contest called the Hunger Games. During the Hunger Games, two children are selected from each district to fight to the death while the world watches, hoping to win a year’s worth of resources for their district. (http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/about-the-book.htm)

It is not that there are limited resources. The Capitol could easily provide supplies for all of the districts. The purpose of the Hunger Games is to show the people that the Capitol is in control and rebellion will not be tolerated.

So in a sense the main character Katniss Everdeen, who must participate in the Hunger Games, is a captive. She is oppressed by the government, and forced to do something which puts her safety in danger in order to prove to the people how powerful the government is.

The first thing I noticed that the two writings had in common was the reasons why they are popular. Captivity narratives and “The Hunger Games” gained their popularity because they are sensational. They contain acts of violence, which seem to amaze the public. People are fascinated by stories that take them away from their daily lives, even though they can consist of horrendous murders and cruelty.

Captivity narratives focus on people who lead ordinary lives being brought into slavery without warning. Rowlandson discusses how she was doing mundane activities and enjoying a quiet day at home when she was captured. Similar things happen in “The Hunger Games”. The story begins by telling stories of Katniss’s everyday life, hunting in the woods with her friends and spending time with her family. She is brought from a state of relative innocence into living in a constant state of a consuming fear for her life and the lives of her family members, just like Mary Rowlandson. Also, both are continually threatened with the death of their families in order for their captors to control them.

Like Mary Rowlandson, Katniss is extremely opposed to submitting to what her captors want her to do, but is powerless to truly rise against them. The Capitol could easily kill her, so she has to be secretive in her acts of rebellion. Mary Rowlandson experiences this same dilemma, because though she detests the idea of submitting to the Native Americans, she fears for her life and her family’s lives.

Throughout the series, Katniss follows the plot of captivity narratives exactly and has many similar experiences. Because being captured by Native Americans or being forced to fight for food by an all-powerful government are foreign ideas to us, we are extremely interested to read these kinds of stories. This is made obvious by the numerous awards “The Hunger Games” has been nominated for. (http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/the_hunger_games_69765.htm)

Picture 1: http://static.thehollywoodgossip.com/images/gallery/the-hunger-games-soundtrack-art_408x408.jpg

Picture 2: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/gal/narrative1.jpg
Picture 3: http://depts.washington.edu/chid/intersections_Summer_2010/intersections_html_page_files/Rowlandsonabduction.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNxb28j5C1w&ob=av3e

"Common Sense" Literary Devices

     

       It is undeniable that Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" is one of the most influential documents ever published. So many of his ideas form the foundation of what it means to be an American. His work opened the eyes and minds of the American people to the liberal idea of declaring independence, dramatically changing the future of the country. With ideas in which the risk equaled the reward, he had to have done something right with his writing to convince the American people that independence was worth a shot. I wondered what exactly that was. Was there a certain way he worded his document that caused the huge impact? Did he use literary devices to persuade, or did his message do that on its own?

      The first thing I noticed about the way in which the pamphlet was written is the simple writing. Paine did not write to impress important scholars and leaders of the time. He wrote to reach the American public as a whole, mustering all the support he could get. (http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/) He wanted to grab the attention of the people at the heart of the cause.
       The first paragraph of the writing really caught my attention because of the way he admitted that action on account of his idea might be premature. However, he turns this around by saying "...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence (defense) of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." This sentence serves the purpose of telling the people that his idea is one of the future, and that eventually people will realize how they have been wronged. It is a known fact that people love to be right. Even today, everyone wants to claim they liked a band before they were mainstream, or liked an actor before they were really popular. The same idea can be applied to political ideas. People at the time may not have wanted to be seen as the "last ones to the party" so to speak, therefore they could have bought into Paine's ideas hoping they wouldn't be left behind.
       Countless times in his work, Paine uses an appeal to logos. The title itself makes this so obvious. "Common Sense" infers that it is without question. Anyone who believes America has a bright future under the rule of Britain has no common sense. He says "In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense..." in Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs. He also uses understatements as examples of the faulty logic that tories had. An example of this is "We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty." It is obvious that those statements are not true, so he is hoping people will see the reasoning to stay with Britain as illogical.

        Something that I thought was odd about this document was the Biblical references Paine used to make his point and reach his audience. Paine goes into great detail about his skeptical thoughts on Christianity in other writings, and actually denounced the religion after listening to one of his father's sermons. (http://socyberty.com/history/rhetorical-analysis-of-paines-common-sense/) Though religion was not seen as very important in Paine's life, it was important in the life of the American people. This was something Paine used to appeal to their moral beliefs, somewhat convincing them that freedom is what God wanted for America.

Picture 1: http://nataliecopuroglu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/only_common_sense.jpg
Picture 2: http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/files/american-flag.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgce_ai9nQQ

Persuasion in the Great Awakening vs. Present-day Persuasion

Companies use their years of establishment to convince the public that they have experience.

Ads sometimes use celebrities to convince people to perform a behavior.

      To say that the way the human mind works is “interesting” would be an understatement. Our minds are so complex that much research and study has to be done to understand why people choose to believe in some things and not in others. The art of persuasion is one that is important in situations ranging from convincing a child to eat his vegetables to completely altering the public’s view of the world. After reading “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, I became interested in society’s reception to the message of Jonathan Edwards. Why were they convinced by what he said? How do the methods Edwards used compare with those used by people who hope to influence the public today?

       I began researching to find out what the basic methods of persuasion were, and found some good examples on http://medialiteracyproject.org/language-persuasion. The first method that I thought was used to convince people in the Great Awakening that is still used today is the use of experts. People during the Great Awakening viewed preachers like Edwards as experts on God’s word and will. This could be one reason why his sermon was so influential. This form of persuasion is often used in commercials by companies advertising things like toothpaste, vitamins and medicine. “#1 doctor recommended” and “4 out of 5 dentists agree” are phrases that often cause the public to believe that people who have more knowledge than they do recommend products or use them themselves.

       Another one that really stood out to me, because of the extreme way Edwards used it, was fear. Edwards used scare tactics in order to convince his audience that they were not doing God’s will. He used vivid imagery about eternal damnation as a result of sin to capture the crowd’s attention and convince them to repent and be saved. Some churches still use this method, and there are people today who have been saved in similar ways. (http://www.intoutreach.org/testimony4.html) This method is also used today in lesser ways. For example, a commercial advertising gum might show someone with bad breath being rejected or embarrassed in public. If people fear that might happen to them, they are more likely to buy gum that says it will prevent those embarrassing situations.

       In some ways, Edwards also used the “slippery slope” technique. He tells the people that while they may not see the effects of their sin now, their continuance in sin will eventually result in God's wrath and it will be too late to fix. These type of arguments are seen all the time in politics. I once heard a member of the Libertarian party use this argument against President Obama’s healthcare plan by saying that if the government can tell us to buy healthcare because it’s good for us, eventually they could tell us to buy broccoli because it’s good for us.

The methods of persuasion haven’t changed much over the years, only the form in which they are presented (commercials, radio, etc). It is apparent that Jonathan Edwards knew how to present his information in a way that people responded to, because the public response was so great.

Picture 1: http://customerfirst.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ce54153ef00e553d78d6c8834-250wi
Picture 2: http://halfbakedart.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/picture1.jpg
Picture 3: http://www.obama-health-care.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama-healthcare-public-option.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULR68LTmbw&feature=related