Power In The Hunger Games

The existence of powerholders, both those within an individual’s control and those who are beyond an individual’s extent of influence, has become an unthought-of dynamic that is accepted as a fact of modernity. Multiple forms of power have come to affect every aspect of a person’s life, ranging from ruling power to political power to personal power. Because humans are so social, they have come to depend on society’s extensive power structures, and humans have continuously attempted to abuse such structures and dominate each other for reasons that include race, gender, religion, and socioeconomic class, along with numerous other alleged justifications. While relations of power are an essential portion of human relations, Marx, Foucault, Silverblatt,
The materials for Culture & Expression have covered a great deal of power dynamics. The first kind of power is political power, which is excellently displayed by Katniss in The Hunger Games. By being the girl on fire, she is politically challenging the Capitol. A moment with Haymitch also shows her political power when he explains to her, “You’re in trouble. Word is the Capitol’s furious about you showing them up in the arena.” (The Hunger Games p. 356) This conversation highlights the political power Katniss was unaware of possessing. A second type of power is ruling power, or the power you have as an authoritarian figure. Again, Suzanne Collins perfectly demonstrates such a power dynamic through the Capitol, especially President Snow through the quote “Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch-this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us we are at their mercy.” (The Hunger Games p. 18) Foucault explores a third form of power, personal power through the Panopticon by trying to increase an individual’s sense of power to the extent that they discipline themselves. “What is now imposed on penal justice as its point of application, its ‘useful’ object, will no longer be the body of the guilty man set up against the body of the king; nor will it be the juridical subject of an ideal contract; it will be the disciplinary
Society often uses the term progress to mean a decrease in domination. For Marxist theory, continuous progress occurs until domination is diminished to a state of inexistence. Domination would no longer be necessary because everyone would be provided for and everyone would be fulfilled through their species-being. Also, Foucault’s goal of internal control would remove the possibility of abusive domination. In The Hunger Games, despite the severe limitations on District 12’s power, the community within the district does not depend on domination. The workers all depended on each other and supported each other, like Katniss and her family and Gale and his family each supported each other when they were unable to provide for themselves. Despite the severe conditions of The Hunger Games, the people who supported each other within the district created a community in with they were each able to support each other without fear of one of them trying to dominate the community. Finally, in the Incan empire, women had social equality, proving that some forms of domination have not always been utilized. If some forms of domination are socially constructed, it is reasonable to argue that all forms of domination may be construct, proving that it is not an innate part of human nature to be