Analysis of the Hunger Games

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The Psychological Effects of Punishment of the Girl on Fire Introduction In the book, Suzanne Collins tells a story about a dystopian society in which Katniss and is an independent person and even though the government tries to suppress them through psychology and physical manipulation; She does not give in because Katniss has a moral dilemma about the game. She is forced to play, but she takes a stand and won’t be controlled by the Capitol. Katniss is from District 12 and it is a coal mining town where she struggles to survive. The Capitol has chosen to keep the districts apart so that they cannot revolt. They do this by forcing each district to send a tribute; one boy and one girl from every district into the annual Hunger Game, in which they will fight until there is only a single winner left standing and it is all televised on live TV. In the Hunger Games, the psychological punishment in the dystopian society allows you as the reader to understand that contemporary issues like poverty, mistrust of one another, hunger, dehumanization, all being used by the government as weapons. The physical punishment is fear, as well as corporal punishment. Psychological Punishment: The first psychological punishment is poverty, in the Seam, Katniss is left to be the provider when her father is killed in the coal mines. She needs to keep her family alive; so she begins to hunt in the woods nearby. “Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties...” (Collins 5) Katniss knows she has to get food for her family to survive. Another way the Capitol keeps them in poverty is the mistrust of one to another. In the Seam the citizens distrust the merchants. They dislike that they have fewer entries into the reaping. It is an unequal system if you are poor. You need to enter more times than them depending on the size of your household

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