Suzanne Collins was born in 1969 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the daughter of an air force pilot and therefore she spent her childhood moving around the United States. While she was young her father left for a year in order to fight in Vietnam, a fact that marked her life. When her father returned, he spent a lot of time talking about his military experience and he taught Collins and her siblings about war and its consequences. Collins herself visited battlefields and war monuments (Anon, 2014). Because of her involvement with war from such an early age war and the themes which surround it play a major role in her writing.
Collins graduated from the Alabama School of Fine arts where she got interested in Greek and Roman history. Thereafter …show more content…
Collins got inspired by the war in Vietnam, in which her father fought, as well as World War I & II. She also got inspired by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. In her book she depicts a brutal totalitarian dictatorship. Totalitarian dictatorships are the dictatorships which hold total authority on the life of a country’s citizens. Historically, Joseph Stalin, in the Soviet Union, after the conclusion of the Civil War, became a dictator and executed the citizens who were against his vision (Anon, 1996). In the same pattern, Adolf Hitler used propaganda to gain power. The use of propaganda is one of the main aspects of “The Hunger Games”. Collins explores how the media can form and change the public opinion. Big, glamorous opening ceremonies, interviews and television events are used throughout the story as means to manipulate the audience. The Capitol made sure that every home in all the districts had a TV-set, no matter how underprivileged the citizens are. Television was Capitol’s mean to control its residents. In the actual world, Hitler used literature –with his book “Mein Kampf”, for example–, newspapers and media, in general, to spread his ideas about the Aryan Race. The 13 districts in the book, could also serve as a parallel to the Nazi labor, death camps (Chudnovsky, …show more content…
Marx in his book “Das Kapital” stated that the citizens in a society work for the capitalists –those who hold the capitals and the biggest amounts of money– and they become objects, almost robot-like mechanisms whose whole life lies on working. The capitalists have full control over the means of production, enjoying the goods that the workers produce (Prychitko, 2008). In the Hunger Games, each district produces a different product, which is consumed by the wealthy residents of the Capitol. The word “Capitol” itself is used because of its etymology, which is the same with the words “Capital” and “Capitalists”. Therefore, the inequality between the rich and the poor is another subject that the book deals
Collins graduated from the Alabama School of Fine arts where she got interested in Greek and Roman history. Thereafter …show more content…
Collins got inspired by the war in Vietnam, in which her father fought, as well as World War I & II. She also got inspired by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. In her book she depicts a brutal totalitarian dictatorship. Totalitarian dictatorships are the dictatorships which hold total authority on the life of a country’s citizens. Historically, Joseph Stalin, in the Soviet Union, after the conclusion of the Civil War, became a dictator and executed the citizens who were against his vision (Anon, 1996). In the same pattern, Adolf Hitler used propaganda to gain power. The use of propaganda is one of the main aspects of “The Hunger Games”. Collins explores how the media can form and change the public opinion. Big, glamorous opening ceremonies, interviews and television events are used throughout the story as means to manipulate the audience. The Capitol made sure that every home in all the districts had a TV-set, no matter how underprivileged the citizens are. Television was Capitol’s mean to control its residents. In the actual world, Hitler used literature –with his book “Mein Kampf”, for example–, newspapers and media, in general, to spread his ideas about the Aryan Race. The 13 districts in the book, could also serve as a parallel to the Nazi labor, death camps (Chudnovsky, …show more content…
Marx in his book “Das Kapital” stated that the citizens in a society work for the capitalists –those who hold the capitals and the biggest amounts of money– and they become objects, almost robot-like mechanisms whose whole life lies on working. The capitalists have full control over the means of production, enjoying the goods that the workers produce (Prychitko, 2008). In the Hunger Games, each district produces a different product, which is consumed by the wealthy residents of the Capitol. The word “Capitol” itself is used because of its etymology, which is the same with the words “Capital” and “Capitalists”. Therefore, the inequality between the rich and the poor is another subject that the book deals