Now, I have done a bit of research and exploration into these two texts and quite frankly I came across the fact that both these dystopian texts share similar ideas despite the different contexts.
The Hunger Games, the third movie, Mockingjay, is part of the trilogy, following her rescue from the catastrophic Quarter Quell, Katniss Everdeen awakes in the division beneath the supposedly destroyed District 13. Katniss’ home, District 12, was previously destroyed to rubble, and Peeta Mellark, the former lover, is now the brainwashed captive of President Snow. During this time, Katniss also learns about a secret rebellion developing throughout all of Panem.
The Handmaid's Tale, the movie is of speculative fiction written by Margaret Atwood. The novel is set in a near-future society of New England, within a totalitarian theocracy that has overthrown the US government, this dystopian novel conveys themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain agency, the power of both love and rebellion. Dystopian texts, The Hunger Games 3 and The Handmaid’s Tale, share similarities in ideas, though their contexts and the protagonists’ situations are very different. Both texts illustrate the power of rebellion and the power of love despite the very difficult situations in which they live. —> thesis
The Handmaids Tale context is within the twentieth-century tradition of “dystopian” novels, Margaret Atwood’s novel presents a strong feminist vision of a dystopian society. Atwood wrote this particular novel shortly after the elections of Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, and Ronald Reagan in the United States during a period of strong, well-organised movement of religious conservatives, known as the “sexual revolution” during the 1960s and 70s. The growing power of this, heightened feminist fears that previous occurrences would be reversed. The novel does just that… explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights.
In the novel’s society of Gilead, a group of conservative religious activists have taken power, turning the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argued for liberation from established gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s, due to the widespread access to contraception, the legalisation of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters, in the novel this has all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote and have their say, but they are forbidden to read and write. Atwood’s novel also produces of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about decreasing birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and environmental degradation.
Whereas The Hunger Games context is based on the military, in fact, it played a leading role in the family’s history. Suzanne Collins’s, the author of the novel hence motive of the movie, her grandfather had served in WW1, her uncle served in WWII, and the year Suzanne Collins turned six, her father left to serve in Vietnam War. War, consequently, had a major part of to Collins life. Collins would sometimes see video footage of the war on the news, recognising that her father was there fighting. One night, Collins was watching tv, flipping channels between coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a reality TV show. This is when Collins had the idea of The Hunger Games.
Overall, the contexts are very different, as the Handmaids Tale is based on the 1960s/70s sexual revolution whereas The Hunger Games Mocking Jay is based on the World Wars that had occurred in the past and the violence/uprising it brought about.
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Now that’s both their contexts explained, lets talk about the fun stuff… themes! The Handmaids Tale and The Hunger Games each convey the power of rebellion, the Handmaids Tale in Gilead and The Hunger Games in Panem. The power of Love is also conveyed throughout each text despite the harsh living conditions of each. The Handmaids Tale also conveys the inequality between men and women and The Hunger Games conveys the inequality between the rich and the poor. Due to both texts sharing the same dystopian genre, they each can share similar ideas.
The inequality of gender roles is present in the Handmaids Tale. The society that people live in, in Gilead is a strictly hierarchical society, with a huge difference between the genders. As soon as the Gileadean revolutionaries take over after terrorism destroys the US government, they fire all women from their jobs and drain their bank accounts, leaving Offred desperate and dependent. Luke, however, doesn’t seem particularly furious at this turn of events, a subtle suggestion that even good men may have embedded misogynistic attitudes, and that Gilead merely takes these common views to the logical extreme. Gilead institutionalises sexual violence towards women. , as Offred quotes, ““We are two-legged wombs, that’s all” (p.146). The Ceremony, where the Commander tries to impregnate Offred, is institutionalised adultery and a kind of rape, as they say, “Start them soon…there’s not a moment to be lost” (p.231). Jezebel’s, where Moira works, is a whorehouse for the society’s elite. Though the story critiques the Religious Right, it also shows that the feminist left, as exemplified by Offred’s mother, is not the solution, as the radical feminists, too, advocate book burnings, censorship, and violence. The book avoids black-and-white divisions, forcing us to take on our own assumptions regarding gender. We may blame Offred for being too passive, without acknowledging that she’s a product of her society, Offred is a “national resource”. We may fault the Commander’s Wife for not showing solidarity with her gender and rebelling against Gilead, without understanding that this expectation, since it assumes that gender is the most important trait, is just a lenient version of the anti-individual dictatorship of Gilead. These complicated questions of blame, as well as the brutal depictions of the oppression of women, earn The Handmaid’s Tale it’s reputation as a great work of feminist literature.
Similar to the Handmaids Tale, there is inequality within Panem, The Hunger Games, although not in gender roles, but between the rich and poor. In Panem, wealth is laboriously concentrated in the hands of the rich, especially those people living in the Capitol of Penam and the districts close to the capitol, this has resulted in a huge disparity between the lives of rich and poor. Food is a major difference between rich and poor. In the poorer districts, many of the people don’t have enough to eat. Katniss notes starvation is common in her district, district 12. Katniss has to hunt illegally in the woods and beyond to feed her family. All but the basic foods are luxuries for people. The best example of the inequality between rich and poor can be seen in the system and the way the tributes are selected for the Games. In exchange for more rations of food, children eligible for the Games can enter their names into the reaping additional times. Majority of children of poor families take tesserae to survive, hence, children of poorer families have more entries in the reaping than children of wealthy families, therefore more lilt to be picked. For these rich tributes, it is an honour to compete in the Games, while for the poor tributes it is essentially a death sentence.
The power of rebellion in the Handmaids Tale can be evidently seen as every major character in the story engages in some kind of disobedience against Gilead’s laws, as, “For every rule there is always an exception” (p.139). The Commander almost has every advantage, being a man, as he is powerful in the new regime, and he is also wealthy. Gilead should be the Commander’s ideal society, especially since the book suggests that he had a role in designing it. Yet he desires a deeper emotional connection, and cares enough about Offred’s well-being to break the law and consort with her beyond his duties. The Commander’s Wife also tries to get around the strictures of Gilead, setting Offred up with Nick in an illegal attempt to make a family. These rebellious actions, coming from Gilead’s privileged group, add difficulty to their characters and to the dystopia as a whole. No one in the book is purely evil, and no one is so different from real-world humans to embrace fully the lack of independence in Gilead. “People will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning.” (p.227) in the society of Gilead. Whether large or small, attempting to destroy the Gileadean government or merely to make one’s personal circumstances more tolerable, each character commits rebellious acts, highlighting both the unliveable horror of Gileadean society, and the unstableness of its foundations.
Likewise, in The Hunger Games, the power of rebellion is a theme evident, and is strongly all throughout the movie. This theme, and the means by which people achieve power, is embraced throughout The Hunger Games MockingJay. Early in Panem's history, the Capitol gained power by gradually diverting most of the nation's resources to the Capitol, making the districts themselves weaker and increasingly dependent on the central government. Then, when the districts finally tried to fight back, the Capitol used its wealth to crush the rebellion, completely obliterating District 13, and turning the remaining districts into virtual slaves. Power comes in many forms. There are the people who appear to have power, and then there are the ones who actually do. We see plenty of both in Mockingjay. Katniss is a perfect example, as the Mockingjay, Katniss seems to have power because she’s the face of the rebel movement. However, President Coin, leader of District 13, is the one who actually holds the power, which she uses to manipulate Katniss. Over the course of the book, though, Katniss slowly discovers that she has some real power and authority after all. Refusing to simply be a puppet in another authoritarian government's game, President Coin is killed by Katniss. President Snow governed the Districts of Panem with fear. As long as people were afraid of what would happen to them, they would bow to his every desire. However, every time a character loses his/her fear of death, that person finds a kind of freedom. When Katniss and Peeta are ready to eat the night-lock in the first Hunger Games, Snow realises that he can no longer do anything to control them. In Mockingjay, Peeta is repeatedly willing to sacrifice himself for Katniss despite the circumstances (like when he warns District 13 about the impending bombing). When Katniss makes the decision to kill Coin, she is ready to accept whatever consequences come her way. She is free to take this risk because she is willing to sacrifice her own life. Setting aside fear leads to freedom - both personal and political. But continued oppression can lead to rebellion and to an eventual shift in the power structure.
This is exactly what plays out in Mockingjay, when the District 13 rebels eventually overthrow and then take control of the government. The danger of a power shift, though, is that those who were oppressed can, in turn, become the oppressors, becoming as merciless and dangerous as the government they replace. It is a reality that echoes the famous quotation by the English historian Lord Acton: 'Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
Although the novel never suggests an ideal society or a clear way to try get its message to the real world, and although the novel looks negatively both on many modern movements, including the religious right and the extreme feminist left, love—both familial and romantic—unexpectedly turns out to be the most successful force for good. Love is also a the main motive behind other characters’ actions. We know that Nick reciprocates Offred’s feelings, but also the search for love, in the form of a real, not purely functional human connection, influences the Commander’s desires to bend the rules for Offred. In the end, love is the best way to get around Gilead’s rules, as it allows for both secret mental resistance, and for the trust and risk that result in Offred’s great escape. Despite Offred’s general passivity in the face of this oppressive society, she has a deep and secret source of strength: her love. Although love might keep Offred satisfied, authorising her to daydream rather than to rebel completely, it’s also responsible for the book’s greatest victory, as love drives Nick to help Offred escape, which Offred manages more effectively than Ofglen or Moira. Her love for her mother, her daughter, Luke, Moira, and ultimately Nick, allows her to stay sane, and to live within her memories and emotions instead of the terrible world around her.
Similarly, the power of love is also used as an escape in The Hunger Games. Even though the characters are focused, for the most part, on waging a war, love creeps into the story. There are many different kinds of love in this movie, love for one's country, one’s people, one's district…for friends, family and partners. The Katniss, Gale and Peeta love story reaches its resolution. In Mockingjay, romantic love is an unsettled thing. Feelings grow and change; circumstances get in the way. Katniss is at times left wondering 'what if…”, which in the end, romantic love seems to be a based on trust, friendship and sacrifice. In general, the characters who experience the greatest trauma—those who lose loved ones to war and violence—respond by turning to their other loved ones for support and understanding. Throughout the Hunger Games trilogy Katniss grapples with loss, and turns to her two closest friends, Gale and Peeta, for help. This becomes clear at the end of Mockingjay, as Katniss begins to fall in love with Peeta. Katniss simultaneously loves herself and genuinely cares about Peeta. In no small part, she feels this way because Peeta understands what she’s been going through. He too has competed in the Hunger Games and experienced torture and manipulation from the government, so in Peeta, Katniss has a friend who helps her cope with her trauma, and whom she helps to cope with his own, similar trauma. In the epilogue, Collins reveals that Katniss and Peeta marry, have children, and continue to love one another. She also makes it clear that neither Katniss nor Peeta can ever entirely forget their traumas—they’ll always suffer nightmares about “the old days.” It is precisely because trauma never fully goes away that love and friendship are such important antidotes to it. Katniss and Peeta will never overcome their own memories, and thus they must remain together, helping both themselves and each other to cope with tragedy. Well, that’s a wrap. Like I said earlier. Two texts. Similar Genres. Similar themes. Different contexts.
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