The Hunger Games
The book I am doing a critical review on is The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins. It is about this girl names Katniss Everdeen who steps in for her sisters place, Primrose Everdeen, at the reaping. The male chosen was Peeta Mallark. The reaping is a ceremony where Effie Trinket (woman from the capital) goes to all 12 of the districts and draws a male and a female name out of everyone in the district. The male and female have to go into this arena and literately fight for their lives against all the other district tributes. This book doesn’t fit into the utopian category of literature, it is dystopian.
It does not fit into the utopian category because the society eventually goes against the government. The citizens live in a dehumanized state; have fear for the outside world. The type of dystopian control is the beauratic control because the citizens were always being watched by the capital.
Some people may say that how the government/capital handled their problems and separated the districts may be a good idea and makes it into the utopian genre. But others may also say that The Hunger Games book is dystopian because the citizens are always under surveillance. Like when the capital could see everything they were doing in the districts. They have fear of the outside world, because they were hut into the districts by high powered electric fences. The outside world is distrusted and it was an illusion of a perfect world. This makes it a dystopian book.
So, The Hunger Games does not fit under the utopian genre but the dystopian genre. Because of the face that the citizens are under constant surveillance, an illusion of a perfect world, etc…