Feminist Lens In The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is a fairly popular and typical tale that includes a heroine, courage, and bravery. This story can be read or watched through many different lenses such as a Marxist lens, feminist lens, or even an archetypal lens. Through these lenses one can see as a reader or viewer that this is not just a story that fits into one category, but one that can fit into many. Using the Marxist and feminist lenses a viewer can gain a great depth of knowledge into The Hunger Games story itself.
When using a Marxist lens the viewer must focus on social classes and how power is distributed throughout these classes, including who holds the power and who is inferior to that power in the society. One question that might come about when viewing the

The feminist lens focuses on the portrayal of female characters, gender equality, male patriarchy, and male control of economic, social, political, and psychological forces. A question that might come about when viewing the film adaptation of The Hunger Games from a feminist lens is this: are all female characters in the film portrayed similarly? To answer this question the viewer should look at the way Katniss takes care of her mother and younger sister. She is the caretaker and provider in the Everdeen household as she has stepped into her father’s role since he died and her mother shutdown. Katniss is portrayed as an ultimate feminist being strong and only dependent on herself, while her mother and younger sister are shown as being weaker and needing someone else to care for their needs. There is evidence of this in the scene where Katniss has just come from the reaping and is saying her goodbyes before she heads out to the capitol. In this scene with her mother and sister, Katniss is telling her mother how their food will be provided and what Prim, her sister, needs to do in order to make money for the family. Katniss also tells her mother that she can not shut down again because this time no one will be there to take care of them. This scene from a feminist lens again portrays Katniss as strong and independent while her mother is a weaker and more dependent character. The feminist lens can be used to show how being more of a feminist type character can be beneficial when it comes to