The Hunger Games: Utopia Or Dystopia

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and George Orwell’s 1984 are both dystopian novels, or a book set in an imagined world that is far worse than our own, as opposed to a utopia, which is an ideal place or state. As the focus in the current unit, the Capitol seems like a harsh government, oppressing its people with rules and obviously the cruelty of the Hunger Games. However, another famous book, 1984 depicts a much stricter government that makes the Capitol look like Disneyworld. This page serves the purpose to point out the difference between these two fictional dystopias and to show that the people of District 12 don’t have it too bad in comparison to the citizens of Oceania. The Hunger Games takes place in the country of Panem, the remains

President Snow, a man who runs Panem and is behind the Hunger Games, heads the Capitol. Big Brother is the watchful eye of Oceania, who monitors all of its people’s movements every minute of every day. The Capitol may be harsh in deciding which district does what task, and cruel to institute something as violent as the Hunger Games, however Big Brother’s rule is much crueler and more restrictive. Citizens of Oceania are not their own person. They have no personality or identity; all of their actions are planned out by the government and monitored through telescreens placed in every room of every building, watching everyone and everything. Each part of everyone’s day is planned out and strictly enforced, from the morning exercises, to meals, to work, to sleep. Any form of expression is forbidden, and Winston’s decisions to both write his thoughts down in a diary and to have a relationship with Julia is both punishable by death. The government is attempting to control people through words. They edit out words in the dictionary, leaving people no ways of even expressing or describing certain things because those words no longer exist. The newly implemented language, Newspeak, is a form of English that the book’s totalitarian government utilizes to discourage freethinking. Without a word or words to express an idea, the idea itself was impossible to conceive and retain. Thus Newspeak has eliminated the word “bad,” replacing it

Katniss is pulled into the games, an event she is forced to take part in and has no way out other than to fight to the death. Winston on the other hand, is simply in the rut of his dead end job being the puppet of the government, so he slowly slips away and works his way into the secret organizing called the Brotherhood, created to fight and to bring down the government and Big