The land once known as North America, is now a nation by the name of Panem. The nation has a central city, the Capitol, and 12 districts surrounding it. The Capitol is the technologically advanced city of the elite, filled with political figures, celebrities and all forms of extravagance. The districts, on the other hand, are in charge of producing material like weaponry, crops, fish, coal, etc. for the Capitol.
The tri-part dystopian, young adult series, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, starts with us following the protagonist Katniss as she volunteers in place of her younger sister, to take part in the annual Hunger Games. The Games are an annual tradition at the Capitol where 24 teens (two from each district) are put in an arena and are pitted against each other in a battle to death till only one of them remains. She enters the Games with Peeta Mellark and both of them manage to make it out of the games, winning it against all odds and begin to sow the seeds of what will become a great rebellion against the Capitol and their President, Coriolanus Snow.
The series is a commentary on the consumerist and materialistic world that we occupy. It is almost a foretelling of what society might look like in the future. The districts and the Capitol are all but slight exaggerations of the different class groups that we see in our world. Numerous video essays litter the internet that draw the parallels between the books and our reality. As the story progresses, we see the beginning and the completion of a rebellion-turned-revolution. The series stands as one of the few books that write a revolution well.
One component of the books that is so glaringly used as a symbol but is often missed: Food. With its on-the-nose name, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Collins uses food as a symbol for every aspect of the revolution in the series. One of the places where she uses food as symbolism is in names.
It starts from the name of the nation: Panem. The word "Panem" is part of the Latin phrase "panem et circenses," which means "bread and circuses." This phrase was first used by the Roman poet Juvenal, where he uses it to describe entertainment used to distract public attention from more important matters. This is the same strategy used in the Capitol. The rich and wealthy in the Capitol are kept satisfied and distracted with extravagant food and the fanfare of the games, too busy enjoying themselves to see their reality. Right off the bat, Collins has highlighted the important role food plays in her series.
Next we see food as a symbol in the names of the leading characters; Katniss and Peeta. Katniss’ father, who taught her to hunt and forage, named her after the small edible tuber found in wetlands. The plant is tough and resilient and becomes a symbol for survival. The nature in which it is found and foraged also reflects Katniss’ personality, tough, enduring and a survivor.
On the other hand, Peeta’s name alludes to ‘pita bread’, a type of flat beard. This is a homage to his family’s bakery and reflects his personality in contrast to Katniss, as bread is a product of a settled civilization. To explain it better, Peeta’s milder demeanor and his understanding of the social intricacies of the affluent at the capitol makes him similar to the bread and Katniss with her drive to survive is like the wild tuber.
Collins uses food as symbols in many places mainly, the games, the rebellion, the districts and most of all, the Capitol. And each depicts a way of life, with the Districts and the Capitol forming the ends of this spectrum.
Upon entering the Capitol, Katniss notices the food. The abundance of it and how the people of the Capitol treated it. A quote from the book reads, “What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button?”
As Katniss sits in front of Cinna, her stylist, she recreates the spread in front of her in her mind with the ingredients she would get in District 12. Her version of this feast would require her to hunt for multiple days and it would still be a pale imitation. In short, a meal like this would be unimaginable in her home.
Unimaginable. That is how Katniss feels about the food at the Capitol, and this isn’t unwarranted. Not just in terms of the amount and the extravagance, but the way people in the Capitol treat food is near unimaginable to both Katniss and Peeta. The numerous tables at every gathering, even one as simple as a meeting between friends, has tables staggering under the weight of every dish imaginable. Food is easy to be taken for granted when you grow up in the Capitol.
In one instance, when the two main characters are at a celebration party and their prep team offers them pills they could swallow when they are full, to make them sick, so that they could go on eating more food while still being skinny. Katniss thinks back to how, in her district, only those who couldn’t afford to eat were skinny.
Food in abundance and surplus is taken for granted in the almost hedonistic and hyper civilized Capitol. This isn’t a far cry from what current metropolitan dwellers live like, just a slight exaggeration of it.
The Hunger Games is obsessively, intensely focused on food: Who has it, who doesn't, what it means, when it's eaten and by whom. And these are some of the central questions of food politics in today’s world. We are reminded that when we enter a supermarket, or decide instead to go to the local market, we enjoy the illusion that we are choosing for ourselves. In reality, all available options are pre-determined and pre-packaged by production constraints, political choices, and structural dynamics.
The current amount of food produced in the world today can feed its population almost twice over. The system that grows inequality in Collin’s series is not much different from our own reality. We cannot always win by fighting in the limited arena we are familiar with; we need to figure out ways to change the whole system outside the arena.
Comments