Elizabeth Damavandi- Corruption and Intrigue

Elizabeth Damavandi

Professor Harrison

English 115

1 December 2011

Corruption and Intrigue

It is scary how the corruption of government can actually be a reality. Governments are designed to protect the people. The sole purpose of a government is not a dictatorship; it is a democracy, which includes all the people and the votes of the people. Thus, since the government is the core of a nation, and if it is corrupt and it is promoting corruption such as the fascination of death, there is a problem and the citizens must stand up to their government. But sometimes it is not that easy. In addition to the corruption, it is much scarier that even the government promotes fascination when it comes to sensitive subjects like death and killing. These two things are a battle with our ability to be able to rise above them, and our ability to have the standard and basic morals it takes in doing so. Although we may not be able to truly change the governments that may be corrupt, we can at least change our mentality about the corruption and about the universal fascination of death.

As we all know, a true and passionate love always can conquer anything, even if it means having to commit suicide despite it, or having to go against the government's rules, but sometimes it does not. In the case of The Hunger Games novel, Katniss and Peeta have a love-hate relationship. They tug and they pull, and Katniss does not really understand the relationship she has with Peeta, or whether she loves her best friend Gale instead. Yet by going through the ritual of the Hunger Games and by being against the corrupt ways of the Capitol, Katniss and Peeta form an alliance and stay together in spite of a potential punishment. They understand that although the government may be corrupt and devious in its ways by trying to prove a point with the Hunger Games, they know that they can still stay true to themselves. When entering the games, Peeta says that, “I want to die as myself…I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster I am not” (Collins 141). Therefore when in the middle of the game it is announced that there can be two winners, this makes Katniss and Peeta hopeful, that maybe there is a change for once. But then all of sudden when Katniss and Peeta are the only ones left, it is announced that there only can be one winner. This makes Katniss and Peeta angrier than they are, and they decided to go against this, even if it means that they are committing suicide, or that they will be punished and their families will have no food. They put the poisonous berries in their mouth so that if there is only one winner allowed, there won’t be any winners at all. Then all of a sudden it is announced that there can be two winners after all. Persistence and a "Love" relationship that Katniss and Peeta portray, in a way conquers the government and the game makers. Although they may have not been able to change the corruption, they still stood up for themselves and what they believed in to stay true to their own sincerity.

Although it may seem that the government in The Hunger Games is not that corrupt, it actually really is in its own way because it promotes killing and the fascination of death; it is basically government sanctioned death in disguise. Since the government makes sure that there is a Hunger Game enforced annually to remind the citizens that rebellion has consequences, they are also promoting violence and fascination. The government of Panem promotes violence to citizens of a young age, from ages twelve to eighteen. Not only does it promote violence at a young age, it promotes that violence and the fascination of the horrible deaths that come with it is acceptable. By blowing up the actual Hunger Games, and televising the whole “fight until the death” motto, it forces people to watch it, and to potentially be intrigued and fascinated by the horrifying deaths. While the whole town is filled with TV’s and huge crowds watching them, to revolt against the government’s cruel ways would be to denounce the games, and look away from the TV and not find it appealing.  The strong mentality towards the games and the fascination would be the first thing to do to start fighting the corrupt government.

This idea is common throughout many books and movies, including 1984. The idea of a government, "Big Brother" watching their every move is prevalent. In 1984, there is a similar conclusion. Although in The Hunger Games, and in 1984, the characters are presented with road blocks because the government limits them to what they can say and do, they still choose to go against it despite even if there is a potential punishment. In 1984, the love and persistence of it between Winston and Julia, rise above and go against what the government expected of them. In the Party of the Big Brother, any type of relationship and sex is forbidden, and sex in marriage is only for reproduction, to ensure that all love is kept for loving the Brotherhood. Winston and Julia rebel, and become lovers, but by going against the government, they are punished and are taken away from each other and killed. Winston says that they can make him confess, but that they will never be able to take away his true feelings for Julia. This is somewhat similar to what Peeta said about how the government may be able to control the games, but they cannot control his mentality and morals.

Yet sometimes no matter how hard you fight, the outcome may not be what you want. Trying to maintain ones mentality and morals may be a weakness for some. This is the case for Winston when he is caught by the government and is taken into Room 101. They torture him with his utter fear of rats; yet he cannot just take the torturing that is the consequence for his actions. So he yells that Julia should be tortured instead of him. Party members then rape Julia. When they see each other after, they do not love each other and they love Big Brother again. These sad mind games make this story be one of the governments conquering all. Yet by rebelling and doing what Winston and Julia did, it is still worth it because they both had no real lives to begin with, they were controlled and limited by the government. In addition to that, since The Hunger Games is a trilogy, we do not really know what will truly happen with Katniss and Peeta with the government. Maybe their fate will be just like Winston’s and Julia’s, by rebelling there may be consequences because usually there is no way of winning when it comes to a corrupt government. Yet this fascination of what will happen next intrigues us and excites us.

Fascination of death is universal. The unknown is what we fear, yet we are still intrigued by it. I honestly do not understand why this is so, but in reality it is true. This fascination is shown throughout the entire book of The Hunger Games. The entire book is focusing on the survival of the fittest and who will win the battle. Millions of viewers tune into the games and watch innocent children and teens kill each other. And this is thought to be entertaining? Seriously? Not only do these children have to fight to live in an enclosed forest, they have to fight each other until the death. How people are fascinated by that beats me. What if it were us in their shoes, it would not be entertaining then, would it? The fact that the government of Panem is so cruel and corrupt allows this sabotage to go on. 

This fascination is a reality. By reading The Hunger Games, and Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” I am very mortified that people enjoy watching the pain of others, even if it is through watching movies. We as readers are not so different than the millions of Panem citizens avidly tuning into the Games on television. Although we are different because we are just reading a fictional story that Suzanne Collins wrote, we are not so different. What is left from stopping us from one day actually having a real life game that people do fight to the death, just to quench our thirst for our fascination? In Stephen King's witty article about "Why We Crave Horror Movies," he concludes that this fascination is derived from our humanity being "ill" and that we need to see other people die in movies, to be thought as sane in our own lives. This fascination needs to be controlled, before it gets out of hand. But it is already too late. This fascination has spiraled out of control. The Hunger Games may already be a reality in a way. TV shows like Survivor create an intrigue for the audience. The theme of the “survival of the fittest” and of death will always be a fascination for humans.

Yet although it may be argued that us as humans it is not in our own hands to stop the corruption of the government or the fascination of death, that really is not the case. Although we may not be able to change the government, we can still choose to reject the corruption that our government may be flawed with.  We can stand up for our rights and protest. If that does not work, then we can die trying. In addition to that, while humans are prone to fascination and that no matter what the brain will always be wired to be intrigued by ideas such as death, we still have the ability to control it. Since no one can die and live to tell about the experience, it is natural to have some type of fascination about it. It is rooted in our biology and in our brains psychology for such subjects to spark an attraction. But the way we react to it, and promote movies and shows that have to do with it is the bigger problem. So by limiting ourselves and deciding that it is ethical to reject the fascination, we can ultimately stop the mentality that goes with it. It is in our hands to bring the change. “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people” (V for Vendetta).

Word Count: 1,768

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Inc. 2009. Print.

King, Stephen. “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” N/D. Web 2011.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classics- A New American Library. 1977. Print.

“Survivor” CBS.TV.com. Dir, Scott Messick. 2000. Web. 2011

            <http://www.tv.com/shows/survivor/>

V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Perf. Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea.

            2006. Film. 

Julie Huhn

Professor Harrison

English 115

1 December 2011

The Diary of Katniss Everdeen

            Government corruption is a theme that is extremely evident throughout both Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and the movie The Diary of Anne Frank.  In The Hunger Games, the Capitol has retaliated against the people of the districts for their revolt against them by making the economic difference between the Capitol and the districts even greater and by implementing the annual Hunger Games to remind the districts of their wrongdoing.  The Diary of Anne Frank is based on the true account of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who wrote down her experiences while living for two years in hiding in Holland during World War II, when Jews were literally being carted off by the truckloads to concentration camps where they would either be killed on the spot or worked to death.  In the stories of both Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and Anne Frank as recorded in her diary and portrayed in the movie, the corruption of the two governments is accentuated by the characters’ first-person points of view and their unique personal situations, as well as it is contrasted with the normalcy of life which is shown in their interpersonal relationships.

            One of the most powerful devices used to highlight the governmental corruption in these two stories is the first-person voices of Katniss and Anne.  Because of this device, audiences see the corruption of the world around them through the character’s eyes and understanding.  Katniss’s view of Panem’s government in the Capitol is obvious from the very beginning.  As she is from the poorest of the twelve districts, Katniss experiences the worst Panem has to offer.  While many people in her district starve to death or die of illnesses, the people of the Capitol live plush, luxurious lives filled with rich, plentiful food and every high-tech, futuristic gadget thinkable.  This enrages Katniss to no end, and many times she and her friend Gale illegally run outside of District 12’s fences into the forest to illegally hunt and illegally talk badly about the Capitol.  Through these conversations, audiences are let in on many of her specific grievances against the Capitol.  Katniss’s opinionated attitude is a hard contrast to that of the extremely sheltered Anne Frank.  Anne begins her story as an innocent thirteen-year-old girl, who is sheltered from the details of the war that has been raging around her.  As her story progresses, it is clear the Anne becomes more and more aware of the world around her and becomes more and more mature and independent as times goes on.  She begins to realize that her friends and their families are being rounded up and taken to concentration camps, and that no one is truly safe.  However, she never really seems to form an opinion of her government; instead, she just seconds her father’s opinions about the goings-on.  Even so, she does form her own opinions; they are just about her family and her personal life instead of the outside world.  The way these characters see their individual situations within their overarching circumstances helps audiences to more fully understand the specifics of the corruption that the girls face in their daily lives.

Katniss volunteered to place herself in this most terrifying and life-threatening situation of the Hunger Games.  The whole point of the Hunger Games is for each of the districts to watch two of their children, who have been chosen at random, die violent deaths, and the last child alive wins extra food rations for his or her district for the next full year.  Once she is in the Hunger Games, Katniss is able to experience firsthand what it is like to live in the richness of the Capitol.  She is dressed in the finest clothes, fed the richest food, and is housed in the most extravagant lodging the Capitol has to offer.  After seeing for herself the constant extravagance of the Capitol in contrast to her poorest-of-poor district, Katniss despises the Capitol even more.  Because the Games are required viewing for every citizen of the country of Panem, Katniss has seen the Games play out every year for as long as she can remember.  This in combination with her hunting skills gives her a survival-instinct advantage over the other competitors.  In the Games, she must work, scavenge, or kill for everything she needs to survive; she is given only what she needs the most for free, and that relies on the discernment of her district mentor, Haymitch, whom Katniss has a hard time trusting.  She must rely on Haymitch for her survival at many times, especially when the gamemakers from the Capitol intervene in the Games to make them more interesting for the rest of the Capitol to watch.  The Capitol only cares about the Capitol’s interests; the rest of the country—all twelve districts—are required to watch their children fight to the death anyway, so it does not matter to the Capitol whether they are interested or not.  In the end, rules are changed because of Katniss’s cleverness, and instead of just one victor, there are two—Katniss and the other competitor from District 12, Peeta.  Katniss’s story may be very violent and horrific, but at least it has a happy ending for her.

Anne Frank, on the other hand, was forced into her situation—after receiving news that her older sister is to be sent to a Nazi work camp, the Frank family is faced with a devastating decision: they must either cooperate with the Nazi regime and face certain death, or they must go into hiding, which is their last hope of staying alive and together as a family.  They pack as little as they can, dressing in multiple layers of clothing, as not to look suspicious.  Because of their limited packing, they must rely on a woman named Miep Gies—who had worked as a secretary for Anne’s father, Otto—to supply them with the things that they need to survive, just as Katniss must rely on Haymitch during the Hunger Games.  Like Katniss, Anne came from a poor background, though she did not really realize this.  The Jewish population in Europe—or more specifically to the Frank family, in Holland—was treated as inferior to those who were not Jewish.  This could parallel to Katniss’s being from District 12, which is the lowest district in Panem.  While Katniss wass able to briefly taste the richness of the Capitol before she was sent into the Games, Anne is never given such an opportunity.  Instead, Anne sinks from poor to poorer as her family of four, along with four other Jewish people, pile into a secret annex above her father’s warehouse, where they lived in hiding for over two years.  Anne’s story does not have a happy ending, either—she and all of the people in hiding with her are discovered and sent off to various concentration camps, where most of them die, including Anne.

Though their situations are a direct consequence of the political corruption of the time, Katniss and Anne both experience relationships that bring a sort of normalcy into their lives to contrast the abnormality of their circumstances, one of which is their relationships with their mothers.  They both have normal teenagers’ attitudes toward their mothers, although Katniss’s is more deeply rooted.  Katniss loves her mother—this is shown when they must say their goodbyes after the Reaping—but she outwardly hates her for going into a sort of emotional coma when her husband died, leaving Katniss and her sister to fend for themselves.  This forces Katniss to grow up much before her time, causing her to resent and distrust her mother.  Although her mother is back to providing money for them, Katniss still must hunt and sell her kills on the black market to supplement her mother’s scanty income; this leads Katniss to believe that her mother, although doing her best, cannot adequately care for Katniss’s younger sister Prim on her own.  Anne, however, is simply a daddy’s girl and feels that her mother is never on her side in arguments.  Anne is naïve and has lofty dreams of marriage and fairy-tale love even in the midst of the war that is raging, and her mother does not approve because the war has destroyed her own joy and crushed her dreams.  Her mother may have Anne’s best interest in mind and just does not want her to be hurt or disappointed when her dreams do not come to fruition, but Anne sees it as a personal attack on her character and her happiness.  Anne’s father sides with her for the most part and does all he can to make his daughter feel loved, but he eventually lets her know that her mother does love her, which she of course does not believe, and Anne becomes angry with her father for not siding with her on the issue of her mother, as well.

In even more contrast to the political corruption surrounding these girls, they both found love in the midst of their circumstances.  Katniss and Peeta have a sort of one-time-event history even before the games, in which Katniss and her family were starving, and Peeta burned some bloaves of bread in his parents’ bakery so that he would have to toss them out—to Katniss.  They are chosen for the Games, and expecting to be adversaries, Katniss is annoyed by the very thought of Peeta.  Even as the two of them are acting as a couple for the Games, Katniss still does not care for Peeta, but this annoyance soon turns into denial, as she begins to really have feelings for him as the Games progress.  They fall deeply in love—for the viewers and gamemakers, of course—during the games, and their love is what keeps both of them alive in the end.  Similarly, Anne is very much annoyed with Peter when he first moves into the annex.  He is very quiet and shy, whereas she is very opinionated and curious.  Slowly, they learn to understand each other and grow closer until they realize that they are in love.  They try to hide it from their parents, but big secrets are hard to keep in such a small place.  Their love gives them a distraction and a sense of hope and joy that carries them through their otherwise hopeless and dark situation.

The first-person points of view and personal stories of both Katniss and Anne help to show just how corrupt their governments are, but normalcy is brought to them within their relationships.  Through each girl’s eyes, the audience can easily see her circumstances and understand their impact from the point of view of someone directly involved, which makes the story come alive and become memorable, as well as emphasizing the enormity of the corruption in the governments of each girl.  Both Katniss and Anne are victims of their corrupt governments, and their stories of being pawns in the games of their governments each display that vividly.  The only normalcy to be found in their lives is in their interpersonal relationships; their relationships with their mothers show us that they are really just normal teenaged girls, while their newfound romances give them each a glimmer of hope in their seemingly hopeless lives.  Fortunately for Katniss, the odds were indeed in her favor—she and her romance lived to see another day; as for Anne, her story ends much more depressingly—it ends with the untimely end of her life.

Word count: 1911

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.

The Diary of Anne Frank. Dir. George Stevens. Perf. Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters, and Joseph Schildkraut. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 1959. DVD.

Memorable Quotes, cuz every blogs gotta have one!

“Winning means fame and fortune.
Losing means certain death.
The Hunger Games have begun…”

Here are some of my favorite quotes from The Hunger Games. Feel free to add your faves on the list.

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!”
-Effie Trinket

“Here’s some advice. Stay alive.”
-Haymitch Abernathy

“The more likable he is, the more deadly he is.”
-Katniss Everdeen

“She has no idea. The effect she can have”
-Peeta Mellark

“Scores only matter if they’re very good, no one pays much attention to the bad or mediocre ones.”
-Portia

“Katniss, the girl who was on fire”
-Cinna

“It’s not a fair comparison really. Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other’s survival means our own death.”
-Katniss Everdeen

“I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun”.
-Katniss Everdeen

Caesar: “Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?”
Peeta: “Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”
Claudius Templesmith

“Panic begins to set in. I can’t stay here. Flight is essential.”…”But I can’t let my fear show”.
-Katniss Everdeen

“Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you.”
-Katniss Everdeen

“Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games”
-Peeta Mellark