Katniss... is “an updated Theseus,” according to the books’ author, Suzanne Collins. In Greek myth, Theseus and other young people from Athens were sent as tribute—human sacrificial offerings—to King Minos in Crete. Like that ancient Greek hero, Katniss defies an oppressive empire and sparks a revolution. Like imperial Rome, the country of “The Hunger Games” is a once-free society now dominated by a corrupt and rapacious capital city. A president exercises, in effect, the power of an emperor. He lives in a grand city called the Capitol, and his government feeds off its provinces, much as ancient Rome did. In “The Hunger Games,” the people are kept in line by hunger and entertainment. The privileged folks in the Capitol get both “bread and circuses”—the phrase comes from the Roman satirist Juvenal. The Latin is “panem et circenses,” and Panem is the name that Ms. Collins purposefully gives the country where her story is set. The most important entertainers are the participants in the hunger games, a fight to the death, reminiscent of the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome, whose influence Ms. Collins also cites. The games begin with the very Roman ritual of participants entering a stadium on chariots to the wild applause of the crowd. Like ancient gladiators, the participants are doomed but idolized.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 02:44:57 +0000
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