Applying Hallie and Hobbes to “The Hunger Games": Philosophical Analysis Priyanka Gera College

“May the odds be ever in your favor,” are the notorious words of Effie Trinket in the first installment of “The Hunger Games” movies. The dystopian story takes place in the post-apocalyptic society of Panem in North America, 74 years after a ruthless uprising. The Capitol, the savage political center of the country, reminds its citizens every year of the uprising’s bloodshed by hosting an honorary carnage of their own; otherwise known as the Hunger Games. The cruel and manipulative brains behind this annual bloodbath support this entertainment while the 12 districts of Panem are forced to watch their children's brutal murder televised live. The Capitol fervently believes its actions are “right,” and the people of Panem do not know of any other way of life. Through the games, the government’s infrastructure and the story’s protagonists, ideas of philosophers Philip Hallie and Thomas Hobbes, institutionalized cruelty and the need for a government respectively, are embodied in every fold and detail of this intricately manipulative society.

The Hunger Games is a literary model of institutionalized cruelty used to control a society. Every year, in an unusually violent manner, one female and one male, referred to as “tributes,” from...