Genre, history, fiction: vocabularies of resistance in The Hunger Games trilogy

This thesis examines Suzanne Collins‘ use of “arena fiction” conventions and historical social reform movements in The Hunger Games trilogy (THG) to encourage reflection on the means of subverting the intended effects of spectacle, but also to consider the cost of consuming or using children in social reform. My thesis argues that THG is an arena story which explores the mechanics of social reform through powerful visuals while also exploring the personal cost, especially on children, of becoming a visual symbol of resistance. I show how THG is rooted in historical social reforms and why these are so useful for Collins to generate visual resistance literacy in her readers and push her use of arena fiction deeper into exploring child bodies. Finally, through a close reading of the subversions in THG, I argue that Collins uses both arena fiction and history to further reflection on children‘s participation in reform movements.