Maria Helena Fair
There Are Much Worse Games to Play: The Consequences of Violence Within The Hunger Games
Faculty Mentor(s): Prof.Timothy Miller
Abstract: Mental disabilities have entered the canon of young adult mass media. Books, movies, television shows, and video games make mental health representation a more critical theme throughout their plot lines. This can be seen within The Hunger Games series, more specifically, in The Hunger Games and Mockingjay. Katniss experiences PTSD throughout both books, as does Peeta Melark in Mockingjay. The symptoms of PTSD, I argue in this paper, can be linked to the violence that the Capital of Panem enacts on Katniss and Peeta throughout the two books, including the withholding of food and resources, the omnipresence felt throughout all the districts, and the forced maturation of children.
Maria Helena Fair has always loved reading and analyzing works of writing, she jumped onto the opportunity to combine her two passions, reading and analyzing. When she is not reading for class, she is reading for pleasure. She also loves to garden and be in nature, whether at the beach or in the woods.
