A Real World Twice Over: The Simulation of the Virtual World in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games

Abstract

This research examines the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The primary objective of this study is to delve into the world that is the setting for the novel, to establish the level of simulation that has been employed in it, and also to analyze it in terms of the present day world, where the present day world is understood as the postmodern world humans today live in and experience. It aims to lay bare intricacies of the simulated world created by Collins, while dissecting the simulations of the characters within the world. The research critically analyzes the actions and thoughts of the characters to reveal whether they are born merely out of fantasy or out of the structure of the modern human being. The study also aims at elevating the status of the fantasy genre by proving that they are not merely entertainment belonging to children's or young adult literature, but also can contain the deepest truths of life. The study will basically depend on Baudrillard’s ideas of simulation and simulacra to establish the kind of simulations that seem to exist in the world created by Collins, and the interesting as well as confounding results that this can give rise to, in the minds of readers. The thesis is based on the idea of the third order of simulacra, wherein Baudrillard mentions that there is no longer any difference between the reality and its representation. The research agrees with this concept that there is little alteration between the reality (or the world outside the arena) and the representation (or the world inside the arena), but the research also gives rise to an interesting concept – that the very ideas of ‘reality’ and ‘simulation’, are in a state of flux. As the study examines the setting as a simulation, exciting revelations point out that simulation can actually be much closer to reality than realized, and vice versa. The thesis has pursued these very blurred lines between reality and simulation.