Panem and America

1 Introduction

"The Hunger Games", nearly everybody knows about the trilogy and the dark version of the future by Suzanne Collins or has at least heard of it. Panem follows the idea of a dictatorship that forces teenagers between twelve and eighteen years to appear in a live TV show to fight against each other to death. The whole trilogy is told from the point of view of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who unfortunately has to take part in this annual event. The plot of the story is that Katniss Everdeen finds a way to trick the games and survives with her friend. At the end of the book this survival weakens the capitol and its position. The book and its dystopic future of America seem to be far away and very unlikely to happen. But what if the story of Katniss Everdeen and the Capitol is an exaggerated representation of America's problems today? 

If we now simply assume that Suzanne Collins wanted to criticize (and maybe change) America's society directly with her work "The Hunger Games" and the following books and that many aspects in the story are real problems, the questions arise "Which problems are there exactly?", "Is Panem's society an example of a possible future?" And even more interesting is the question in which points the two societies distinguish each other and in which points do they agree? 

In order to be able to answer these questions we need to compare both societies. The society of Panem and its problems based on the 2008 published book "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. And the American society of today described in the book "American Society: How It Really Works Second Edition" by Erik Olin Wright and Joel Rogers, published in 2015 and other sources. But to do that we need to categorize and summarise the most important aspects of both Panem and America. Regarding to the mass of data about America, its society and problems, this elaboration will largely focus on society, living conditions as well as social and structures. I will not go into details about the plot of TheHunger Games and the description of American society all in one, as this would go beyond the scope of this elaboration. As this elaboration uses "The Hunger Games" as the main source of information, most aspects about America are going to be based on the structure ofthe book and the described society. This leads us to the question of how Panem's society is defined and in which aspects it can be compared with American society. 

First of all we need to understand Panem and its concept. Then I am going to elaborate on the structure and describe and summarise based on the three main aspects of Panem its society. Subsequently I am going to describe, define and summarise the aspects of America's society which are important to compare with Panem. It follows the comparison between both societies and hopefully I am able to answer the questions above.