From Ideological Manipulation to Physical Violence: The Dual Mechanisms of Repression in The Hunger Games

The American writer Suzanne Collins is best known for her The Hunger Games, which vividly portrays the complex evolution of the protagonist Katniss Everdeen and other characters’ identity under the manipulation of a totalitarian regime. Actually, the Capitol employs various strategies of ideological control to strengthen its rule, such as the hunger game, the reaping ceremony, religious symbols, discourse control, television broadcasts, specific narrative, etc. However, as conflicts get escalated, ideological control transforms into violence and direct force. Thus, it can be found that Collins’s depiction of the media strategies and manipulation used by both the Capitol aligns with the French Marxist philosopher Althusser’s theory of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) to some extent. Therefore, this paper tries to apply Louis Pierre Althusser’s theory of ISAs to the interpretation and analysis of The Hunger Games. Through the lens of ISAs and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs), this study analyzes a series of media strategies, repressive methods, and direct force to reveal how the Capitol regime controls and influences individuals through ideological manipulation and physical violence, and explore repression and control experienced by characters in different contexts, thus examining the dual mechanisms of repression employed by totalitarian governments towards the public and individuals.

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