Guerrilla warfare changed how Americans fight wars and how Americans perceive war and the images from the guerrilla fighting. In one way, it looks like a game, and it certainly lends itself easily to video games. Indeed, guerrilla warfare is address in The Hunger Games trilogy: in the Hunger Games themselves and in the journey through the Capitol to reach President Snow so Katniss can kill him. The Capitol records the Hunger Games and broadcasts them, lending the games and the guerrilla warfare in them as entertainment. Likewise, the rebels, when they create promotional videos of Katniss and staged fighting, they turn guerrilla warfare into propaganda and entertainment. Yet, even though the role of the promotional videos is to persuade the districts to rebel, the producers of the videos and the leaders of the rebels focus not necessarily on the message conveyed but on the aesthetics and appeal of Katniss. In the mist of showing guerrilla warfare and fighting as a game, Collins shows the damaging and irreversible effects of war: the mental and emotional effects, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and PTSD that Katniss and others experience. The actual guerrilla warfare that occurs in the Capitol as Katniss and her team make their way through the Capitol shows a vivid and harsh contradiction from the simulated warfare and entertainment videos: people become injured and die. By writing a young adult novel that centers around war and its effects, Collins shows to young readers that despite war seeming like a game, it is real and it has dire consequences, especially to those who are the soldiers and fighting.
About the presenterKatherine Lashley
Katherine Lashley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Morgan State University. Her dissertation focuses on representations of disability in contemporary female dystopias. She teaches first-year writing at Harford Community College and Towson University.