"Dangerous?" said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"And it is, in fact, a dangerous book capable of posession, definitely representative of a sort of subtext in Harry Potter about the dangers of books--an interesting subtexts, given some parental fears about the series, and also given their genre (children's lit first, school story second). The subtext is also interesting because literacy is literally everywhere in the novels. And where there is literacy, apparently, one will find dangerous books. That burn out your eyes. Or make you wish your eyes had been burned out, most likely!
"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated--Dad's told me--there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a SOrcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander aroud with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And--"
"All right, I've got the point," said Harry. (230-231)
Sunday, June 30, 2013
A Literacy Moment: Courtesy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Every now and then, I come across a literacy moment that is too good to simply gloss over while reading. I may not have something specific to say about it, but as the moments accumulate, a pattern might emerge. I have been re-reading the Harry Potter books from the beginning--slowly, and without a particular purpose--and I cam across this little gem, well-worth sharing!:
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 4): It's not all about Katniss
So having discussed Katniss and her relationships at length here and here, I must say that from the beginning what impressed me is that, first person narrative voice notwithstanding, the trilogy wasn't about the perils of one young woman. That's pretty important if, as a reader, you feel like you're held at arms' length from the character's experience of the action, or if you aren't particularly drawn to, or can't quite relate to the consciousness of the main character herself. And in fact, other characters frequently draw attention (in the second and third books) to the fact that--though Katniss is, in fact, the center of a rebellion, it isn't about her. And she has to come to terms with that--or else just play it out while staying alive. Meanwhile, for the political players, it really is all about Katniss. It's sort of convoluted, and that's what's interesting, but it's certainly not a typical coming-of-age novel or a romance. It's not even a journey of self discovery.
As much as they are about anything, the novels are about subversion. And about how an act of self-preservation becomes an act of subversion. It is about refusing to play the game on someone else's terms--and how an individual struggle can take on political significance. When Katniss refuses--quite literally--to play the game, she unwittingly subverts the authority of the Capitol. Katniss and Peeta work their own brand of subversive magic on their tour, particularly in District 11, and every costume that Cinna creates is a more "Capitol glam" model of subversion. Cinna, frankly, is an amazing character. But Cinna's character in particular contrasts intentional and artistic subversion--priviledged subversion--with artless, spontaneous subversion, which Katniss's particular talent (not fashion design). And for the other players, Katniss is the canvas or clay--a medium for their art.
It's difficult to write about the subversive elements in the abstract, which is, in part, why this post has taken longer to write than the others on Hunger Games. But there's more to the way the novels represent oppression and resistence than a series of identifiable subversive acts. There are the acts of complicity with the oppressive system as well. And again, Cinna is key when, in The Hunger Games, he regards Katniss and says simply, "You must hate us." The Hunger Games illustrates, better than anything I read in graduate school, Center-Periphery theory, and echoes other postcolonial theorists (Homi Bhabha comes to mind) rather nicely. It's sweet, really. And if you missed it, it's central to Catching Fire. Literally.
The dominant image in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (though not immediately apparent) is a clock--as we learn as the tributes unravel the mystery of the Quarter Quell arena. It could register as clever or simplistic, depending on whether you are predisposed to grant the novel its artistic due. I side with clever--and here's why:
In the arena, each hour represents a punishment that the tributes must endure--or die. The cornucopia--the symbolic (and highly ironic) generosity of the Capitol--is the center, and the point of radiation, and, when the tributes have become too adept at navigating the arena, the point of rotation and disorientation. The Center and the Capitol are linked by the Head Gamemaker's control over when the clock spins to confuse the tributes, who represent the Districts. It doesn't matter that Panem doesn't seem to be arranged in a true circle--or at least, that this reader doesn't have a clear sense of its geography. (I'm sure there are official and unofficial maps online.) The position of the Capitol as the Center, with the Districts occupying the Periphery, is a structure of power rather than geography. The image is also Foucauldian.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault cites the Panopticon, a prison model developed by utilitarian Jeremy Bentham, as the epitome of the modern means of using discipline as a means of control and coersion to normalize wayward elements within society. The visual image is a circle with a central vantage point from which prisoners might be observed at all times. Here are two images of Bentam's Panopticon, which also bears a resemblance to a certain Flavian Amphitheatre--look! An arena.
Interestingly, in addition to sounding rather like "Pan-American," Panem shares the "pan-" root with "Panopticon" as well. It might be a stretch, and I have a nagging feeling that I'm overlooking the obvious "Panem" reference. But certainly the Capitol also has a panoramic view of the Districts. All related linguistically.
Consider, also, District 13. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. A clock only has 12 hours. So the existence of District 13 spoils the perfection of the clock--and defies the image of the Capitol's control. (Subversion!)
Related to the relationship between the Center and Periphery, on the other hand, is the old adage "Power corrupts." Though I can't find the precise theoretical reference I'm looking for, consider this quote from The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965) by Albert Memmi:
But how does the Center-Periphery power relationship corrupt the Capitol? First, let me be clear that the relationship between the Center and Periphery in postcolonial theory has a lot to do with replication. In the Districts, you don't see little models of the Capitol. The subjugated is not trying to be the oppressor--not really. Except the Career Tributes, perhaps. The Districts don't even have the ability to follow fashion trends. But the power of the Capitol is replicated in the Districts as the people internalize their oppression. The subversive element in Center-Periphery theory is that the oppressed/colonized "Other"--whoever is set apart as "different" in relation to the dominant power--also influences the oppressor. In this case, the corruption isn't to destabilize the identity of the colonizer because the colonized "Other" is encroaching on the oppressor's identity (which is part of the argument in Declan Kiberd's Inventing Ireland as to why the Irish had to be guarded more fiercely than the colonies that were further away, and had a more physically identifiable "Other")--except that Katniss does sort of become "Capitol-ized," if you will. (As have the other tributes.) The citizens of the Capitol begin to feel that she is one of their own, which does destabilize their own identities as it influences their ability to "enjoy" the Quarter Quell. But more clearly, the Capitol--and, by implication, each Capitol citizen--is corrupted by the act of oppressing other people. It makes them monsters, as Cinna recognizes.
The Capitol is the center of corruption. And not only political corruption--all things that are good or pleasurable are found in immoral, ostentatious, and degenerate form, from the purgatives at the banquet to the fashion extremes represented most devastatingly by Tigris in Mockingjay. The closer one gets to the Capitol--Disctricts 1-3--the greater the corruption, with youth training for the slaughter of the Games (and the resulting glory). All of the Districts have internalized their oppression--the "Careers'" Districts have simply internalized them more--proactively, one might say.
Meanwhile, in the Capitol, the people have internalized the decadance of power. Their lives are degraded, and the level of degradation becomes most apparent in their highest form of entertainment--the Games themselves. And ultimately, the Games--also the most visible sign of the Capitol's control over the Districts--become the Capitol's undoing. Turning the means of control back on the oppressor: it's almost a dictionary definition of "subversive."
As much as they are about anything, the novels are about subversion. And about how an act of self-preservation becomes an act of subversion. It is about refusing to play the game on someone else's terms--and how an individual struggle can take on political significance. When Katniss refuses--quite literally--to play the game, she unwittingly subverts the authority of the Capitol. Katniss and Peeta work their own brand of subversive magic on their tour, particularly in District 11, and every costume that Cinna creates is a more "Capitol glam" model of subversion. Cinna, frankly, is an amazing character. But Cinna's character in particular contrasts intentional and artistic subversion--priviledged subversion--with artless, spontaneous subversion, which Katniss's particular talent (not fashion design). And for the other players, Katniss is the canvas or clay--a medium for their art.
It's difficult to write about the subversive elements in the abstract, which is, in part, why this post has taken longer to write than the others on Hunger Games. But there's more to the way the novels represent oppression and resistence than a series of identifiable subversive acts. There are the acts of complicity with the oppressive system as well. And again, Cinna is key when, in The Hunger Games, he regards Katniss and says simply, "You must hate us." The Hunger Games illustrates, better than anything I read in graduate school, Center-Periphery theory, and echoes other postcolonial theorists (Homi Bhabha comes to mind) rather nicely. It's sweet, really. And if you missed it, it's central to Catching Fire. Literally.
The dominant image in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (though not immediately apparent) is a clock--as we learn as the tributes unravel the mystery of the Quarter Quell arena. It could register as clever or simplistic, depending on whether you are predisposed to grant the novel its artistic due. I side with clever--and here's why:
In the arena, each hour represents a punishment that the tributes must endure--or die. The cornucopia--the symbolic (and highly ironic) generosity of the Capitol--is the center, and the point of radiation, and, when the tributes have become too adept at navigating the arena, the point of rotation and disorientation. The Center and the Capitol are linked by the Head Gamemaker's control over when the clock spins to confuse the tributes, who represent the Districts. It doesn't matter that Panem doesn't seem to be arranged in a true circle--or at least, that this reader doesn't have a clear sense of its geography. (I'm sure there are official and unofficial maps online.) The position of the Capitol as the Center, with the Districts occupying the Periphery, is a structure of power rather than geography. The image is also Foucauldian.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault cites the Panopticon, a prison model developed by utilitarian Jeremy Bentham, as the epitome of the modern means of using discipline as a means of control and coersion to normalize wayward elements within society. The visual image is a circle with a central vantage point from which prisoners might be observed at all times. Here are two images of Bentam's Panopticon, which also bears a resemblance to a certain Flavian Amphitheatre--look! An arena.
Interestingly, in addition to sounding rather like "Pan-American," Panem shares the "pan-" root with "Panopticon" as well. It might be a stretch, and I have a nagging feeling that I'm overlooking the obvious "Panem" reference. But certainly the Capitol also has a panoramic view of the Districts. All related linguistically.
Consider, also, District 13. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. A clock only has 12 hours. So the existence of District 13 spoils the perfection of the clock--and defies the image of the Capitol's control. (Subversion!)
Related to the relationship between the Center and Periphery, on the other hand, is the old adage "Power corrupts." Though I can't find the precise theoretical reference I'm looking for, consider this quote from The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965) by Albert Memmi:
"It is no exaggeration to say that, just as the colonial situation corrupts the European in the colonies, the colonialist is the seed of corruption in the mother country."This theory forms the basis for much postcolonial criticism. And if the relationship between the Capitol and the Districts isn't precisely Colonizer and Colonized, it is as good (bad?) as a colonial relationship. The Districts are, in fact, made "Others" by the rhetoric and practices of the Capitol, which occupies the priviledged "Center" of colonialism--evoking another key postcolonial theorist, Edward Said, of Orientalism fame.
But how does the Center-Periphery power relationship corrupt the Capitol? First, let me be clear that the relationship between the Center and Periphery in postcolonial theory has a lot to do with replication. In the Districts, you don't see little models of the Capitol. The subjugated is not trying to be the oppressor--not really. Except the Career Tributes, perhaps. The Districts don't even have the ability to follow fashion trends. But the power of the Capitol is replicated in the Districts as the people internalize their oppression. The subversive element in Center-Periphery theory is that the oppressed/colonized "Other"--whoever is set apart as "different" in relation to the dominant power--also influences the oppressor. In this case, the corruption isn't to destabilize the identity of the colonizer because the colonized "Other" is encroaching on the oppressor's identity (which is part of the argument in Declan Kiberd's Inventing Ireland as to why the Irish had to be guarded more fiercely than the colonies that were further away, and had a more physically identifiable "Other")--except that Katniss does sort of become "Capitol-ized," if you will. (As have the other tributes.) The citizens of the Capitol begin to feel that she is one of their own, which does destabilize their own identities as it influences their ability to "enjoy" the Quarter Quell. But more clearly, the Capitol--and, by implication, each Capitol citizen--is corrupted by the act of oppressing other people. It makes them monsters, as Cinna recognizes.
The Capitol is the center of corruption. And not only political corruption--all things that are good or pleasurable are found in immoral, ostentatious, and degenerate form, from the purgatives at the banquet to the fashion extremes represented most devastatingly by Tigris in Mockingjay. The closer one gets to the Capitol--Disctricts 1-3--the greater the corruption, with youth training for the slaughter of the Games (and the resulting glory). All of the Districts have internalized their oppression--the "Careers'" Districts have simply internalized them more--proactively, one might say.
Meanwhile, in the Capitol, the people have internalized the decadance of power. Their lives are degraded, and the level of degradation becomes most apparent in their highest form of entertainment--the Games themselves. And ultimately, the Games--also the most visible sign of the Capitol's control over the Districts--become the Capitol's undoing. Turning the means of control back on the oppressor: it's almost a dictionary definition of "subversive."
Friday, June 14, 2013
Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 3): The love triangle that wasn't
Twilight and Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices are prime examples of the angst-ridden heroine tormented by her attraction to, and need to choose between two equally compelling alternative potential lovers. As Candace in Disney's Phineas and Ferb puts it, "Imagine if you had to choose between a bloodthirsty undead walking corpse and a slobbering lupine man-beast as a boyfriend...." What girl could resist that? (To be fair, that is not exactly the choice in Clare's novels. In those novels, you have two angel-spawn demonfighter boys who are closer than brothers. Yeah.) But in spite of the presence of two boys, and of fans who want to belong to "Team Gale" or "Team Peeta," there is no love triangle in The Hunger Games. Yes, I stand by that assertion. In fact, the novels sort of subvert the love-triangle trope in Young Adult lit by pointing out the "young" part of the equation--without being condescending or reductive about it. This is a bold move considering that this stuff does sell to the intended audience, but it is also a clever move, considering that The Hunger Games trilogy is about subversion, as much as it is about anything else. It practically gives kids a handbook explaining what political subversion is (more on this later...)
So when I say that there's no love triangle in The Hunger Games, I am not ignoring the fact that there are two boys who seem to be more or less in love with the heroine. Nor am I failing to acknowledge the affection and the sense of obligation that Katniss feels toward each one. However, I am starting from the premise that when you're talking about a "love triangle," it's not really about him, it's about her. How is she going to act, whom is she going to choose? The exception might be Marion Zimmer Bradley's portrayal of Lancelot in The Mists of Avalon. In that novel, it really was about Lancelot for the reader, who probably came away wanting Lancelot, and if not Lancelot, it was about Morgaine (Le Fay--remember her?), who wanted Lancelot not to want Gwenhwyfar. In the usual convention, the two men are there. They compete--and exist--for her pleasure. Or torment. Whatever. The existential dilemma belongs solely to the female, who no doubt ponders it incessantly. But we already know that Katniss is not the pondering type. So what are those two boys doing there?
First of all, Gale and Peeta exist--as literary devices--in order to evoke the love triangle. I did have a student in my college-level children's lit course tell me that The Hobbit was a "boy book" because it didn't include a love interest. So perhaps if it is to be a novel directed towards girls of a certain age, there has to be a love interest or particular love interest in addition to the female protagonist? I'm going to leave that one up in the air. It is certainly true that the expectation is out there. But in The Hunger Games, the purpose of evoking the love triangle seems to be entirely different. Is there jealousy on the part of the boys? Yes, but it's understated. Does Katniss wonder if she is betraying one or the other of them? It comes up every now and then, but it is not her central focus. Frankly, it can't be. There are more important things to worry about.
Katniss's approach to both boys is very practical. She is also loyal to each one. Both of these are traits associated with ISTJs, if you were curious! So in fact, the boys are there to show Katniss's key character traits in their best and most troubling light. Her inability to "choose" between them is not a product of her feminine weakness and vacillation, or indeed, of her introspection and self-doubt. Rather, the choice between them is not an immediate need, and since she feels affection of a sort (albeit a sort that is secondary to affection for her sister) for them, and since these boys are boys to whom she feels a sharp loyalty, she resists the choice. If this were Lord of the Flies--and it might have been--her loyalty to Peeta would have dissolved in the arena. But it isn't. And it wasn't. And that is a significant commentary on human nature by way of Katniss--and might also represent a sort of footnote to Lord of the Flies.
On the other hand, both male characters serve to instruct the reader (if not necessarily Katniss) on some of the deeper issues involved with male-female relationships. By eschewing the typical roles into which novels place boy and girl, we are able to get a more sophisticated portrait of interpersonal relationships than is common in Young Adult novels (I am not partial to that designation, but a friend has convinced me that "teen literature" is an inferior term).
So what about Gale? Gale shows the reader that a boy and a girl can be friends... except when they're not. Okay, maybe they can't be, unless both are asexual. And Katniss, let's face it, is fairly asexual. She is completely chaste--without meaning to be. This is a point that is made explicit in Catching Fire, when she is mocked both by Fennick, the exploited and oversexed, and by Johanna, tree girl. Gale grows to feel that way for Katniss, but they begin as rivals, then hunting buddies with an almost brother-sister thing. He is already grown up--in a way--when they meet, and as she grows up, he sees her differently. It's a little creepy when you think of it--and isn't there something like this in Twilight? But he's not really on her radar. Because she doesn't have that sort of radar. She's only 16. She's not ready to marry. She may never be ready to marry. But more on that in a minute. The complexities here are when romantic awareness and attraction enter into a male-female friendship, and when the two friends have different intentions or goals. Gale's and Katniss's goals are very different, though Gale assumes they see eye-to-eye. And don't underestimate the "challenge"--Katniss is, for Gale, close and yet unattainable, and as he is something of a charmer, well... he's a pretty realistic character himself.
Peeta, on the other hand, is hers to lose from the beginning. Literally. But he won't go away. He represents a courtly lover. He has been content to watch and admire her from afar. But sometimes, in such circumstances, interaction is necessary. Or forced. Or in this case, potentially deadly. So maybe not a terribly realistic scenario... and yet... Lizzie doesn't like Mr. Darcy very much, but he grows on her. Their love begins as animosity and blooms into a love that is like friendship. And this is a trope in its own right--and one that Jane Austen even mocks on occasion as she employs it. Lizzie is no coquette, and neither is Katniss. But both experience complex feelings ranging from resentment to affection that are difficult to understand. And perhaps because it is a contemporary representation rather than an 18th Century courtship, or a novel with all of the conventions of the novel--like, say, dialogue--that I have come to expect as a contemporary reader, I find Katniss's evolving non-relationship with Peeta more realistic. As futuristic alternate-reality dystopian adventure novel relationships that mean life-or-death go. Treading lightly to avoid hurting someone is a common--and complex situation. Casting off the person because you just can't deal with their affections--also realistic. And having the person persist. And persist. And persist. Well, that can happen, too. And if their love is unconditional, and is willing to wait and let you be who you are--then, wow.
Brokenness is real, too. And Katniss, Peeta, and Gale are each, at one point or another, studies in brokenness. And how relationships can heal--or else, can heighten--that brokenness.
Finally, the love triangle isn't a love triangle because it's not all about sex. After all, it wasn't an issue that Lancelot was in love with Guinevere until they consummated their desire. Before that, it was courtly and proper. So when teen novels have "love triangles," even when the love is supposedly chaste, it's all about sex. Specifically, it's about when SHE is going to have sex and WITH WHOM. Because we all know the boys are ready and willing, right? Well, maybe not specifically. Rather, it's like sex is this inevitable... ahem... black hole that the heroine is drawn toward (wait, shouldn't that be the guy? never mind...) and the reader is dragged along for the ride because all of this is dreadfully important. Even Regina Doman's Shadow of the Bear captures this notion that sex is inevitable, if for the purpose of presenting a chaste model. And well, yes. It does feel that way to a teenager sometimes. And sometimes to a young adult. And sometimes to a single adult in a bar. Every road leads to sex--but when? and with whom? Enter the love triangle. But that is something that is largely a construction--albeit an old construction. Paolo and Francesca. Lancelot and Guinevere. Tristan and Isolde. But The Hunger Games acknowledges that the love triangle and the inevitability of sex are constructs by completely failing to play along.
And why is it not about sex? It could have been. Anyone who has read my posts about Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series knows that I have no problem with sex. I don't object to reading about it, even in fairly graphic terms, and I'm fine with writing about it. Just don't get me started about Fifty Shades of Gray, because it won't be pretty....
Frankly, it was quite restrained of Collins not to have The Hunger Games include rape. After all, there's cannibalism in past Hunger Games. I'm trying to think if there's something that could be considered symbolic rape in the way tributes were killed in The Hunger Games, and I don't think so... although somewhere, at some academic conference or in some academic journal, some graduate student or terribly, terribly clever professor (who doesn't actually read children's literature, but is smugly dabbling because Hunger Games is a popular culture phenomenon) has made exactly that argument--possibly involving a dark mine shaft or Peeta's oven. But folks--it's Simply. Not. There. Not even there as it is in Lord of the Flies. Not even like that. But it could have been. The "career tributes" might have raped their victims first, and the Capitol might have liked the extra entertainment. And then the books really would have been sordid, as some people still believe them to be. And I will never, ever read Hunger Games fan fics.
Sex is not on Katniss's radar because hers is a hard life, and there are more things to think about than sex. It is not on her radar because her own survival and the survival of her family are uppermost in her mind. She can't take on the responsibility of a new family--her own family--because her current responsibilities prevent it. She can't conceive of having children because she already has dependents, and also because children are the Capitol's means of control. So not having children would be her act of self-preservation--her means of not allowing herself to be hurt by the political situation in which she lives. So not having children is, quite literally, an act of subversion, though Katniss is not able to articulate it as such.
And sex, to her, is not recreational--it is procreative. The union of man and woman produces children. Period. And quite definitely only happens within marriage. Even Peeta's bluff presents sex as happening within marriage.
Sex--especially recreational sex--is (implicitly) the province of the Capitol, along with all things glittery and corrupt. It is in the Capitol that sexual exploitation occurs--to others. Katniss is not corruptible, because her loyalties are too solid to allow for infiltration. Even when she is caught up in the Capitol glam, and made to seem a sex symbol of sorts, it is not really sex that she projects. She is almost too good to be true--except for her complete lack of awareness of her own virtue. All she sees is what is in front of her, and that something is survival--always.
So to borrow a quote from Miss Piggy in The Muppet Takes Manhatten, "But what about the huggies?" There are moments on the train. With Peeta. They do sleep together. And it is never sexualized in any way. They sleep together in a completely chaste manner--suggesting, perhaps, that a boy and a girl can sleep together in a completely chaste manner. Even when he loves her, and wants her. In fact, their nighttime interaction even suggests that man and wife--or an engaged couple--or two pretending to be man and wife--can be chaste. And there is so much more that is unifying and life-affirming in their embraces, to borrow the language of Theology of the Body, than there would be in the sexual act.
And so the novels, which represent sex, marriage, and procreation as things to be feared in certian contexts, do, after all, find their way to affirmation of life--and to a much more profound place than the center of a love triangle.
So when I say that there's no love triangle in The Hunger Games, I am not ignoring the fact that there are two boys who seem to be more or less in love with the heroine. Nor am I failing to acknowledge the affection and the sense of obligation that Katniss feels toward each one. However, I am starting from the premise that when you're talking about a "love triangle," it's not really about him, it's about her. How is she going to act, whom is she going to choose? The exception might be Marion Zimmer Bradley's portrayal of Lancelot in The Mists of Avalon. In that novel, it really was about Lancelot for the reader, who probably came away wanting Lancelot, and if not Lancelot, it was about Morgaine (Le Fay--remember her?), who wanted Lancelot not to want Gwenhwyfar. In the usual convention, the two men are there. They compete--and exist--for her pleasure. Or torment. Whatever. The existential dilemma belongs solely to the female, who no doubt ponders it incessantly. But we already know that Katniss is not the pondering type. So what are those two boys doing there?
First of all, Gale and Peeta exist--as literary devices--in order to evoke the love triangle. I did have a student in my college-level children's lit course tell me that The Hobbit was a "boy book" because it didn't include a love interest. So perhaps if it is to be a novel directed towards girls of a certain age, there has to be a love interest or particular love interest in addition to the female protagonist? I'm going to leave that one up in the air. It is certainly true that the expectation is out there. But in The Hunger Games, the purpose of evoking the love triangle seems to be entirely different. Is there jealousy on the part of the boys? Yes, but it's understated. Does Katniss wonder if she is betraying one or the other of them? It comes up every now and then, but it is not her central focus. Frankly, it can't be. There are more important things to worry about.
Katniss's approach to both boys is very practical. She is also loyal to each one. Both of these are traits associated with ISTJs, if you were curious! So in fact, the boys are there to show Katniss's key character traits in their best and most troubling light. Her inability to "choose" between them is not a product of her feminine weakness and vacillation, or indeed, of her introspection and self-doubt. Rather, the choice between them is not an immediate need, and since she feels affection of a sort (albeit a sort that is secondary to affection for her sister) for them, and since these boys are boys to whom she feels a sharp loyalty, she resists the choice. If this were Lord of the Flies--and it might have been--her loyalty to Peeta would have dissolved in the arena. But it isn't. And it wasn't. And that is a significant commentary on human nature by way of Katniss--and might also represent a sort of footnote to Lord of the Flies.
On the other hand, both male characters serve to instruct the reader (if not necessarily Katniss) on some of the deeper issues involved with male-female relationships. By eschewing the typical roles into which novels place boy and girl, we are able to get a more sophisticated portrait of interpersonal relationships than is common in Young Adult novels (I am not partial to that designation, but a friend has convinced me that "teen literature" is an inferior term).
So what about Gale? Gale shows the reader that a boy and a girl can be friends... except when they're not. Okay, maybe they can't be, unless both are asexual. And Katniss, let's face it, is fairly asexual. She is completely chaste--without meaning to be. This is a point that is made explicit in Catching Fire, when she is mocked both by Fennick, the exploited and oversexed, and by Johanna, tree girl. Gale grows to feel that way for Katniss, but they begin as rivals, then hunting buddies with an almost brother-sister thing. He is already grown up--in a way--when they meet, and as she grows up, he sees her differently. It's a little creepy when you think of it--and isn't there something like this in Twilight? But he's not really on her radar. Because she doesn't have that sort of radar. She's only 16. She's not ready to marry. She may never be ready to marry. But more on that in a minute. The complexities here are when romantic awareness and attraction enter into a male-female friendship, and when the two friends have different intentions or goals. Gale's and Katniss's goals are very different, though Gale assumes they see eye-to-eye. And don't underestimate the "challenge"--Katniss is, for Gale, close and yet unattainable, and as he is something of a charmer, well... he's a pretty realistic character himself.
Peeta, on the other hand, is hers to lose from the beginning. Literally. But he won't go away. He represents a courtly lover. He has been content to watch and admire her from afar. But sometimes, in such circumstances, interaction is necessary. Or forced. Or in this case, potentially deadly. So maybe not a terribly realistic scenario... and yet... Lizzie doesn't like Mr. Darcy very much, but he grows on her. Their love begins as animosity and blooms into a love that is like friendship. And this is a trope in its own right--and one that Jane Austen even mocks on occasion as she employs it. Lizzie is no coquette, and neither is Katniss. But both experience complex feelings ranging from resentment to affection that are difficult to understand. And perhaps because it is a contemporary representation rather than an 18th Century courtship, or a novel with all of the conventions of the novel--like, say, dialogue--that I have come to expect as a contemporary reader, I find Katniss's evolving non-relationship with Peeta more realistic. As futuristic alternate-reality dystopian adventure novel relationships that mean life-or-death go. Treading lightly to avoid hurting someone is a common--and complex situation. Casting off the person because you just can't deal with their affections--also realistic. And having the person persist. And persist. And persist. Well, that can happen, too. And if their love is unconditional, and is willing to wait and let you be who you are--then, wow.
Brokenness is real, too. And Katniss, Peeta, and Gale are each, at one point or another, studies in brokenness. And how relationships can heal--or else, can heighten--that brokenness.
Finally, the love triangle isn't a love triangle because it's not all about sex. After all, it wasn't an issue that Lancelot was in love with Guinevere until they consummated their desire. Before that, it was courtly and proper. So when teen novels have "love triangles," even when the love is supposedly chaste, it's all about sex. Specifically, it's about when SHE is going to have sex and WITH WHOM. Because we all know the boys are ready and willing, right? Well, maybe not specifically. Rather, it's like sex is this inevitable... ahem... black hole that the heroine is drawn toward (wait, shouldn't that be the guy? never mind...) and the reader is dragged along for the ride because all of this is dreadfully important. Even Regina Doman's Shadow of the Bear captures this notion that sex is inevitable, if for the purpose of presenting a chaste model. And well, yes. It does feel that way to a teenager sometimes. And sometimes to a young adult. And sometimes to a single adult in a bar. Every road leads to sex--but when? and with whom? Enter the love triangle. But that is something that is largely a construction--albeit an old construction. Paolo and Francesca. Lancelot and Guinevere. Tristan and Isolde. But The Hunger Games acknowledges that the love triangle and the inevitability of sex are constructs by completely failing to play along.
And why is it not about sex? It could have been. Anyone who has read my posts about Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series knows that I have no problem with sex. I don't object to reading about it, even in fairly graphic terms, and I'm fine with writing about it. Just don't get me started about Fifty Shades of Gray, because it won't be pretty....
Frankly, it was quite restrained of Collins not to have The Hunger Games include rape. After all, there's cannibalism in past Hunger Games. I'm trying to think if there's something that could be considered symbolic rape in the way tributes were killed in The Hunger Games, and I don't think so... although somewhere, at some academic conference or in some academic journal, some graduate student or terribly, terribly clever professor (who doesn't actually read children's literature, but is smugly dabbling because Hunger Games is a popular culture phenomenon) has made exactly that argument--possibly involving a dark mine shaft or Peeta's oven. But folks--it's Simply. Not. There. Not even there as it is in Lord of the Flies. Not even like that. But it could have been. The "career tributes" might have raped their victims first, and the Capitol might have liked the extra entertainment. And then the books really would have been sordid, as some people still believe them to be. And I will never, ever read Hunger Games fan fics.
Sex is not on Katniss's radar because hers is a hard life, and there are more things to think about than sex. It is not on her radar because her own survival and the survival of her family are uppermost in her mind. She can't take on the responsibility of a new family--her own family--because her current responsibilities prevent it. She can't conceive of having children because she already has dependents, and also because children are the Capitol's means of control. So not having children would be her act of self-preservation--her means of not allowing herself to be hurt by the political situation in which she lives. So not having children is, quite literally, an act of subversion, though Katniss is not able to articulate it as such.
And sex, to her, is not recreational--it is procreative. The union of man and woman produces children. Period. And quite definitely only happens within marriage. Even Peeta's bluff presents sex as happening within marriage.
Sex--especially recreational sex--is (implicitly) the province of the Capitol, along with all things glittery and corrupt. It is in the Capitol that sexual exploitation occurs--to others. Katniss is not corruptible, because her loyalties are too solid to allow for infiltration. Even when she is caught up in the Capitol glam, and made to seem a sex symbol of sorts, it is not really sex that she projects. She is almost too good to be true--except for her complete lack of awareness of her own virtue. All she sees is what is in front of her, and that something is survival--always.
So to borrow a quote from Miss Piggy in The Muppet Takes Manhatten, "But what about the huggies?" There are moments on the train. With Peeta. They do sleep together. And it is never sexualized in any way. They sleep together in a completely chaste manner--suggesting, perhaps, that a boy and a girl can sleep together in a completely chaste manner. Even when he loves her, and wants her. In fact, their nighttime interaction even suggests that man and wife--or an engaged couple--or two pretending to be man and wife--can be chaste. And there is so much more that is unifying and life-affirming in their embraces, to borrow the language of Theology of the Body, than there would be in the sexual act.
And so the novels, which represent sex, marriage, and procreation as things to be feared in certian contexts, do, after all, find their way to affirmation of life--and to a much more profound place than the center of a love triangle.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 2): Katniss
Starting with the main character is as good a place as any, and is perhaps an obvious place to start. But let me say that I'm not in love with Katniss. I don't relate to her particularly well, and I think that the first-person, present-tense narrative keeps the reader at arm's length in a counter-intuitive sort of way, preventing the reader from getting in her head. But all of this is why the construction of her character is so intriguing to me.
First, her personality. I have this one figured out. She's an ISTJ to my INFP. From Wikipedia:
So what does this mean? In terms of the narrative voice, the emphasis in the ISTJ description on "the present and the factual" in conjunction with focus on the individual's "internal world" justifies the slightly irritating first person, present tense narration. In fact, it's a little too neatly packaged. In terms of audience engagement, and I can only speak for myself, we have a character who is opposite from me in every possible way--except introversion. So having figured out intuitively (INFP) why I can't find myself in the character, suddenly I can see it in concrete terms. Katniss resists introspection. An INFP would reflect back--almost incessantly. Katniss lives in her mind, but in the moment. For whatever reason--personality or circumstances--she easily leaves the past behind (at least, when she is operating from her conscious mind--and trauma notwithstanding). She is living in the moment--because she has to. And because she lives in the moment, she survives--or, because she is a survivor, she knows to live in the moment.
Katniss is not a reader. Literacy does not figure prominently into The Hunger Games (more on this later), but even in its absence, literacy is conspicuous. In the children's/young adult genre, female characters are readers. In the development of female characters, there seems to be an unspoken, unwritten, but understood rule that girls need smart characters who read to teach them that reading and being smart are okay. The exceptional, very bright, slightly odd, female reader is such a commonplace motif as to make claims to the exceptionality of such a character hollow. Consider, for example, the very mundane female protagonist of Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series. Every now and then, the narrative shows Tessa with a book to remind the reader that her literacy is one of her distinguishing features, when otherwise, she is pretty bland. So Katniss's very difference from these supposedly extraordinary female characters is refreshing.
So why do I like Katniss?
Although I am not particularly engaged by being able to relate to Katniss's personality--so different from my own--my own personality type causes me to read empathetically (I'm hammering the Meyers-Briggs, but it's sort of fun from a "rhetoric of reading" standpoint, because it can explain, to an extent, why certain readers engage with texts and characters the way we do!) So I am sympathetic to Katniss's circumstances, and more sympathetic to her manipulation by those around her, when that comes to light in Catching Fire. In fact, it was while reading Catching Fire that I really started to like the books and Katniss's character.
It is easy to understand Katniss's motivations, given what the reader knows about her character and her circumstances. She is exactly what she should be, given what the reader knows. And as a reader, I don't like to be unfairly manipulated by an author into feeling something I don't want to feel (as in The Giver), or thinking something that is untrue. Katniss is satisfyingly well-constructed as a character. And above all, what is predictable are her convictions. There is a moment in book 3 when she votes in favor of "one last Hunger Games," and I wonder, as a reader, if this is an inconsistency in her character. But then, I wonder whether that vote is sincere given the subsequent turn of events.
It her predictability (another ISTJ quality) as enacted in the novels that makes her vulnerable to manipulation--and having one's values subject one to manipulation is something an INFP can understand. So there's a connection after all. As a person of action rather than contemplation, Katniss acts from her convictions. When she acts, she makes it count, as in volunteering for Prim in the Hunger Games, or survival in the games themselves. Haymitch recognizes this trait throughout, and uses it for various purposes--most notably the revolutionary propaganda in book 3.
But finally, I come back to that narrative voice. When the author's choice of a technique is so obvious as to register as a little bit wrong, there should be a definite reason for drawing attention to that choice. I learned this from Robert Browning's verse, though Robert Frost has moments as well (Something there is that doesn't love a wall - one of the clunkiest lines in iambic pentameter). As she moves through the events of the three novels, Katniss resists contemplation, even as she tries to work out what's happening to her. She focuses on details rather than abstract concepts. The narrative reinforces the sense of moving forward rather than looking backward, and does not give the reader advantages over the character's self-awareness, or lack thereof. Rather, the reader experiences how baffling it is to be living one's own coming-of-age. I can't speak to how it would have been to read this as a young adult. I likely would have been more frustrated by the lack of introspection, because I wanted to figure out what was happening, or what had happened, and theorize about it. I still do. But looking at The Hunger Games, I can read the narrative, and live with the character, and think--yeah, it was exactly like that. So at the end of the day, Katniss's narrative feels authentic. And so does she.
First, her personality. I have this one figured out. She's an ISTJ to my INFP. From Wikipedia:
ISTJs are faithful, logical, organized, sensible, and earnest traditionalists who enjoy keeping their lives and environments well-regulated. Typically reserved and serious individuals, they earn success through their thoroughness and extraordinary dependability. They are capable of shutting out distractions in order to take a practical, logical approach to their endeavors, and are able to make the tough decisions that other types avoid. Realistic and responsible, ISTJs are often seen as worker bees striving steadily toward their goals. They take special joy in maintaining institutions and are often highly religious. Despite their dependability and good intentions, however, ISTJs can experience difficulty in understanding and responding to the emotional needs of others.
Although they often focus on their internal world, ISTJs prefer dealing with the present and the factual. They are detail-oriented and weigh various options when making decisions, although they generally stick to the conventional. ISTJs are well-prepared for eventualities and have a good understanding of most situations. They believe in practical objectives, and they value traditions and loyalty.If I am slightly uncomfortable with analyzing a character according to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, I am buoyed by Freudian analyses of characters, and by the very fact that, in this particular case, it makes so much sense!
So what does this mean? In terms of the narrative voice, the emphasis in the ISTJ description on "the present and the factual" in conjunction with focus on the individual's "internal world" justifies the slightly irritating first person, present tense narration. In fact, it's a little too neatly packaged. In terms of audience engagement, and I can only speak for myself, we have a character who is opposite from me in every possible way--except introversion. So having figured out intuitively (INFP) why I can't find myself in the character, suddenly I can see it in concrete terms. Katniss resists introspection. An INFP would reflect back--almost incessantly. Katniss lives in her mind, but in the moment. For whatever reason--personality or circumstances--she easily leaves the past behind (at least, when she is operating from her conscious mind--and trauma notwithstanding). She is living in the moment--because she has to. And because she lives in the moment, she survives--or, because she is a survivor, she knows to live in the moment.
Katniss is not a reader. Literacy does not figure prominently into The Hunger Games (more on this later), but even in its absence, literacy is conspicuous. In the children's/young adult genre, female characters are readers. In the development of female characters, there seems to be an unspoken, unwritten, but understood rule that girls need smart characters who read to teach them that reading and being smart are okay. The exceptional, very bright, slightly odd, female reader is such a commonplace motif as to make claims to the exceptionality of such a character hollow. Consider, for example, the very mundane female protagonist of Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series. Every now and then, the narrative shows Tessa with a book to remind the reader that her literacy is one of her distinguishing features, when otherwise, she is pretty bland. So Katniss's very difference from these supposedly extraordinary female characters is refreshing.
So why do I like Katniss?
Although I am not particularly engaged by being able to relate to Katniss's personality--so different from my own--my own personality type causes me to read empathetically (I'm hammering the Meyers-Briggs, but it's sort of fun from a "rhetoric of reading" standpoint, because it can explain, to an extent, why certain readers engage with texts and characters the way we do!) So I am sympathetic to Katniss's circumstances, and more sympathetic to her manipulation by those around her, when that comes to light in Catching Fire. In fact, it was while reading Catching Fire that I really started to like the books and Katniss's character.
It is easy to understand Katniss's motivations, given what the reader knows about her character and her circumstances. She is exactly what she should be, given what the reader knows. And as a reader, I don't like to be unfairly manipulated by an author into feeling something I don't want to feel (as in The Giver), or thinking something that is untrue. Katniss is satisfyingly well-constructed as a character. And above all, what is predictable are her convictions. There is a moment in book 3 when she votes in favor of "one last Hunger Games," and I wonder, as a reader, if this is an inconsistency in her character. But then, I wonder whether that vote is sincere given the subsequent turn of events.
It her predictability (another ISTJ quality) as enacted in the novels that makes her vulnerable to manipulation--and having one's values subject one to manipulation is something an INFP can understand. So there's a connection after all. As a person of action rather than contemplation, Katniss acts from her convictions. When she acts, she makes it count, as in volunteering for Prim in the Hunger Games, or survival in the games themselves. Haymitch recognizes this trait throughout, and uses it for various purposes--most notably the revolutionary propaganda in book 3.
But finally, I come back to that narrative voice. When the author's choice of a technique is so obvious as to register as a little bit wrong, there should be a definite reason for drawing attention to that choice. I learned this from Robert Browning's verse, though Robert Frost has moments as well (Something there is that doesn't love a wall - one of the clunkiest lines in iambic pentameter). As she moves through the events of the three novels, Katniss resists contemplation, even as she tries to work out what's happening to her. She focuses on details rather than abstract concepts. The narrative reinforces the sense of moving forward rather than looking backward, and does not give the reader advantages over the character's self-awareness, or lack thereof. Rather, the reader experiences how baffling it is to be living one's own coming-of-age. I can't speak to how it would have been to read this as a young adult. I likely would have been more frustrated by the lack of introspection, because I wanted to figure out what was happening, or what had happened, and theorize about it. I still do. But looking at The Hunger Games, I can read the narrative, and live with the character, and think--yeah, it was exactly like that. So at the end of the day, Katniss's narrative feels authentic. And so does she.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Why I like The Hunger Games (Pt 1)
I finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy for the second time over the weekend, and I have been wanting to write something since I finished rereading the first book, but it just hasn't happened. Part of the reason it hasn't happened is because, while I did know what I wanted to say when I finished book 1, I wanted to read the next book--and the next--more than I wanted to sit and write about the first one. That happens sometimes. Also, it is summer, and for me, that means less time for writing--apparently. In the fall and winter, I found time to blog in the mornings while on break and on weekends, at lunch when I was back at work, and in the evenings after work, which was, frankly, exhausting. Evenings are meant for reading, not writing necessarily. (And I used to be a night person. *sigh*) Right now, however, my weekends are filled with packing, organization, and sometimes birthday parties. My evenings are spent combating the plague of flies visited upon us by the nearby sewage plant. My lunch hours are spent picking up my daughters from their summer program. And my work has taken more of my creative energy than usual, which is good because it prevents boredom, but bad because it takes my creative energy! And yet, somehow, when I woke up this morning, I couldn't stop thinking about a post--or a series of posts--about what The Hunger Games does well.
Why is this post necessary, you might ask, since the books are wildly popular? Well, first of all, I liked them very reluctantly myself. I am that person who avoids things that are popular simply because they are popular. It was after a friend (Hat tip, Rochelle of The Bradley Clan) invited me to go with her to see the film that I became intrigued and read the trilogy. And even then, I was reluctant at first because frankly, I wasn't in love with the narrative voice. The first person, present tense narrative that ran throughout simply did not make sense to me. Because how can analysis and evaluation, contemplation and assessment, occur while the events of a story are taking place? That, and in the beginning, and in certain places thereafter, it is awkward to read a narrative written in present tense. I stand by that, though I have made tentative peace with the present tense, and well, first person is not my favorite mode, but it's functional, and by giving voice to a character that isn't necessarily introspective, and by resisting that analysis of past events, the novel almost subverts the first person and the present tense, though I risk attributing a degree of artfulness to a device that might have been a product of the author's "wouldn't it be cool/a challenge if...." But more on that later.
The other thing is that I have friends who love the novels, and some who do not care for them, or do not consider them worth considering. In the second (or third?) category is Darwin, who, if memory serves, found the novels a bit facile. Because this was a concern of mine--okay, so you make these kids fight to the death. That's original. Didn't Star Trek do that at some point?--and because I think my initial impression was unjust, I sort of feel the need to write through that because I don't think that's what's going on. There is also the argument that The Hunger Games world, novels, etc., do not belong in the ranks of dystopian literature because there are bigger, better dystopias out there, like Brave New World, which I love, and Darwin does not. Or 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and most notably for its potential parallel, Lord of the Flies. I will say that The Hunger Games is different from these dystopian visions, but deserves its due. I will also hold it up as far superior to The Giver, which is simply a catalog of hot-button issues for elementary school students. The Hunger Games does not have direct, one-to-one correspondences to news items, and that's fine. And if it borrows tropes from other dystopias, it is bound to do so, given the rich tradition of the dystopian novel. I see it as a welcome addition to the genre--if dystopia is, indeed, its genre (more on that later).
The novels aren't terribly quotable, though they are highly readable. And I find that interesting as well. They're not quite novels of ideas the same way as other dystopian literature, and I still maintain that the first person present prevents the reader from finding the answers in the cleverly constructed maxims. Indeed--that is another point of the novels: that overwrought language is overrated (and maybe there will be more on that later, too). So this will not be a series of "notable moments" the same way as my Gabaldon series. Rather, it will be organized according to the features of the novels that I find compelling.
One last note. It is a convention of writing titles that when referring to the title of a novel, you italicize. When referring to a series, you do not. So The Hunger Games the novel, vs. The Hunger Games trilogy. Just like The Chronicles of Narnia vs. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I will try to do this as I remember to distinguish the book from the trilogy, but I might slip up. Because really? These are not three distinct books. Not really. What we have is a single book that was split into three for purposes of a publishing contract and length. There is only one story, and the events take place in a very short time frame, as a series of novels goes. It very nearly observes the unities (okay, maybe not, but there you have it). And so I will often treat it as a single whole, and sometimes might forget that I'm discussing three distinct volumes.
Why is this post necessary, you might ask, since the books are wildly popular? Well, first of all, I liked them very reluctantly myself. I am that person who avoids things that are popular simply because they are popular. It was after a friend (Hat tip, Rochelle of The Bradley Clan) invited me to go with her to see the film that I became intrigued and read the trilogy. And even then, I was reluctant at first because frankly, I wasn't in love with the narrative voice. The first person, present tense narrative that ran throughout simply did not make sense to me. Because how can analysis and evaluation, contemplation and assessment, occur while the events of a story are taking place? That, and in the beginning, and in certain places thereafter, it is awkward to read a narrative written in present tense. I stand by that, though I have made tentative peace with the present tense, and well, first person is not my favorite mode, but it's functional, and by giving voice to a character that isn't necessarily introspective, and by resisting that analysis of past events, the novel almost subverts the first person and the present tense, though I risk attributing a degree of artfulness to a device that might have been a product of the author's "wouldn't it be cool/a challenge if...." But more on that later.
The other thing is that I have friends who love the novels, and some who do not care for them, or do not consider them worth considering. In the second (or third?) category is Darwin, who, if memory serves, found the novels a bit facile. Because this was a concern of mine--okay, so you make these kids fight to the death. That's original. Didn't Star Trek do that at some point?--and because I think my initial impression was unjust, I sort of feel the need to write through that because I don't think that's what's going on. There is also the argument that The Hunger Games world, novels, etc., do not belong in the ranks of dystopian literature because there are bigger, better dystopias out there, like Brave New World, which I love, and Darwin does not. Or 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and most notably for its potential parallel, Lord of the Flies. I will say that The Hunger Games is different from these dystopian visions, but deserves its due. I will also hold it up as far superior to The Giver, which is simply a catalog of hot-button issues for elementary school students. The Hunger Games does not have direct, one-to-one correspondences to news items, and that's fine. And if it borrows tropes from other dystopias, it is bound to do so, given the rich tradition of the dystopian novel. I see it as a welcome addition to the genre--if dystopia is, indeed, its genre (more on that later).
The novels aren't terribly quotable, though they are highly readable. And I find that interesting as well. They're not quite novels of ideas the same way as other dystopian literature, and I still maintain that the first person present prevents the reader from finding the answers in the cleverly constructed maxims. Indeed--that is another point of the novels: that overwrought language is overrated (and maybe there will be more on that later, too). So this will not be a series of "notable moments" the same way as my Gabaldon series. Rather, it will be organized according to the features of the novels that I find compelling.
One last note. It is a convention of writing titles that when referring to the title of a novel, you italicize. When referring to a series, you do not. So The Hunger Games the novel, vs. The Hunger Games trilogy. Just like The Chronicles of Narnia vs. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I will try to do this as I remember to distinguish the book from the trilogy, but I might slip up. Because really? These are not three distinct books. Not really. What we have is a single book that was split into three for purposes of a publishing contract and length. There is only one story, and the events take place in a very short time frame, as a series of novels goes. It very nearly observes the unities (okay, maybe not, but there you have it). And so I will often treat it as a single whole, and sometimes might forget that I'm discussing three distinct volumes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)