It is Catching Fire that introduces the reader to one of the grand literacy themes in the Hunger Games trilogy, which can be best summed up in the question: scripted or unscripted? Up to this point, we have become acquaited with the artiface of the capital in The Hunger Games, and we have learned, in particular, of the artiface of the games, which require the tributes to play to the audience, deliberately providing the grand entertainment in order to have their efforts to engage the Capital rewarded in the form of help in the arena as the citizens throw support behind their favorite tribute by buying gifts to help that tribute survive. However, the artificiality very deliberately does not translate into something that is scripted. Unlike in Brave New World, in which the "feelies" are scripted (by such as Helmholz Watson), the entertainment in the capital seems reality-based, like the games. Other events in support of the games are televised, including, significantly, interviews with Caesar Flickerman, which are not scripted, but are the result of coaching from the District mentor and Effie Trinket (in the case of Disctrict 12), who is a kind of escort to the tributes.
That entertainment is artificial, but not script-based does not seem to have much to do with literacy--after all, we have reality television, and though the games are extreme, there is an element of familiarity to the genre of television portrayed. It is in Catching Fire, when Peeta and Katniss are given scripts, and when Katniss tries to write for herself a memorial of Rue that the script--or lack thereof--becomes important. During the victory tour, Peeta and Katniss are expected to follow a set routine, which Katniss describes:
Peeta and I will be introduced, the mayor of 11 will read a speech in our honor, and we’ll respond with a scripted thank-you provided by the Capitol. If a victor had any special allies among the dead tributes, it is considered good form to add a few personal comments as well.Her dilemma is that though she knows she should add a personal statement about Rue and Thresh, she faces what one of my English teachers in high school would call the "tyrrany of the blank page": "every time I tried to write it at home, I ended up with a blank paper staring me in the face." (56-57). However, as the narrative stresses over and over, Katniss cannot perform by creating or recreating context in her mind alone. She can not fool herself into acting--or in this case, writing--as if the contrived or imagined situation is real. By contrast, she is able to deliver a speech to District 11, following Peeta's gift of one month of their winnings every year--once she is actually present in the moment:
“Wait, please.” I don’t know how to start, but once I do, the words rush from my lips as if they’ve been forming in the back of my mind for a long time. “I want to give my thanks to the tributes of District Eleven,” I say. I look at the pair of women on Thresh’s side. “I only ever spoke to Thresh one time. Just long enough for him to spare my life. I didn’t know him, but I always respected him. For his power. For his refusal to play the Games on anyone’s terms but his own. The Careers wanted him to team up with them from the beginning, but he wouldn’t do it. I respected him for that."
. . .
I turn to Rue’s family. “But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she’ll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim.” My voice is undependable, but I am almost finished. “Thank you for your children.” I raise my chin to address the crowd. “And thank you all for the bread.” (60-61)Katniss's struggles with writing her feelings, contrasted with her ability to speak in context, stresses one of the essential properties of writing. It is decontextualized. Usually, this observation is made of writing itself--that it is, as Walter Ong noted, "separate from the human life-world." The book is decontextualized; the reader has to recreate the context from the available clues. However, the writer is often separate from the context as well. Katniss's difficulty stems from that decontextualization, and recalls Wordsworth's description of poetry as the "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion recollected in tranqility." Clearly, Katniss is not a poet, since even when she feels "powerful emotion," her recollections, which cannot really be said to take place "in tranquility," do not translate into words.
When the Quarter Quell is announced, and Peeta and Katniss are reaped and then, without being allowed to say goodbye, taken to the Capital, Katniss actually muses on the limitations of literacy, and specifically, its removal from the immediacy of real life as it is happening:
I sit on the bed, knowing I will never write those letters. They will be like the speech I tried to write to honor Rue and Thresh in District 11. Things seemed clear in my head and even when I talked before the crowd, but the words never came out of the pen right. Besides, they were meant to go with embraces and kisses and a stroke of Prim’s hair, a caress of Gale’s face, a squeeze of Madge’s hand. They cannot be delivered with a wooden box containing my cold, stiff body. (188-189)Writing lacks immediacy; it is decontextualized, cold and impersonal.
Although Katniss can conjure words when she is moved, Peeta is represented in the novel as being particularly good with words, particularly as compared to Katniss, and by Katniss in particular. The difference is that Peeta is able to perform on command, to play to a crowd, and that he can lie--he can "make anyone believe anything" (346). In short, Peeta has a natural gift for rhetoric. Nevertheless, on the victory tour, he is also scripted, with a speech prepared by the Capital. In Distrct 11, he deviates:
Peeta had his personal comments written on a card, but he doesn’t pull it out. Instead he speaks in his simple, winning style about Thresh and Rue making it to the final eight, about how they both kept me alive — thereby keeping him alive — and about how this is a debt we can never repay. And then he hesitates before adding something that wasn’t written on the card. Maybe because he thought Effie might make him remove it. (59)Peeta's addition is the offer of one month of their winnings each year, which prepares the way for Katniss's speech, which in turn incites defiance in District 11. The result for Peeta and Katniss is that, seeing how easily they can cause a crisis, they resolve to stick to the script:
Listen to a speech in our honor. Give a thank-you speech in return, but only the one the Capitol gave us, never any personal additions now. (71)Katniss's commentary is telling, and reveals another weakness of writing: it can be discovered, and censored.
There are a few other interesting literacy moments in Catching Fire: Snow reading the card with the Quarter Quell challenge, supposedly written 75 years before, but clearly altered; Madge's access to capital newspapers by way of her father the Mayor of District 12; Peeta making notes on the other victors, then tearing the pages of notes from his notebook of victors who were not reaped. The idea of being scripted continues into Mockingjay--the artificiality of the Capital and Katniss's inability to conform to others' expectations is a major theme in the book, and the "Propos" in District 13 further develop the theme and help the reader to discover Katniss, and Katniss to discover herself. The underlying point, however, is that literacy has limitations--not everyone can use it to their advantage, as Katniss certainly is unable to command written language. Literacy is risky, since it can be discovered. And if she can't be scripted, Katniss can't easily help the rebels by being their mouthpiece in Mockingjay. Literacy carries very little power in the Hunger Games Trilogy.
What, then, is its power? I think the answer is something much more akin to the power of Peeta's painting.
To be continued in Pt. 4
