The Postmodern Simulacrum, Heterotopia and Gender Performativity in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy

• Main Authors: Tsai, Wei-Ting, 蔡瑋婷
• Other Authors: Chang, I-Chu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/58948216713421171532

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班 === 100 === This thesis discusses the impact of globalization as an allegory in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy. Along with tropes of poverty and famine, I will discuss how The Hunger Games trilogy expands its scope by creating a post-modern country and exaggerating the unequal governance, wealth inequality and surveillance in our world. This thesis will be divided into three chapters. The first is an exploration on Western imperialism in discussing global poverty and famine concerning my arguments that the world of Panem is the microcosm of the circumstances in our world in the wake of globalization. Moreover, I will employ Foucault’s theory of heterotopia to discuss the phantasmatic existence of District Thirteen, and investigate how the heterotopia co-presents and reverses reality and utopia in the nation of Panem. Secondly, I will explicate Baudrillard’s theory of simulacrum and the Panopticon theory noted by Foucault in discussing the postmodern cultural phenomenon in The Hunger Games trilogy by means of surveillance through cameras and televisuality. Thirdly, this thesis will investigate the performativity in different aspects: gender performativity, drag and cross-dressing, which I expound Butler’s notion of drag as the double-edged weapon, which either reifies the drag performer or opens up the potential site for subversion as well as the mechanism in mobilizing collective identities. Finally, this thesis concludes with Collins’ acknowledgement and support of people from the bottom. All in all, we readers may draw inspiration from descriptions of the novels to get better notice on regional development disparities in the wake of globalization.