1984/Hunger games

Hunger Games/1984

This set of the document to the notion « imaginary worlds”. It is composed of two extracts from dystopias. The first document is taken from the novel entitled The Hunger Games which was written by Suzanne Collins and published in 2009. The second document is an extract from the novel 1984 which was written by George Orwell and published in 1948.

Panem used to be a North America, but that continent was destroyed by natural disasters, due to global warming: the level of the seas rose and the seas flooded the land. The people who lived on the coasts escaped and had to fight to survive. So, natural disasters caused brutal wars and people killed each other until the creation of Panem.

Panem is the name of the new country, whose capital is called the capitol. It centralizes power and it is ringed by 12 districts, 13 at the beginning. District 1 is richer than district 2 which is wealthier than district 3 and so on, until district 12, which is the poorest of all: actually, the closer to the capitol you are, the richer you are.

Each district is specialized of one sort of good: energy, farming, fish etc… and set production to the capitol, whose inhabitant are idle, wealthy, and obsessed with fashion and futile things.

As many people in the districts thought that the organization was unfair and as they suffered from poverty and inequalities, they decided to rebel. There were uprising and riots. This period in the history of Panem is known as “The Dark Days”. Finally, the capitol won and implemented new laws called the treaty of Treason. District 13 was destroyed and the Hunger Games were created.

In 1984, after a nuclear war, the world is divided into 3 blocs: Oceania, Eastasia {istèjia} and Eurasia {youréjia}. They are totalitarian regimes, headed by dictators. The scene is set in Oceania, whose dictator is Big Brother and where the doctrine is INGSOC. On that continent, the Telescreen, the Thought Police, and police patrols in helicopters and by propaganda control citizen’s minds. The atmosphere is oppressive due the various ways of controlling people that are mentioned: the police patrols in helicopters who snoop on the inhabitants, the Telescreen which can’t be turned off and which can hear and watch what people do, and the poster of Big Brother whose eyes follow you everywhere.

This set of documents refers to the notion “imaginary worlds” because it introduces is to two different worlds which do not lost and which belong to science-fiction. They are dystopias, that is to say, imaginary projection of what our world could be in the future if something went wrong. Dystopias are pessimistic view of our world in the future and they describe dangerous tendencies in our society, which can bring to catastrophes. The Hunger Games criticizes totalitarian whereas 1984 criticizes our world in the future. If something went wrong, totalitarian regimes and wars: the Cold War

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