The Girl Who Was on Fire (22 page)

—Cyril Connolly

 

 

T
he Hunger Games trilogy deals with many themes: war, rebellion, the manipulation of media. But it was its concern with societal decadence and its inevitable downfall that made the first book’s release timely. The bestselling YA dystopian series came onto shelves just as the world’s economy took a tumble. For years we’d been living in comfort and excess. Consumerism was rife, and shows like
Sex and the City
glorified consumption by extolling the virtues of shoes worth hundreds of dollars. Then, suddenly, the party was over, and the world became concerned with trying to save money rather than spend it. Today the idea of wasteful consumption turns our stomachs.

It isn’t as if this is the first time our society has gone from a period of great decadence to a time of recession; the pattern seems to be predictable. Yet despite the fact that rampant self-indulgence never lasts, those in the moment still somehow manage to think it can. Why is it that those in power truly believe that this time, this time, decadence will win out? Probably because decadence can be so much darn fun. The problem is, in order for these few people to continue to live this kind of lifestyle, many others must sacrifice a great deal of personal
freedom. And it is the dissatisfaction of the many forced to make this sacrifice that inevitably leads to the decadent society’s downfall.

First, before we look at the books themselves, a definition of decadence is in order. Most of us think of decadence as being a matter of pure indulgence. Going to the spa. Sleeping in past noon. Being fed chocolates by a handsome young man while another fans you with a large palm leaf. That kind of thing—a moment of pure selfishness, where a person’s own desires are met. And truly, there isn’t anything wrong with going to the spa, or sleeping in, or being fed chocolates—once in a while. It can be a huge release to take a moment to do something that has no practical purpose aside from relaxing the body and indulging the senses.

Decadence in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it’s probably even a necessary thing, every so often, to experience a moment of indulgence, especially as so often we spend our lives working and doing things for others. A bit of selfishness can have remarkable restorative powers, allowing us to rejuvenate ourselves and carry on with the daily grind of life. It can be the reward for having to do something particularly trying. The dessert at the end of the healthy meal.

The trouble with decadence, like the trouble with most things, comes from over-indulging in it—a lack of moderation. To live a life that consists solely of decadent experiences would be to live a life that is very unproductive. Sleeping all day and then going to the spa and eating chocolates? When would you get anything practical done?

The other problem with decadence is that, after indulging, it can be difficult to go back to the regular grind of work. Why get up at seven-thirty in the morning to get chores done when
you can sleep in? Why feed yourself when hunky guys can do it for you? (Okay, the whole hunky guy argument is rather solid. But I digress.) We have to live our lives. We have to make money so that we can put food on our table. We have to cultivate and grow that food in the first place.

What happens, then, when someone wants to live a decadent lifestyle all the time? Well, it means he has to find someone else to provide all the other stuff for him. He needs to find someone else to make the products that he is indulging in. He needs to find someone else to clean his apartment. To raise his children. Self-indulgence becomes the worst kind of team effort, the many working for the benefit of the one.

What’s more, spending one’s life focused solely on one’s own pleasure, aside from affecting one’s physical well being—sleeping all day, that can’t be good for muscle strength—can also have an even more dangerous effect on the psyche. When a person’s purpose in life becomes indulging himself, it’s tempting to start believing that anything that gets in the way of the indulgence must be stopped, and anything that helps achieve it should be promoted. And when you care only about yourself, why should you care about the people who make it possible for you to indulge? Why should you care about your “team”?

This is how a world like the one in the Hunger Games series can come into being. But instead of being about an individual who is interested in self-indulgence, the books are about an entire society. Such a society isn’t a fictional construct. We have seen such societies in the real world, as well. Ancient Rome was known for its decadent parties, where servants were on hand to wipe spittle from the faces of wealthy citizens indulging in feasts while reclining on couches in rooms with walls painted gold. The time of Marie Antoinette was well-known for extravagance, not only in clothes and food, but also in the complete indulgence of fantasy. The queen
was infamous for so thoroughly not understanding the suffering and starvation of her people that, when told they had no bread to eat, she said, “Let them eat cake.” She took this oblivious decadence to a whole new level when she had a miniature hamlet built at her palace of Versailles, adjacent to her villa Petit Trianon, where she could pretend to be a common shepherdess or milkmaid and enhance her fantasy by petting her animals, milking cows, even collecting eggs from chickens—playing at what was, for many of her subjects, a difficult daily reality.

What’s worse, such societies can actually convince themselves that this self-indulgence of the few based on the work of the many can actually be a good thing for everyone. That it is better to curtail part of the population’s rights and freedoms so that the society as a whole can remain intact.

In
The Hunger Games
the excuse is to prevent nuclear holocaust. We are told it almost happened once before, which is why District 13, the district that produced nuclear weaponry, was supposedly destroyed. The country now lives under the watchful eye and mighty thumb of the Capitol, not as a punishment, but to prevent total annihilation. A little suffering, the reasoning goes, is better than oblivion. It is better for all to work toward one positive goal, the supposed preservation of the country, and to give up certain personal freedoms such as how much one can eat or how laws are enacted and enforced, than to live a life that could destroy society. In the Hunger Games individual rights and freedoms are dangerous toys for a careless populace.

And, as any good child knows, if you can’t play with your toys nicely, you lose them.

 

 

When we are first
introduced to the dystopian future of the Hunger Games trilogy, the reader can easily draw the conclusion
that we are being painted a picture of a gloomy impoverished future: a post-apocalyptic world where everyone must fend for themselves. Of course, we conclude this because we are introduced first to District 12, one of the poorest districts in the country. What we don’t realize until later is that this series isn’t about people surviving in a world where there are no commodities, but rather about a world where most exist in terrible conditions in order to support those who have great luxury and food aplenty. These lucky few simply don’t live in the districts (though some districts do have more than others). These lucky few are the citizens in the Capitol, a city state reminiscent of ancient Rome.

Examples of decadence come to us in drips and drabs. The first indication that things are different elsewhere is Effie Trinket’s colored wigs. The absurdity of her appearance is in stark contrast to that of the citizens of 12, who can barely afford to clothe themselves, let alone decorate themselves to no practical purpose. But our first example of true decadence is served on the train to the Capitol—in a very visceral moment when Katniss is presented with not only enough to eat, but too much.

Food is a huge metaphor in the books. The country is even called “Panem,” which means “bread.” Food is life. We learn that it is what initially brought Katniss and Peeta together as children when he saved her life by giving her slightly burnt bread. Food gave her hope when she and Gale were able to hunt and provide for her family. Food becomes a symbol of strength to her in the arena when, during her first Hunger Games, District 11 sends her bread as a gift of gratitude. Food is what keeps people alive. It’s what shows others that they care. And so when we see food treated as trash, when we see people simply throw food away because they have too much of it, we understand that we are witnessing the ultimate display of decadence and overindulgence: life being tossed aside.

For each piece of food wasted, we the reader can only imagine how much that food would have helped someone in one of the districts. Nothing in the entire trilogy achieves a more disgusting display of decadence than the party in
Catching Fire
, where people eat as much as they possibly can only to vomit it back up so that they can eat more: “All I can think of is the emaciated bodies of the children on our kitchen table as my mother prescribes what the parents can’t give ... And here in the Capitol they’re vomiting for the pleasure of filling their bellies again and again.”

Here we have another clear allusion to ancient Rome, where it was commonplace to vomit up one’s meal in order to partake of more—or at least to vomit post-meal after having partaken of too much. As Cicero is thought to have said of Julius Caesar: “[He] expressed a desire to vomit after dinner.” As if eating until one threw up was the way things worked, and not representative of overindulgence.

Another demonstration of indulgence in the series is the luxury of taking care of one’s outer self. For Katniss, clothes are a means to guard against the elements. Her one sentimental garment is her father’s hunting jacket, and even it still serves a practical purpose. She does so little to take care of her appearance that her style team has to work very hard just to get her to a
starting point
of which they approve. We see in comparing her way of life to that of the Capitol how extreme its way of life really is. Not only do its citizens dress in extravagant clothes and wear ridiculous wigs, but they surgically alter their appearance by dyeing their skin bright colors and even by making themselves look like animals.

Of course, this obsession with superficiality should feel familiar to any of us reading these books. It reflects not only habits of the past, but our current modern obsessions. In ancient
Rome the citizens were wig-obsessed, as were those living in the Restoration Period in England and the time preceding the French Revolution, where women’s wigs could reach upwards of three feet high. Even today, we see an obsession with hair pieces and extensions.

But the idea of surgically altering a person’s appearance purely for aesthetic purposes is a truly modern idea. We cut and slice and dice ourselves and stitch it all back up together in an effort to look younger or more attractive. A sign of true wealth and decadence is a woman who is more plastic than flesh. And, of course, we have all seen the pictures of those who overindulged. Images of the “Cat Lady,” a woman who attempted to look cat-like through surgery, became infamous around the world. It’s hard not to think of her real life example when introduced to Tigris in the books, a character who exemplifies going too far—so far, in fact, that she is beyond ridicule, and instead we pity her.

As it stands in current society, the purpose of plastic surgery is to make a person appear as if she hasn’t had any, unlike the characters in the Hunger Games about whose cosmetic surgery there can be no doubt. But is it that impossible to think things won’t shift? After all, it used to be that we recognized older people because of the lines on their faces. Now we recognize the typical “rejuvenating” procedures: skin pulled back so tightly that there is little expression left on the face; work done around the eyes to make them look cavernous. Such an appearance used to be considered unnatural; people would gossip disdainfully about anyone who looked that way. But now the tell-tale tightness is becoming so common that people hardly notice it as unusual. What’s to say adding a tail eventually wouldn’t be considered just as normal? And fun to swoosh around.

Decadence is also seen in the neo-classical architecture of
Panem’s grand columned buildings, reflecting the Roman influence once again. The purpose of the architecture in ancient Rome was to demonstrate Rome’s power over the rest of the world, and its wealth. It was large, it was audacious, it was decadently decorated with frescos, friezes, and other forms of statuary, sometimes even painted in gold. We get glimpses of comparable architecture in
Catching Fire
at the celebration in the Capitol. The banquet room has forty-foot-high ceilings, musicians seemingly float on white clouds halfway up, the floor is covered with flower gardens and ponds are filled with exotic fish. And tables are replaced by sofas “so that people can eat and drink ... in the utmost comfort” just as the ancient Romans did (
Catching Fire
).

And though not ancient Roman–inspired, architecture as decadence can also be seen in President Snow’s greenhouse in
Mockingjay
. Such a building requires a great deal of upkeep and money to maintain, and the purpose of Snow’s is not even food production—it’s the ability to grow roses year round. Its description as too sweet, almost suffocating in its heat, is a great reminder of the excess it represents.

Thanks to the way the series begins, with Katniss in District 12, the reader has no doubt that behind all this decadence is a large population working to support it. Like the bottom row of cheerleaders in the pyramid, the job of the districts is to prop up the Capitol. Each district provides a particular resource to the rest of the country. Or so it is said. From the beginning of
The Hunger Games
, however, we know there is not enough food to go around, not enough building supplies to construct solid homes to protect people from the elements. Product is being made, but it is clear that the Capitol is getting the lion’s share. None of it is being consumed by the districts.