2. Initial Research
“My name is Katniss Everdeen.
I am seventeen years old.
My home is District 12.
I was in the Hunger Games.
I escaped.
The Capitol hates me”
Mockingjay 5
“...there will never be a way for me to
not know this again...I am broken”
Mockingjay 191
4. “If it were up to me, I would try to forget the Hunger Games
entirely. Never speak of them. Pretend they were nothing but a
bad dream. But the Victory Tour made that impossible.
Strategically placed almost midway between the annual Games,
it is the Capitol’s way of keeping the horror fresh and
immediate.”
Catching Fire 4
5. “Yes, victors are our strongest. They’re the ones who
survived the arena and slipped the noose of poverty that
strangles the rest of us They, or should I say we, are the very
embodiment of hope where there is no hope. And now
twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope
was an illusion. ”
Catching Fire 212
6. My mother. My younger brother. My
girl. They were all dead two weeks after
I was crowned victor. Because of that
stunt I pulled with the force field.
Haymitch Abernathy
Mockingjay 201
…if a girl from District Twelve of all
places can defy the Capitol and walk
away unharmed, what is to stop them
from doing the same?
President Snow
Catching Fire 21
if I want to keep those I love alive and stay alive
myself. I’ll have to marry Peeta.
Katniss Everdeen
Catching Fire 44
7. VICTIM
one whose vulnerability has been abused
Carine Mardorossian
Framing the Rape Victim:
Gender and Agency Reconsidered 15
8. President Snow used to...sell me...my body that is...I
wasn’t the only one. If a victor is considered desirable,
the president gives them as a reward or allows people to
buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you
refuse, he kills someone you love.
Finnick Odair
Mockingjay 198
9. I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen
someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little
tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are worse games to play.
Mockingjay 455
10. Bibliography
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.
Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.
Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.
Mardorossian, Carine M. Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press, 2014. Print.
Editor's Notes
Good afternoon, my name is Ellen Scherer and I am presenting the following work: Trauma Games, Reclaiming Tributehood.
What initially drew me to this conversation of trauma is my thesis work regarding the Hunger Games.
After her participation in the Hunger Games, Katniss experiences multiple trauma symptoms such as waking nightmares, identity crisis and social detachment.
In Mockingjay we see Katniss struggling to stabilize her identity.
I noticed this struggle with identity seemed to be enhanced by a rebranding by other people.
The Capitol and general population title her as such: including tribute, girl on fire, victor, potential Games mentor, fiancee/wife, tribute again, and finally Mockingjay.
Every identity she is branded with after her escape from the Hunger Games relates back to her tribute identity and therefore, the source of her trauma.
Aware of this connection, Katniss Catching Fire that required social events like the Victory Tour are “the Capitol’s way of keeping the horror [of the Games] fresh and immediate” for victors.
So, she moves to reclaim the titles she was given. Katniss determines “victors are the strongest” because they survived the Games.
However, this strength is an illusion, because victors are more harshly controlled by the government than the general population.
As determined by these quotes, only victors who submit to the Capitol agenda remain safe. Those who attempt to rebel are punished severely. They become victims of the Capitol.
In Framing the Rape Victim, Carine Mardorossian defines the term “victim” as one whose vulnerability has been abused, not one who has allowed one’s self fall prey to a condition where others are impermeable. In other words, everyone is vulnerable, and anyone could become a victim.
But victim has become a dirty word-- a word we must revisit for the defense of the innocent... we see this in cases of sexual violence and terrorist attacks. “Survivor” is the preferred term.
Here, we see Finnick Odair expose himself as victim of the Capitol since his time as a tribute, but he does so in a way which highlights his innocence as well as the abuse he endured through Capitol practices.
Finnick’s story does not render the revolution immediately successful, but the media exposure at least begins to break down the normalcy of Capitol oppression on Panem’s citizens.
Thus, we readers can begin to think critically about how we view victimhood, trauma and identity.
I wish I could say that reclaiming victimhood is way to eliminate one’s trauma, but recovering takes more than simply admitting the experience came to pass.
When Katniss was being continuously re-labeled she was never able to heal properly from her trauma.
However, after the Revolution she begins to achieve self-actualization through her own healthy practice of returning to positive experiences rather than traumatic ones.
I’ll leave you with this last excerpt from Mockingjay.
