Assignment 1: Compare and Contrast Essay

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
Name: Fong Wen Ying Cynthia
Student ID: 0320499
Films selected: The Hunger Games & Divergent
Word count: 914 words
English II (ELG 30605)
Written Assignment 1: Compare-Contrast Essay
Lecturer: Cassandra Wijesuria
Submission date: April 8
th
, 2015

2. The Hunger Games Divergent
Settings:
(Panem, D12, Capitol)
• Vague disasters
• Post-apocalyptic place
• 12 different society
• ‘May the odds be ever in your
favor.’
(Dystopia)
• City crumbling/ruining
• Giant fence
• 5 different society
• ‘Faction before blood.’
Characters:
• President Snow & Janine Matthews want them (Katniss & Tris) killed
• Main characters who emerges as a leader and grieves for the losses
she has suffered as a result of war.
• The main guy is subjected to some treatment, which makes him think
that his female love interest is his enemy.
(Peeta is implanted with fake memories & Four is injected with
simulation serum)
Moral Values:
• strong-willed in temperament (Katniss never lets anything get her
down, Tris determined to be able to do what the other Dauntless
initiates)
• bold and daring despite being just girls (Katniss shot an arrow near the
Gamemakers & when Tris volunteered to be the first to jump)

3. Science fiction is a genre of fiction involving imaginative content with
futuristic settings; futuristic technology that sometimes involves space travel
meeting aliens, time travel to change history. Within these alien situations,
real human concerns and issues, this makes the popularity of sci-fi two-fold:
we are thrilled by the imaginative worlds. This is why I find The Hunger
Games and Divergent special. These movies do not include those typical
space travel, time travel with sophisticated technology but instead, a rather
down casted theme was presented here. These two movies have various
similarities as well as characteristic that sometimes even make me wonder if
our future world would turn out like that too.
These two movies took place at an unspecified point in the future where
vague disasters caused Panem and Dystopia to be surrounded with giant
fence like a post-apocalyptic place. The world outside of Panem and Dystopia
is ruined, leaving buildings that once stood tall to crumble. Every year in
Panem, a male and a female from each of the divided 12 districts are chosen
during reaping. Within that world, the Hunger Games is an annually
televised bloodbath in which 24 children from outside the Capitol fight to the
death in penance for the rebellion of their forebears against the
Capitol’s command. As for Divergent, everyone must choose a faction out of
5, which are the Dauntless (military), Amity (peacemakers), Erudite (the
intelligent), Candor (lawyers) and the Abnegation (the selfless) once they
enter adulthood and commit to it for life. I find the motto, “may the odds be
ever in your favor” which basically means, I wish you the best chances of
winning always from The Hunger Games and “faction before blood” –
prioritize your faction over your family from Divergent, are both rather
heartless and inhuman.
The fact that both the rulers of Panem and Dystopia, President Snow and
Jeanine Matthews, are after the main characters in the movies is really hard
to deny that the storyline is similar. In The Hunger Games, President Snow
feels threatened because Katniss made a fool out of the Capitol twice when
she decorated Rue’s body, showing a softer side to the Hunger Games that
not all the participants are in it for blood but because they were chosen and
trying to survive and also when Katniss pulled out the poisoned night lock
berries to have a double suicide with Peeta, forcing President Snow to change
the rules making them both winners. The main reason this is disturbing for
him is because these are acts of rebelling against the Capitol showing that
Katniss can change the rules. In Divergent, Jeanine wants Tris killed because
she and the boy she fell in love with, Four, are Divergent and only they can
stop Jeanine’s plan to kill all the Abnegation leaders to not let the cat out of
the bag and to also rule Dystopia all on her own.
Although Katniss and Tris are just sixteen year-old girls, I admire how iron
willed in spirit Katniss is that not a thing could get into her way even if she
knew the odds were against her, while others would just sit back and die.
When Clove was about to kill her; instead of wimping out and pleading for her
life, she kept her eyes wide open and spat in Clove’s face. She is not only

4. brave but also intelligent: in the beginning of the Hunger Games she chose
not to charge into the bloodbath like many others instead, she ran to the
opposite direction and grabbed a bag of supplies then ran into the forest, and
not to mention how daring she was to shoot an arrow near one of the
Gamemaker’s head to catch their attention. On the other hand though, Tris
has the same inspiring determination as well, she was willing to do whatever
the other Dauntless members initiate especially from the scene where she
volunteered to be the first jumper.
We cannot deny that all the Jabberjays and Initiates (The Hunger Games and
Divergent fans) are ‘fan-girling’ over the love between Katniss and Peeta and
the low-profile relationship between Tris and Four. However, I bet no one
realize how similar this two couples are because the lover boys were
subjected to some treatment, which makes them think that Katniss or Tris is
their enemy. Peeta was hijacked with fake memories of Katniss being a threat
to him. Hijacking is a type of memory alteration and fear conditioning method
developed by the Capitol for torture. When Katniss knew that Peeta was
saved from the Capitol, she wasted no time to look for him. The moment she
was about to embrace Peeta, his hands were locked tight around her neck,
trying to strangle her. Same goes for Four, Jeanine specially programmed a
different scenario into the mind of Four, injected with the serum though he is
still conscious but is not in control of his own body. Yet, the serum was unable
to take over the permanently because he was neutralized immediately after
hearing Tris’ voice.
Science fiction often explores the potential upshot of not only scientific but
other innovations as well, hence sci-fi is also known as ‘literature of ideas’.
Just like what Issac Asimov, an author and a professor of biochemistry, once
said, ‘Science fiction is an existential metaphor…’ Who knows Panem and
Dystopia will be the only two cities remaining in the future and The Hunger
Games is the only way to survive in the future world?

5. References:
• Aminian, K. (2012, May 8). The Skrapits Games. Retrieved March 25,
2015, from http://theskrapitsgames.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-does-
president-snow-feel-threatened.html
• Cardieri, N. (2012, December 11). Dystopian Fiction: 2012. Retrieved
March 27, 2015, from
http://room116dystopianfiction.blogspot.com/2012/12/characters-
katniss-from-hunger-games.html
• Isaac Asimov Quotes :: Quoteland :: Quotations by Author. (n.d.).
Retrieved March 27, 2015, from
http://www.quoteland.com/author/Isaac-Asimov-Quotes/380/
• May the odds be ever in your favour: The language of The Hunger
Games | OxfordWords blog. (2012, September 5). Retrieved March 26,
2015, from http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/09/the-language-of-
the-hunger-games/