Between birds and snakes, in a hunger game for life: the young reader and dystopia

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis about The Hunger Games (2008-10) trilogy and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020), by Suzanne Collins, as examples of dystopian narratives that were popularized, reaching many young readers. In common, these narratives present the uncertain as new and curiosity and use some resources of narrative and the characters creation to captivate the young reader, allowing to identify whit characters and triggering a resigned reality reading. These texts use a more accessible vocabulary and prioritize the narrative to engender in the reader reflections on power relations, censorship, and the rigid determination of social roles, for this reason, they also reveal themselves as a way of fighting against colonial power. These aspects can be considered as determinants of the wide spread of dystopia among young readers.