Armstrong Velazquez, Gabrielle Marie

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The bildungsroman in Suzanne Collins's young adult dystopian novels: The power of choice and its impact upon readers
(2024-05-09) Armstrong Velazquez, Gabrielle Marie; Haydock, Nickolas; College of Arts and Sciences - Art; Chansky , Ricia; Irizarry, Jose; Department of English; Alvarez, Jaquelina
This thesis project analyzes Suzanne Collins’s young adult dystopian novels as political bildungsroman and explores readers' responses to this sub-genre. The focus of my analysis is on Collins's Hunger Games trilogy and the prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The analysis examines the main characters’s—Katniss Everdeen and Coriolanus Snow—political and personal choices, the mentors who influenced them, their moments of transformation, and the themes of agency and control. In my analysis, I will position the novels as vehicles for challenging social injustices and promoting critical pedagogy. In order to accomplish this work, I draw upon the concepts of scapegoat and homo sacer, critical consciousness, reader responses, and the mentor relationships between the characters. Ultimately, I argue that the novels are praised by multiple readers for fostering empathy, political awareness, and social engagement among readers regardless of age, making these novels worthy of being taught in classrooms.