The representation of the classic hero in the female character Katniss Everdeen, from the series "The Hunger Games"

• Grant number: 15/23592-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2016
• End date: February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Maria Celeste Tommasello Ramos
• Grantee: Guilherme Augusto Louzada Ferreira de Morais
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

We will study the book series The Hunger Games (2010) in order to prove the permanence of values and models of Classical Antiquity in Modernity. Therefore, we focus on the female character Katniss Everdeen and the characteristics that define her as heroine, comparing her to the classical heroic model, described by many authors of Greece and Rome, for example, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, etc. and also considering the reflections on the hero made by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1997), among other titles and authors that will base our studies. We realize that there is, in the series, a reversal of archetypes (hero versus maiden), as Katniss Everdeen assumes the role of hero and Peeta Mellark, male tribute, takes the role of Maiden, because he is always saved by her. We seek to verify what diverts the plot in study from the molds then established by the Classics, in which the man was a warrior and his wife was a housewife. In the route of heroine's study, we will make a comparison between Katniss, once slave of the Capitol, which becomes heroine and symbol of a whole revolution, and the male hero of another work - Spartacus, slave and gladiator of Thrace, who was leader of a revolution, known as War of Slaves, as it can be demonstrated in the novel Spartacus by Howard Fast (1951) and the film based on this literary work, by Stanley Kubrik (1951), with the main purpose to prove the inversion of archetypes and check the presence of elements linked to the Roman culture in the series written by Collins. Finally, we seek to verify how the classical model, in the figure of mythological heroes, or in the historical character of Spartacus, are represented in the configuration of the female protagonist of The Hunger Games and which meanings such representations may add to the interpretation of the series.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

MORAIS, Guilherme Augusto Louzada Ferreira de. The representation of the classical hero model in the female character Katniss Everdeen, from The Hunger Games. 2018. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Biociências Letras e Ciências Exatas. São José do Rio Preto São José do Rio Preto.