Reading Response 9/12

With Fausto-Sterling’s conversation about dualisms in mind, one of the major reoccurring themes I noticed in The Hunger Games was the dualism (or more accurately, the desconstruction of) between nature/ nonhuman and unnatural/ human. As Fausto-Sterling defines, dualisms are “pairs of opposing concepts, objects, or belief systems” that are central to a Western way of seeing the world (2000, p. 21). Furthermore, Fausto-Sterling critiques that this view often masks the interdependencies of each pair by emphasizing the dominance of one (2000). These statements felt true as I tried to unscramble the face-value of the dualism in The Hunger Games.

I suppose a major flaw in thinking of dualisms is that they are static and that one side is more favorable, true, etc. It is clichéd to say that there is more than one side to everything, but it is applicable to the shortcomings of dualisms. An example would be the woods in District 12. Following a dualism format, District 12 is the unnatural/ human area filled with industry and encased in a supposedly electrified fence to keep residents from going into the natural/ nonhuman (and even antihuman?) woods that are filled with “flesh-eaters” and “added concerns like venomous snakes, rabid animal, and no real paths to follow” (Collins, 2008, p. 5). However, Katniss and other residents know that the woods is also an area to forge and hunt for food, which is essential to survival (of humans). While District 12 might not have the dangers of the woods, it is not very inducing to survival. Katniss succinctly calls District 12, the place “where you can starve to death in safety” (Collins, 2008, p. 6).

Related to the nonstatic positions of supposedly opposing ends of a dualism, there is fluidity between. The fluidity and even overlapping between the opposing ends of a dualism more or less negates the purpose of it. A Hunger Games example would be the Arena for the Games. While the Arena is a natural terrain filled with elements and animals/ plants, etc., it is within the control of the human Gamemakers. The Gamemakers can add any “unnatural” element such as a wall of fire or the systematic drainage of water sources to the Arena if they felt the pace of excitement for the audience is not on par. Certain animals found in the Arena and the rest of Panem also embodied this fluid/ overlapping state of the natural/ unnatural. They are the muttations/ mutts such as the jabberjay/ mockingjay or the tracker jacker wasps. They were mainly developed as weapons for the Capitol during the war. Other than the manmade (and supposedly not natural) beginnings of these animals, it is interesting to note the aftermath of these animals. For the tracker jackers, Katniss notes that Capitol destroyed most of them, but possibly kept some nests of the wasps as a warning sign to the Districts, which shows some control the Capitol had over these natural/ unnatural creatures. The jabberjays on the other hand, managed to breed with mockingbirds and create a new species, the mockingjay, despite the Capitol’s attempt to destroy the creatures. The ultimate overlapping of the natural and unnatural creature are the wolf-like mutts towards the end of the Game. Katniss might have described them as “unnatural” and having “unmistakably human” eyes, which seems to land the creatures smack in the unnatural/ human camp of the dualism, but she also wonders if these creatures that are really the embodiment of the dead human tributes (such as if their memory is intact, etc.), which raises the question of the humanity of these creatures.

Fausto-Sterling also included an interesting quote by philosopher Val Plumwood. Dualisms can be seen as a cultural “store of weapons” that “‘can be mined, refined and redeployed’” (qtd. in 2000, p. 21). While the concept of dualisms is problematic, it can be used as weapons for resistance and be changed into other dualisms for such a purpose. The use of the mutations might be an example. Jabberjays were used by Rebels against the Capitol. Katniss had used the mockingjays and tracker jackers to her advantage in the Games. And from the spoilers I skimmed from Wikipedia, it seems like a dualism between natural and unnatural might be disassembled for a dualism between the Capitol and the Districts?