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English 1B.01
The Struggle between Socialization and Individualism in The Hunger Games
“Remember, they already love you,” he says gently. “Just be yourself” (Collins 123). The
Hunger Games, a novel written by Suzanne Collins, narrate the story of a 16-year-old girl called
Katniss Everdeen who steps in for her younger sister in a barbaric tradition called the Hunger
Games where citizens are forced to fight to the death. The Hunger Game is a yearly event
organized by the in Capitol as a punishment for the surrounding 12 districts. Each district is
supposed to choose a girl and a boy between the ages of 12 to 18 to fight in the game. They are
supposed to fight until only one tribute remains. The last person would be the winner and given
gifts. The Hunger Games are the ultimate showdown between the wants of the group and the
wants of the individual. Society deems that the children from 11 of the 12 districts must die for
one to survive and the public support for this exercise satirizes the extremes that a group
dynamic can drive society to. Within this extremely compliant populace that supports and
celebrates children killing each other is the propagandist, Katniss, who is a rule breaking
individual. The tension of the story is the Katniss’ fight with socialism in order to not just
survive the hunger games, but to remain true to herself and not lose individuality by blindly
killing others in the game.
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Socialization is the learning process of the values, norms, beliefs, and attitudes of the
society. Socialization process is critical because it ensures there is the social order in the
organization (Dahlstrom 337). There is need to have social law because people are in constant
interaction. John Locke said that everybody is born a tabula rasa with few involuntary flexes like
sucking and crying. The person is shaped by experience and education through the society to be
human. Social learning enables people able to know how to talk, walk, and understand their roles
in the community. Culture punishes the folks who don’t comply with the social values and beliefs
through ridicule (Dahlstrom 339). This is the 12 districts depicted in the book The Hunger
Games, they citizens are so shaped by the Capital that parents have accepted the most unnatural
thing imaginable, they are asked to give up there children and to watch them fight to the death.
