Date of Award
Spring 2022
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Department
English Language and Literatures
First Advisor
Scott Gwara
Abstract
Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games enhanced the popularity of post-apocalyptic, young adult literature written between 2004 and 2014 (a genre I call millennial dystopia). A government that sends its people to war, spies on them, and sacrifices the sanctity of the community for personal profit while the powerful and wealthy watch from a secure distance is an anxiety addressed in this fiction. The hero of millennial dystopias satiates the suffering that emerges from this angst.
Through her story, Katniss is pushed to her destiny on a path that leads her to become the hero of The Hunger Games trilogy. In fact, she becomes a serendipitous hero— the savior of a secular world. Three characteristics define the serendipitous hero: moments of fate, rejection of society, and unconditional love. In the secular universes of millennial dystopian fiction, a vacuum of power and a desire for a greater, divine force demands a hero restore faith in providence, nature, and goodness. Serendipitous circumstance chooses these heroes to shepherd humanity back to paradise.
Katniss Everdeen volunteers.
Rights
© 2022, Alexandra Elizabeth Oberempt
Recommended Citation
Oberempt, A. E.(2022). Restoring Paradise Through Providence: The Emergence of the Serendipitous Hero in the Hunger Games. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/6543