Politics and political feeling in Young Adult fiction

What is it about?

In this paper, I discuss print and screen adaptations of the Spartacus story to make a case for reading the Hunger Games trilogy as a radical fiction not of political revolution per se but of the intimate feeling on which revolution depends. In her trilogy, Suzanne Collins suggests that the fierce self-interest of the modern political economy—exemplified in the arena—has eroded vital bonds of care and affection traditionally fostered at home. In response, she attempts to recuperate the family as a meaningful social form by telling a kind of Spartacus story that recasts the gladiator revolutionary as a self-sacrificing teenager fighting out of sisterly love. Unlike rival stories told in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and cable-channel Starz’s Spartacus, Collins’s trilogy reveals a gladiator paradigm driven by a desire to care for, rather than punish, bodies politic.

Featured Image