Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Political Science
Mentor
Dr. Elizabeth Amato
Abstract
Governments have long employed entertainment as a tool of distraction. Recognized as the concept of panem et circenses or “festivals and spectacles,” governments manipulate entertainment so that citizens often willingly exchange their power for distraction and comfort. In The Hunger Games, author Suzanne Collins revises this narrative and uses entertainment as a tool for education.Achieving wide-reaching popularity, Collins leveraged both print and screen media to empower a generation. Collins warns against the dangers of panem et circenses and underscores the importance of hope as a force that counters societal despair and distraction. I argue that throughout The Hunger Games series, Collins highlights how hope empowers love to pursue goodness. Love drives her characters to take virtuous action, bringing an internal freedom that transcends political circumstance or the misfortunes of fate. This study investigates Collins’s aims and effectiveness. It synthesizes Collins’s works with the political philosophers she draws from, which include: Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Augustine, Montesquieu, Socrates, Seneca, Machiavelli, and the American founders, analyzing the political lessons she teaches and their value for American society.
Citation Information
Hudson, Sydney G., "Panem et Circenses: Entertainment and Empires in The Hunger Games Series" (2025). Undergraduate Honors Theses. 70.
https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/undergrad-honors/70