In catching fire there many parallels of economic inequality and division of social class i see in today's society. I believe it touches upon forms of racism that segregated the poor districts from the rich ones in catching fire because they don't want any integration to occur among the districts.the same could be said for america around 50 years ago that did not allow black and white integration to occur but not only that but poor African Americans to attend school and not become victims of the poor working class. Panem segregated the poor working class in different districts and there is a major division that district 12 and district 1 have.Katniss had a taste of the luxurious life district 1 has when she began stuffing her face with food. Katniss tastes everything in your vision and says “every table presents new temptations ”, “I pick up a small roasted bird and bite into it and my tongue floods with orange sauce,Delicious.But i make Peeta eat the remainder because I want to keep tasting things, and the idea of throwing away food, as i see so many people doing casually, is abhorrent to me”. ( Collins, page 78). I have felt that same way as my parents face such hardships of having a enough food to eat in a day and have been conditioned by my parents to not throw away food.i doubt other families of wealthy class in America today ever wonder the value of food and not throw it away, like when Katniss was describing what the people in district 1 did. She filled her gluttonous self to the point she said “ I couldn't hold another bite. (Collins, page 79).
We see a major economic inequality here that people not only don't value food and its abundance but purposely regurgitate it because they want more and more! Flavius gives Peeta something to drink and Octavia shrieks “not here” and Venia say “you have to there it in there” as she was pointing to the door of the toilets. Peeta asks indirectly the point of this and Octavia says “of course so you can keep eating” ( Collins, page 79)The people in district 1 drink a liquid to make them vomit so they can have more food and I draw parallels to how we in the united states abuse our abundance of food by having it so cheaply by the $ as well have massive portions or plates of food that feed more than a single individual. While in the mean time there are millions of people around the world starving, let alone the thousands who starve in the America, who don't even have the luxury to choose what they eat, let alone have an overabundance in America. I think ,Suzanne Collins does draw faint parallels of social division and class, using food as a crutch, to compare America’s own social and class division.
In La weekly, Andrew Simmons talks about how Lisa Miller dissects a Barney’s campaign in November 22,2010 about how food has become fashionable and cites a 80,000 diamond necklace “garnished” with octopus tentacles (Simmons, 2010) .She also states a billboard she saw by Barney featuring a model and says “looks like a crown of chocolate ganache florets piled atop her head and a fat cherry tucked between her dark-red lips like an edible ball-gag. "Have a foodie holiday," reads the script in piped icing font.
She continues saying “Food is already a mighty dividing line in America. The richest Americans are getting richer; the poorest Americans are getting no less poor. Rich people buy $20 hunks of raw-milk cheese and talk about ramps; poor people eat frozen dinners, suffer from obesity, and die before they should. Thus, it's sort of grossly perfect that a high-end department store has seized upon the idea of pairing sex and impeccable produce to push luxury togs.” It seems the more our capitalist society feeds into the consumerism hole we need to fill , the more we buy ridiculously expensive items, like an octopus garnished diamond necklace advertised, the more divided we become in terms of social class.
This is just one example of how division of social class that happens in our society that we should be aware of.Should we question how our culture participates in relation , to how the capitol in Panem participates, into fulfilling a void of consumerism? Are we also being blinded, like the people in the capitol, into fulfilling our materialistic desires and ignore the bigger issues of economic inequality by division of social class ?
By Erik L. Blog assignment:Text to world
References cited
Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2009. Print.
Simmons, Andrew .”The Dinner Divide,Discussed:Or,Food + Class in America”, LA Weekly, 2010.Website
http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/the-dinner-divide-discussed-or-food-class-in-america-2378151
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