Justine McKittrick

MOCKINJAY: ANTRHOPOLOGIST, NEW CRITIC, FEMINIST

• During Annie and Finnick's wedding, everyone starts to dance. Katniss reveals how in District 12, they really know how to dance because it is part of their culture that the Capitol did not manage to supress. Dance is a practice in many cultures around our world today that reflects the aspects of a people. Russians take pride in ballet with their Bolshoi Balerinas, Africans have various tribal dances with drums, for example Ringshout is an African dance that the slaves brought to America developed to express their religion and spirit of their culture and heritage. The Irish have step dancing as a reflection of their culture. Recent forms of dance today in America are hip hop and freestyle. There are so many movies and shows today like Step Up and America's Best Dance Crew that reflect America's recent cultural dances that are wild and freeing for young people to partake in. In Mockingjay , the fact that District 12 has a culture of dancing shows that they truly were a community with unique aspects and traditions.

• Katniss talks about how their are different types of weddings in different districts that reflect the culture of the districts and the Capitol. She notes how Plutarch is from the Capitol so when he thinks of weddings, he expects a huge grandiose three day ordeal with extravagent decorations, food, and music and with hundreds of people dressed in formal and fashionable clothes. His idea of a wedding is very reflective of the culture of the Capitol which is a very extravagent over the top fashionable partying oriented culture.

• Katniss also sees how District 13's idea of a wedding matches its milataristic, serious, no time for fun when we are trying to survive, orderly oriented culture. Coin, the president of 13, expects a wedding to be"two people signing a piece of paper and being assined a new compartment" (224). This form of marriage is very lack-luster and businesslike just as District 13 is.

• Katniss notes the "unique touches of District 4" in Annie and Finnick's wedding like the woven grass net covering the couple during the vows and "the touching of salt water to their lips and an ancient wedding song which likens marriage to a sea voyage" (226). All of these aspects reflect the culture of District 4 which is located on the sea shore and inhabited by a population of fishers and people who spend the day at sea.

• District 13 is the haven for the refugees and rebels of the Districts. It is the shining beacon of hope that the people can fight and win a better future. However, I believe that District 13 is not all it is cracked up to be. The people of the Districts are desperate so they fail to see the fact that District 13 may be worse than the Capitol. Katniss sees it throughout the novel, but does not completely accept it until she shoots Coin instead of Snow. District 13 definately has some pros including the fact that it helps the rebels out in the war, saved Katniss from the arena, and is fighting against the oppression of the Capitol.

• The cons far outweight he pros though. District 13 is a militaristic controlling society that supresses any real joy or fun in its people and trains them all the be part of an army. When a wedding comes up, the citizens of District 13 are so excited because fun is a foreign concept to many of them and even their own weddings are repressed into a business citizen's life in District 13 wheras in the Capitol atleast people have a little freedom to do what they want with their time and food. All the citizens of 13 are turned completely into robots who just accept the rules of the district as completely right. When Katniss expresses her rage at a soldier because of the treatment and torture of her prep team, the soldier just robotically say that they broke the rules and you cannot do that. He did not seem to grasp that some rules are notright and should be broken. All the citizens of 13 have seemed to accept that the government of their Distrcit knows best and should control their lives.

• District 13 pretends to be this liberating savior come to free the Districts from the Capitol's oppression, but really District 13 is just another power player eager to crush the Capitol so they can set up their own control and power over the Districts. Snow tells Katniss this when he says Coin was his real enemy not Katniss because Katniss wanted to free the districts while Coin wanted to use them to take down the Capitol and weaken themselves in the process, so District 13 could take control easily of Panem after the Capitol fell.
• District 13 uses tactics just as brutal and wrong as the Capitol does even though it condemns the Capitol for its actions. District 13 is a hypocrite. They torture people there, and Katniss' mother is appalled to see that the things that go on in the Capitol are happening in 13. District 13 does not really try to preserver life in the war effort disregarding civilian casualities as just a part of war just as the Capitol does. When 13 assualts the Capitol, it mows down fleeing men, women, and children civilians just as easily as it mows down the peacekeepers. District 13 does the unthinkable that makes Katniss finally realize that Panem will be no better off and will not truly change with Coin as president. Coin bombs helpless innocent Capitol children to cause the Capitol citizens to turn on Snow believing he bombed the kids. Coin then lets her own side's medics, including Prim, rush to help the bombed children and blows her own people up just to break Katniss to secure her own power.

• When Coin suggests hosting another Hunger Games for the Capitol children, Katniss knows that the entire war she just fought and lost everything in has changed nothing for the better. Coin is just as sadistic adn controlling as Snow, and the harsh reality hits Katniss that all she has done is replaced one despot with another who claims to believe in liberty and justice. Katniss shoots Coin because she refuses to let everyone's deaths, the destruction of the districts, and her ruined life be for nothing.

FEMINIST:

• In Mockingjay, there is a suprising amount of equality for genders. The President of the powerful rebel district 13 is a woman, which shows that is is not a society dominated solely by men. In District 13, they have a citizen army with no distinction between men and women as soldiers. Both are allowed to fight and train for combat, and both genders are pushed to thir limits and excel.Katniss' squad to invade the Capitol consists of a relatively equal amount of men and women soldiers, all the best of the best.

• Katniss as the face of the rebellion shows that women play a very important role in revolution and politics. Men and women alike look to Katniss for strength and inspiration, not letting the fact that she is a girl diminish how they view her. Noone stereotypes Katniss as a weak silly girl, but instead view her as a strong brave soldier who has a golden heart. The girly Katniss that wore frilly pink dresses and doll makeup is long gone. Katniss no longer wants to appear harmless and feminine, she wants to appear strong and feminine.

• The equality of women in Mockingjay is further shown by the fact that Paylor, a smart strong women, is head of a district's miltary rebel operations (a role that would typically be seen as a man's role). Paylor is up on the roof shooting down Capitol planes and ordering men and women around as a collected and good leader. Collins makes women appear strong and smart in her book. Even after Katniss kills Coin, a man does not step in to save the day and become president, but another woman, Paylor, is seen as the best person for the job.Paylor's strength and morals make her ther perfect candidate to lead Panem, and her sex is not an obstacle to obtaining the job.