Suzanne Collins captivates readers of all ages, races, and genders with her slightly Orwellian dystopian novel, The Hunger Games. Some aspects are reminiscent of Lois Lowry's The Giver in that the society depicted is one in which humanity has progressed through everything the readers have actually experienced and assumed it is best to evolve beyond such structures to create a post-structural society in which the rules they deem most appropriate for humanity as a whole become laws. Collins depicts a barbaric, post-modern interpretation of the gladiator games of ancient Greece with several unique twists, and the result is a battle royale of the strongest between predominantly poor children as an entertainment spectacle for the rich. Needless to say, the novel is most often analyzed for its classism because it is so easily observed as an untouched and oppressive institution in the text, but one of the most powerful underlying themes that complements this classism is the female experience, which Collins shatters. he tackles his problematic facets and distributes his marginalization more equitably among the oppressed characters; therefore, oppression becomes analogous to the female experience. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Taken from a dismal life that, in itself, is already a survival game of overwhelming odds, Katniss Everdeen is forced to participate in the Hunger Games for the very practical need to provide for her family. The situation that causes it in the first place is one of considerable helplessness for most people. She lives in an abandoned, run-down and miserable neighborhood, where wealth virtually does not exist, except for a reclusive character named Haymitch. No one cares about money as much as food, the main commodity money is used for in District 12 due to the severity of the population's poverty. From a feminist perspective, perhaps the most relevant aspect of their poverty is their inability to support themselves. “Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal,” Collins writes, “and poaching carries the harshest penalties, more people would take the risk if they had guns. […] My bow is a rarity” (Collins 12). Citizens cannot hunt for food, but are forced to live in a city where food is scarce. The inability to support oneself is not actually a feminine trait but rather a characteristic attributed to women by the chauvinistic perspective. Part of the female experience is the incessant encounter with this notion that women are both weak and weak-willed. A woman is constantly forced to do for herself despite these and many other disadvantageous assumptions imposed on her, making every strong action taken by a woman an act of defiance to some extent. This is why the female experience seems to manifest as a much deeper and more nuanced deconstruction in the text, as Collins separates the female experience from the woman and simply equates it with oppression itself. Katniss lives with her mother and sister, and they survive without her father who, admittedly, was the breadwinner in a very literal sense before the events of the novel. That being said, the community Katniss lives in as well as society as a whole is not particularly patriarchal. There are instances where some characters seem to view Katniss's actions in terms of gender roles, but overall the story is made up of women..