Divergence of Genre and Gender: A Study on Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games Trilogy

Abstract: Suzanne Collins’ trilogy The Hunger Games is, thus far, one of the 21st century’s most well known young adult series, and Collins has been praised for challenging things such as gender stereotypes and genre limitations. It has been labelled as a contemporary young adult dystopian novel, and has a strong female protagonist. I explored the idea of The Hunger Games Trilogy being both a dystopian novel, as well as a Bildungsroman, and addressed the characteristics of both genres in a quest of finding agreements and deviances. I researched the field for information about the two genres, and about gender in literature. I found that Collins’ has broadened the idea of both the Bildungsroman and dystopian Novels, while at the same time experimenting with gender assumptions.