author challenge the common beliefs by entrenching the capitalist ideologies and capitalist culture such as commodification in the form, structure, and other literary
devices of the novel.
B. Research Focus
Capitalist ideologies and culture are deeply entrenched in the minds of the people who live in the capitalism which has became a dominant mode of
production in the 21st century. Seen as the only prevailing belief after the triumph of the free market and liberalism, capitalism has strengthen its grip on the people
from its origin country, the United States of America, as well as the countries affected by its policies and interventions. Ideologies such as individualism and
self-reliance is often portrayed as positive ways of life regardless the decadence and remaining poverty of the invisible classes found in even the most advanced
civilizations. Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games attempt to understand the realities of capitalist ideologies and culture in the post-apocalyptic version of
North America through the arduous life of Katniss Everdeen and other tributes of the titular The Hunger Games, a state apparatus attempting to sustain the
opressive ruling order. The theory used to analyze the book is Karl Marx’ conception of ideology
found in Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today: a User-Friendly Guide and supported by the discussion in Terry Eagleton’s Marxism and Literary Criticism
regarding the topic. According to Marxism, ideologies are divided into repressive ones, those which pose as natural ways of life and prevent individuals from
understanding the material conditions to keep them subservient to the ruling system; and the nonrepressive ones, such as Marxism itself, which acknowledge
the existence of ideology as an inherent part of the sustenance of the status quo. The repressive ideologies shape individuals’ understanding of the world through
the scope that sustain the relations of dominance and exploitation. The object of the analysis of the study is the identification of the criticism
towards repressive capitalist ideologies and their corresponding commodity culture in the 21st century of the U.S. in Collins’ The Hunger Games. The
research attempt to reveal the criticism towards capitalism, specifically in the ideologies of individualism and self-reliance, and the decadent culture of
capitalism portrayed by the form, content, and other literary elements of the novel.
C. Research Objectives
Based on the research focus above, the objectives of this research are as follows: 1.
to analyse how Collins’ The Hunger Games criticizes repressive capitalist ideologies in the 21st century of the U.S., and
2. to identify the prominent capitalist culture in the 21st century of the U.S.
being criticized in Collins’ The Hunger Games.
D. Research Significance
The study is expected to give some contributions to the following parties:
1. Theoretically, it is expected that this research can contribute to the
knowledge regarding ideologies and its culture. The findings of this study are expected to give useful information to conduct similar studies.
2. Practically, it is expected that this research will contribute to the awareness
toward seemingly harmless forms of ideologies, from the point of view of Marxist literary criticism.
8
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Theoretical Review
1. Karl Marx and Marxism
Karl Marx was born in Trier, in the German Rhineland, in 1818. His family was Jewish but converted to Christianity in order to pave the way for his
father to work under the Prussia’s anti-Jewish law. He studied law in Bonn and Berlin, and then wrote PhD thesis in Philosophy. After acquired his doctorate, his
involvement with a group of radical thinkers prevented him to work in academic institution. Commiting to journalism, he engaged in political and social issues and
contemplated about communist theory. Among many of his prominent works, The Communist Manifesto, co-written with Friedrich Engels, is probably the most
widely read. Nevertheless, his main economic work is Capital or Das Kapital, published in 1867, which was famous for his critique to capitalism Wolff, 2015:
par.2-3. He was influenced by Hegel as reflected by his early works, but later he was able to distinguish himself from Hegelian thoughts Althusser in Ferretter,
2006: 23. He was known as a revolutionary thinker, as well as philosopher, due to the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century inspired by
his conception Wolff, 2015: par.1. There has been a common conception that Marxism has collapsed along
with the Berlin Wall. However, Marxism is different from “the reductive political
programmes that had been derived from his works”, which was represented by defeated communist regimes in the past Roberts, 2000: 17. According to Lois
Tyson 2006: 53, the defeated communist societies as we know it in twentieth century is in fact oligarchies, in which a small group of leaders who have the
control over money and weapons force its policies and phisically intimidate a population to keep them in line. Nevertheless, Marxism concerns in bring about
the change to the world in order to make the world a better place to live in, where inequitability and opression should be abolished. Therefore, his philosophy is a
materialist philosophy, concerning about the actual world in which people live instead of abstracts ideas Roberts, 2000: 17. He believes that the organizing
principle behind society is economics and this conception influences most of his writings.
a. Material Conditions as Fundamental Reality
The first important conception of Marxist criticism is the fact that the fundamental reality that determines human lives is their material conditions,
which is comprised of forces and relations of production, instead of human ideas Marx and Engels in Ferretter, 2006: 13. It means that human ideas and actions
are influenced by their position in the society, not vice versa, mainly by their roles in the economic system in the society. Therefore, there is no innate quality such as
personality or humanity that determines a person’s life. All of one’s life events are determined by his function in society, either from ruling class or working class
