AÇLIK OYUNLARINI KIM OYNUYOR: ARTEMIS MI PERSEFONI MI? SUZANNE COLLINS’IN ÜÇLEMESINDE PERSEFONI MITI

Year 2019, Volume: 9 Issue: 18, 100 - 124, 25.07.2019

Tatiana Golban

https://doi.org/10.33207/trkede.597898

Abstract

Bu çalışma Suzanne Colins’in Açlık Oyunları adlı eserinde yansıtılan Persefoni mitini

incelemektedir. Yazar yer altına iniş ve suistimal gibi dolaylı motifleriyle birlikte bu miti,

ergenlik döneminde genç bir kız olan Katniss Everdeen’in özgün kimlik arayışı sürecindeki

endişelerini yansıtmak amacıyla kullanmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı Suzanne Collins’in

üçlemesinde Artemis mitinin kullanımını göstermenin yanı sıra Collins’in anlatısında Persefoni

miti ısrarının yazarın amacının ergenlik çağındaki özel deneyimi aktarmanın ötesine geçerek

sosyal kimlik keşfi olduğunu ortaya koymaktır. Yazarın çalışmasında popüler Persefoni

mitinde yer alan mitbirimleri kullanmasındaki en önemli neden çağdaş dünyanın karakteristik

özelliği olan sosyal çöküşle ilgili endişelerini, açlık, yeme ve yenilme gibi yırtıcı davranışları

içeren panem et circenses imgeleri vasıtasıyla yansıtma imkanı bulabilmesidir. Mitin içerisinde

barındırdığı döngüsel ölüm ve yeniden doğuş mekanizması bir takım sosyal gelenek ve

inanışların var olmasına ve geçerlilik kazanmasına katkıda bulunmaktadır. Bu bağlamda

Katniss Everdeen’in yolculuğu ve travmatik deneyimi, anarşik varoluşun korkularını, otorite ve

gücün politikasına ilişkin endişeleri aktarmanın yanı sıra adalet, merhamet, beslenme ve düzen

gibi yeni edinilen değerler üzerine inşa edilen bir sosyal kimliğin ortaya çıkışı olarak

değerlendirilebilir.

Keywords

Artemis miti, Persefoni miti, Açlık Oyunları, yer altına iniş, güç, sosyal kimlik

WHO PLAYS THE HUNGER GAMES: ARTEMIS OR PERSEPHONE? THE MYTH OF PERSEPHONE IN SUZANNE COLLINS’S TRILOGY THE HUNGER GAMES

Abstract

This study focuses on Persephone myth as reflected in the popular trilogy Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The novelist uses the frame of this myth, with its implicit motifs of descent to the underworld and abuse, in order to reveal the anxieties of an adolescent girl, Katniss Everdeen, in her search for an authentic identity. The aim of this study is to show that Suzanne Collins also makes use of Artemis myth in her trilogy, but her eventual insistence on Persephone myth in her narrative reveals that the novelist’s purpose goes beyond the depiction of private experience of coming of age inherent in this myth, extending its function to issues related to the discovery of a social identity. The most important reason for using the mythemes of the popular myth of Persephone in her work is to represent the anxieties about societal collapse, expressed by the novelist through the images of panem et circens, hunger and predatory behaviour of eating and being eaten, which is characteristic to contemporary world. The mechanism of the cyclical death and rebirth, integral to the myth, contributes to the creation and validation of some social customs and beliefs. Therefore, Katniss Everdeen’s journey and her traumatic experience could be read as an attempt to transmit the fears of anarchic existence, the anxieties concerning politics of authority and power, but, at the same time, the hope in the emergence of a new social identity which would be built on some newly acquired and acknowledged values, such as hunger for justice, compassion and nourishment.

Keywords

Artemis myth, Persephone myth, Hunger Games, descent to the underworld, power, social identity

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