The Subject of Object Discourse: Katniss Everdeen, Feminist Icon?

Studies of young adult texts like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy have neglected examining the motives and means behind protagonist Katniss Everdeen’s decision-making process. For most, Katniss appears as a rebellious, self-aware, and self-reliant character, and whom many hold up as an obviously feminist character and role model. Closer examination of her actions and decision-making reveal that despite many scholars highlighting her individuality, Katniss is quite often an object of discourse for various groups in the novels. Thus, is she really a feminist icon? Identity theorists, like Linda Alcoff, have shown that identity ties directly into interactions with social/political others and illustrates that identity is liminal: caught between a sense of self and a socially constructed sense of self. Katniss is no exception, as this paper will show; her liminality means she occupies both subject and object positions simultaneously. This problematizes scholarly (and popular culture) readings of her character as a feminist icon or at least challenges those who largely presuppose that Katniss is independent and has agency. But can we still claim her as a feminist icon? This paper concludes that by selectively choosing which discourses objectify her, Katniss undermines their control and maintains agency and individual identity