As a rule I break too often, I prefer not to say anything about J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The author’s fans are legion and notoriously contemptuous of anyone like me who cannot read, write, and speak Elvish. Forgive me, but, as magisterial as the work is, I feel about it the way Tolkien supposedly did about Shakespeare; the cultish fandom does not reflect well on the Bard himself or his work.

I posted on the Hogwarts and Forks Sagas’ shadows on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, consequently, but balked at making connections with Middle-Earth. Fortunately, a new HogPro All-Pro has appeared who has the requisite memorized knowledge of the Ring Fellowship’s journeys to make a credible comparison and I begged him to do the honors. Peter (PK9) has graciously agreed and his compare-and-contrast work below suggests that Ms. Collins, too, is a Tolkienite and her Hunger Games shows the influence of a work read and re-read on her creative imagination.

[Read more…]

This is the third and last part of a three part ‘Unlocking’ series on the more esoteric, allegorical meanings of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy with special emphasis on the series finale, Mockingjay. For the first two parts, see ‘Unlocking Mockingjay: The Spiritual Allegory’ and ‘The Literary Alchemy.’

Yesterday, we introduced the color scheme and stages of literary alchemy, stages correspondent with the spiritual life, the black stage with renunciation and repentance, the white with purification and initiation, and the red with revelation and perfection. The colors reflect the nature of each period, i.e., the darkness before the light, the dawn of illumination, and the fullness of God’s glory experienced at spiritual perfection.

Today I hope to use this too brief introduction to traditional alchemical symbolism in English literature and yesterday’s notes about spiritual transformation as a resolution of contraries, the elision of subject and object in the Word’s recognition of its reflection, to survey the artistry and meaning of Mockingjay.

The series finale, if it is the series’ hermetic end-game as I suspect, should be the story of Katniss’ apotheosis or divinization, her recall and return to the story origin, i.e., the Meadow of Rue’s Song and the white rose of Mockingjay’s first chapter. Checking off items on our must-have list of hermetic story items, we need an Alchemical wedding to launch the rubedo properly and Finnick and Annie’s marriage satisfies that requirement. Now we need a clearly marked nigredo or black stage, an evident albedo or white stage, a blood-red rubedo, and a golden illumination. We should also see a resolution of contraries, some kind of sacrificial death and resurrection, and a rebus or story androgyn.

Ms. Collins give us all of this in her description of Katniss’ fight as leader of the Star Squad to get to the City Center, to enter the inner sanctuary there, and experience the White Rose. I think those who followed yesterday’s discussion of the alchemical stages and their imagery will see these markers without much difficulty.

[Read more…]

This is the second part of a three part ‘Unlocking’ series on the more esoteric, allegorical meanings of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy with special emphasis on the series finale, Mockingjay. For the first part, see ‘Unlocking Mockingjay: The Spiritual Allegory.’

We left yesterday’s discussion of  the Hunger Games as an echo of Dante’s allegorical journey with Katniss as soul and Peeta as Spirit or Christ. We’ll return to Peeta in a moment to explain his superficially un-Christ like behaviors in Mockingjay, but we need to look at Gale through our allegorical glasses first. Who or what does he represent in this story of the pure heart’s spiritual transformation?

[Read more…]

It’s been almost two weeks now since we started the contemplative “slow mining” of Mockingjay, the thoughtful digging that John Ruskin said fine art required to come to the gold and jewels beneath its surface. The conversation for the most part has focused on the surface narrative features, i.e., Gale’s choices, the new Peeta, and Katniss’ “boy troubles,” as well as on the violence of the moral and allegorical layers. With the exception of the conversations about ‘The Hanging Tree‘ and ‘The Meadow Song,’ then, we haven’t got much deeper into this powerfully painful book than parsing the romantic partnership possibilities and deciphering the transparencies about the evils of war and television.

Guess what? I don’t think the Katniss-Peeta-Gale love triangle is why we love The Hunger Games. I’m pretty sure, too, that the postmodern morality message of ‘Real/Not Real‘ acts as little more than another hook, along with the romance and the allegorical tit-for-tat content about war and teevee, to engage the reader profoundly.

The real reason we love The Hunger Games and are moved and disturbed by the Mockingjay finale is the spiritual allegory and literary alchemy of the trilogy, the meaning we enter into and experience consequent to our engagement at the surface. Hunger Games is a retelling of Dante’s divinization; traveling alongside Katniss Everdeen on her harrowing journey through the Inferno and Purgatory to the White Rose of spiritual perfection in Paradise, we share imaginatively in her transformation from child of the Seam to Mockingjay-Phoenix and union with God. [Read more…]

Tim Schock thinks Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins is making a pro-gun statement inside her ‘horrors of war’ piece. Prepare to be “schocked” if you think Mockingjay is an argument for gun-control; here are the passages from the text that suggest Ms. Collins is telling us the only way to keep the Capitol and District 13 Brave New World technocrats from taking over our lives (with their senseless wars) is to keep and bear arms.

Take it away, Tim Schock! [Read more…]