Hogwarts Professor

HogwartsProfessor’s three mavens have devoted the better part of three weeks to discussion of  Mockingjay, the third Hunger Games novel and, now that we have reached 30 posts and I have completed the third and last part of my ‘Unlocking’ series on the more esoteric, allegorical meanings of the trilogy, it seems a good time to return to our regular programing. This is not the end of our Hunger Games conversation or even the beginning of the end, but just the end of the beginning.

To mark this transition and to provide a ‘one-stop’ location for the HogPro Mockingjay Discussion Collection, here are links to the complete ‘Unlocking’ set and, below the jump, the first 30 Discussion Threads as well as the pre-Mockingjay posts.  Thank you to everyone who has joined us these last three weeks, especially to our Guest Post writers; tomorrow I’ll be announcing our next HogwartsProfessor adventure. Stay Tuned!

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: The Spiritual Allegory’ On Katniss as a Soul Seeking Perfection and Iconological Reading

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: ‘The Literary Alchemy’ On Literary Alchemy and Peeta as Postmodern Christ

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: Katniss’ Apotheosis’ On the Alchemical Arena and Katniss’ Perfection in the Inner Sanctuary [Read more…]

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.

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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.

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