One of the first tasks for Hunger Games serious readers after finishing their first trips through Sunrise on the Reaping will be to find a copy of Edgar Allen Poe‘s ‘Lenore‘ and ‘The Raven‘ and see how much they serve together as a story template for Lenore Dove and her true love, Haymitch Abernathy. Does it parallel how Collins used Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Gray’ in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?
The first task, if you’re like me and it has been some time since you read Poe’s poems in a sophomore ‘Survey of Literature’ course (closer to a half-century in the past for me than a quarter), is to distinguish the meteoric American genius’ two poems. Both feature a lost love, a Lenore who died as a beautiful young woman who is lamented by a narrator haunted by her memory. The namesake poem ‘Lenore,’ however, is only four stanzas in length and is not the poem that Haymitch memorizes for Miss Dove’s birthday. That is the much longer, much, much more famous (can you say ‘NFL football franchise name famous‘?), and more mind-catching (Ear worm!) ‘The Raven.’
I suspect (and will eventually explore) that this poem serves a three-fold purpose in Collins’ second prequel:
It’s the story template, i.e., Lenore Dove becomes the Lenore of ‘The Raven’ and he akin to the narrator of that poem;- It’s Collins’ embedded statement about the importance of story form and symbolism in her writing per Poe’s Philosophy of Composition and his idea of Unity of Effect; and
- Poe’s thought about the estranging, shocking effects of horror in a story to make as profound and transformative or cathartic impression upon a reader is the foundation principle of Collins’ Underlander and Hunger Games living nightmares.
Which is quite the burden to place on an embedded poem, I know. I hope readers will share all the references to Poe, his poetry and short stories, they found in Sunrise. Have at it!
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