Reality Collapses, "Real or Not Real?": The Theoretical Consequences of Compromised Authenticity in Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay

This thesis proposes the theorization of the consequences of what I deem compromised authenticity, in this hyper-mediated age. Drawing from the work of scholars concerned with the growing anxiety over the tension between the authentic and the inauthentic, I argue that the third and final novel in The Hunger Games trilogy describes the complexity of one’s fate after notions of the real holistically break down. I contend through Mockingjay, that when authenticating strategies meant to reaffirm authentic identity, authentic memory, and authentic morality, are compounded, the aim of holding onto the broad conception of the authentic is to prevent reality collapse. By utilizing the nuanced body of literature on authenticity, critical work on The Hunger Games universe, and instances in the novel that support my claims, Mockingjay illustrates, through the rhetorical nature of authenticity, the costs of the increasing disappearance of binaric distinctions. I detail the consequences of our movement towards a world with a frightening fluidity of the real/not real experience where original notions of the authentic being the true self, true history, and true morality, are mutilated and rebuilt.