The Surface, Moral, Allegorical, and Sublime Meanings. For an updated discussion of the series in light of the finale, including the alchemical, allegorical, and anagogical meanings, please head over here. If you have read The Hunger Games and Catching Fireor you’re interested in a discussion of how to use traditional tools of literary analysis to understand contemporary fiction, then you are in the right place. Find yourself a beverage to your liking and pull up a chair. Last Sunday, in a post called . Donner- Undersee was the mastermind- puppeteer behind the Mockingjay story being written within the Capitol’s Hunger Games. Many readers have embraced the idea, at least as many have objected to the theory, and I have spent most of the past week answering questions about and objections to it (see here and here and here and here).
Then let’s get started. Dante and The Hunger Games. The first premise of my argument about the layered meaning of The Hunger Games Trilogy is that Suzanne Collins is a brilliant writer whose novels are simultaneously inspired and deliberately crafted. Many of the objections to the Pearl Plot theory (hereafter just . Latest breaking news, including politics, crime and celebrity. Find stories, updates and expert opinion. Much of the denial, sadly, is class bias and misogyny, but I think most of it is really just a misunderstanding of why we read. We are taught that reading is an entertainment or diversion very much like any other type of . It is a tragic and not a trivial game. Writers are delivering much more than diversion. Saul Bellow once explained to newspaper reporters the difference between their written work and his was that he “wrote for eternity.” Think that’s pompous? How many newspapers do you keep on a shelf in your home or share with friends? Read to your children? Writers are after the big game of life’s meaning and we come to their work expecting them to deliver. Reading has spiritual import and consequences. I am convinced a good part of the skepticism about popular books having depth, beyond misunderstanding what reading is for, is doubt about the intelligence and craft of the series’ author. When writing about the Austen elements in Harry Potter and the Shakespeare echoes in Twilight, I was laboring against the pigeon- holed perception many readers have that non- academic writers like Ms. Meyer, who though well educated do not have advanced degrees in English or teach writing, cannot be familiar with or be using the tools from the Greats’ toolbox. Discussing the meaning and artistry of The Hunger Games, though, shouldn’t require clearing this particular hurdle. ![]() The team purchased and baked for themselves a lovely selection of forty baguettes and put the crusty loaves into some lab equipment to characterize all of their. This list is meant to assist, not intimidate. Use it as a touchstone for important concepts and vocabulary that we will cover. Suzanne Collins has a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in dramatic writing from New York University (NYU). Let’s be clear about what that means, if only because most Americans don’t get what an MFA is. If you’re like me, you think of a “Masters Degree” as a stepping stone to real postgraduate study, namely, Ph. D or doctoral studies. An MFA is a Masters but it is the end of the road in the study of the fine arts with practical applications. MFA programs have generally required a bachelor’s degree prior to admission, but many have not required that the undergraduate major be the same as the MFA field of study. The most important admissions requirement has often been a sample portfolio or a performance audition. The MFA differs from the Master of Arts in that the MFA, while an academic program, centers around practice in the particular field, whereas programs leading to the MA are usually centered on the scholarly, academic, or critical study of the field. The MFA is seen as a terminal degree, meaning that it is considered to be the highest degree in its field. An MFA differs from a Masters, then, in being “hands- on” study, in being as far as you can go, and, most important, in its being truly Masters work, in the sense of an apprentice studying with a Master. To receive the MFA in creative writing at NYU today means a lot of workshops in Greenwich Village: Requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree include the completion of 3. Four graduate creative writing workshops taken in four separate semesters (1. One to four craft courses (The Craft of Poetry or The Craft of Fiction), taught by members of the CWP faculty. Craft courses may be repeated provided they are taught by different instructors (4 to 1. Any remaining courses chosen from any department with the permission of that department and of the director of the CWP. A creative thesis in poetry or fiction, consisting of a substantial piece of writing—a novella, a collection of short stories, or a group of poems—to be submitted in the student’s final semester. The project requires the approval of the student’s faculty thesis adviser and of the director of the CWP. I do not know how this MFa in creative writing differs — or if it differs — from the MFA in dramatic writing when Ms. Collins was at NYU but I imagine the core requirements for Master seminars in Craft of Fiction were the same. What is that required course that students are expected to repeat with different instructors about? The website page with the MFA seminar faculty and schedules for the class doesn’t spell out course requirements, but with teachers like E. Doctorow, David Lipsky, and Edward Hirsch, we know the conversations in these classrooms are not just about how to package a book or screenplay proposal for your literary agent. But we all know, too, that you can skate through any degree program, alas, and that advanced degrees or the lack of one tell us very little about what an author knows or what talents they bring to the table. As with the Hogwarts and Forks Sagas, the test is in the text. Does the Panem Trilogy have the literary guts and substance reflecting that Ms. Collins got anything out of her advanced studies in dramatic writing? I think even the most superficial look at her books says that it does. And by “superficial,” I mean right at the surface: the number of books and chapters. If you haven’t noticed, the first two of the three book set are each twenty seven chapters long and in three parts of nine chapters each. So what? In itself, of course, this clever use of threes — a trilogy of books, each having three sections, each section having 3- squared chapters, for 3- cubed chapters in each book, and 3- to- the- fourth chapters in the series — could be meaningless or just an affectation. Even if so, it is also, nonetheless, a marker or red flag for Dante’s influence. His Divine Comedy is in three books or canticas of 3. When a writer makes a point of stacking threes in her story structure, the serious reader asks herself, “Is she telling me to think Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso?”I think she is. I’ll explain that in a bit but I couldn’t resist the lede in to traditional literary criticism that this thin Dante link provides. Because to lay out why I think the text is substantive enough to stand up to a reading at depth, I need to look at Hunger Games as I would a “Great Book,’ as in, say, Hamlet or War and Peace. Dante, fortunately, left instructions in his letter to Can Grande about how readers should read his poems: in the four senses, namely, the literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels of meaning. For me be able to present what I am going to say, you must know that the sense of this work is not simple, rather it may be called polysemantic, that is, of many senses; the first sense is that which comes from the letter, the second is that of that which is signified by the letter. And the first is called the literal, the second allegorical or moral or anagogical. Which method of treatment, that it may be clearer, can be considered through these words: “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion” (Douay- Rheims, Ps. If we look at it from the letter alone it means to us the exit of the Children of Israel from Egypt at the time of Moses; if from allegory, it means for us our redemption done by Christ; if from the moral sense, it means to us the conversion of the soul from the struggle and misery of sin to the status of grace; if from the anagogical, it means the leave taking of the blessed soul from the slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory. And though these mystical senses are called by various names, in general all can be called allegorical, because they are different from the literal or the historical. Now, allegory comes from Greek alleon, which in Latin means other or different. I have explained at length in my last three books — that would be Deathly Hallows Lectures, Harry Potter’s Bookshelf, and Spotlight— why these four senses are not arbitrary perspectives but straight reflections of the four ways human beings know anything (for the free short course in iconological criticism, read this). Before I roll out version 2. Collins is writing deliberatively and at depth and that her works deserve a serious reading — even outlandish speculation based on the themes and meaning of the books we have in hand at present. Time allowing, I’ll expand it into a proper book or booklet with the longer explanations this introduction cannot have if I’m to get back to the Pearl Plot this month! This is just because all of the other meanings have to come through the surface. Whether they are understood consciously or experienced unconsciously, the several allegorical layers can only be had via what the viewer sees in the painting or sculpture or in the narrative line the reader reads. For writers, the surface story has to do several things right up front. However fantastic the setting or unusual the characters and plot, the tale has to be sufficiently credible that the reader suspends disbelief and enters into the story in an act of poetic faith. It helps a lot if the lead character or narrator is someone- in- a- situation with whom the reader is fascinated, sympathetic, or, best of all, that s/he is someone both fascinating and sympathy- inducing. Win Your Oscar Pool With Our Blisteringly Accurate Predictions : Monkey See : NPR. Oscar statues in a Hollywood back lot getting a last touch- up before the 8. Academy Awards on Sunday. Brown/AFP/Getty Images. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images. Oscar statues in a Hollywood back lot getting a last touch- up before the 8. Academy Awards on Sunday. Brown/AFP/Getty Images. Look: You want to win your Oscar pool. We want you to win your Oscar pool. In truth, we feel we owe it to you. You took our advice on the Emmys, last September, and you did .. Seventeen right, out of 2. Which, yes, if you're the kind of egregiously unimaginative churl who clings, with a willfully hidebound insistence, to the . Like that time you went to see Arrival, and she waited until the movie started to lean over and whisper hotly in your ear, . Take heart: Tomorrow night, if you follow our picks below, Trish is going down. REMINDER: The Pop Culture Happy Hour team (Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, producer Jessica Reedy and All Things Considered's Bob Mondello) will be live- blogging the Oscars tomorrow night, beginning at 6pm ET. Join us at oscars. Know that we are applying precisely the same degree of sterile, empiricist rigor to our Oscar prognostications that we did to our Emmy picks. Know, too, that in most of the major categories, odds- makers and prognosticators have identified clear front- runners, and the conventional wisdom around their chances has remained remarkably stable, ever since the nominations were announced. HOWEVER. There's every reason to believe that this year, the conventional wisdom should be regarded with a pinch of salt. A 4. 0- pound Costco bag of Snowmelt. Because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — the members of which vote on the Oscars — took long- overdue steps last year to diversify and revivify their voting pool. A bit. Let's look at the numbers. Some 6,0. 04 active members voted for the 2. Oscars last February. In June, AMPAS added 6. Of this new group, 4. U. S. Encouraging? But the needle hasn't moved all that much: membership still stands at 8. The Academy's a long way from woke, but it's sleeping lighter. For our prognosticating purposes, what matters is that about 1. Oscar ballot before. They're also younger, on average, than their fellows. As a result, the conventional wisdom — the . Which is not very much. But, um, trust us anyway? NPR's Searingly Scientific, Rigorously Discerned, Ferociously Objective Oscar Picks, Which Glow With The Soft Comforting Warmth Of Complete And Unutterable Rightness And Are Not Repeat NOT Wild Guesses So Just Get THAT Idea Out Of Your Head Right Now. BEST PICTUREArrival. Fences. Hacksaw Ridge. Hell or High Water. Hidden Figures. La La Land. Lion. Manchester by the Sea. Moonlight. The battle here's between Moonlight and La La Land. But all those new members, and the post- election political climate, may be enough to give the smaller, moodier, achingly beautiful Moonlight the momentum it needs to take the trophy.. This is The Artist all over again. Who Will Win: La La Land. ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLECasey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea. Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge. Ryan Gosling, La La Land. Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic. Denzel Washington, Fences. It's between Affleck and Washington, and Affleck's chances have been fading over the past few months. There's also the fact that it's such a hooded, inwardly directed performance — masterful, but unshowy in ways that might fly below some voters' radar. Smart money's on Washington: It's a big performance of an iconic American role in a work that's revered. Yes, he's won twice before (for best supporting in Glory and best actor in Training Day). If he wins tomorrow, he'll be the first black actor to take home three trophies. Who Will Win: Denzel Washington, Fences. ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLEIsabelle Huppert, Elle. Ruth Negga, Loving. Natalie Portman, Jackie. Emma Stone, La La Land. Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins. Negga was quiet and assured, Portman's performance was deeply divisive (I loved it, but I get how people thought it mannered), ditto Huppert, and Streep was Streeping to beat the band. But La La Land's about dreams made of flickering light and shadow, have you heard? The only question is whether she'll dedicate it to her aunt who used to live in Paris. Who Will Win: Emma Stone, La La Land. ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLEMahershala Ali, Moonlight. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water. Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea. Dev Patel, Lion. Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals. One of the few locks of the night. Who Will Win: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight. ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLEViola Davis, Fences. Naomie Harris, Moonlight. Nicole Kidman, Lion. Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures. Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea. Another of the evening's absolute locks. You won't find bigger locks on the Panama Canal. Who Will Win: Viola Davis, Fences ANIMATED FEATURE FILMKubo and the Two Strings. Moana. My Life as a Zucchini. The Red Turtle. Zootopia. There are those who will tell you that the actual best animated feature of the year, Kubo and the Two Strings, will win this year, because it just won a BAFTA, which has a great track record of picking this category's winners. Do not believe them. Who Will Win: Zootopia. CINEMATOGRAPHYArrival. La La Land. Lion. Moonlight. Silence. Moonlight, Lion, and Arrival featured cinematography that supported their stories, intensified them, invited audience to live inside them. Silence is old- school spectacle, gravid and gorgeous. It's also the Scorsese film's only nomination, and there's a solid chance that voters might single it out in an effort to honor its director. But then again, dreams made of flickering light and shadow blah blah blah. Who Will Win: La La Land. COSTUME DESIGNAllied. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Florence Foster Jenkins. Jackie. La La land. Tough one. Historically, the Academy rewards period pictures, with all their showy bustles and bonnets and brooches. Which would argue for everything but La La Land. If you think the backlash against La La Land is strong enough that you're prepared to risk another loss to Trish (who's confident of a La La Land sweep), a good place to hop off the LLL train is the depot marked Jackie, which was meticulously stylish and sleek as hell. But if you do, you're braver than us. They're made of flickering light! And shadow, also! Who Will Win: La La Land. DIRECTINGDamien Chazelle, La La Land. Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea. Denis Villenueve, Arrival. Usually — in 6. 4 out of the 8. Oscar ceremonies, or 7. But this year is anything but usual, and splits are getting more and more common. The fight's between Ava Du. Vernay's magnificent 1. OJ Simpson case. 1. OJ: Made in America dedicates itself to making the viewer place an achingly familiar event in a sweeping cultural context. The Academy may sniff at that. Who Will Win: OJ: Made in America. DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)Extremis. Miles. Joe's Violin. Watani: My Homeland. The White Helmets. Extremis profiles a palliative care specialist treating terminally ill patients in an Oakland ICU. Miles follows a captain in the Greek Coast Guard swept up in the ongoing migrant crisis, and both Watani: My Homeland and The White Helmets present a ground- level view of war- torn Syria. They are, in different ways, searing and stark. Only Joe's Violin — about a elderly man who lost much of his family in the Holocaust, and his decision to donate his beloved violin to the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls — offers anything like the faintest glimmer of hope. Voters will likely seize on that. Who Will Win: Joe's Violin. FILM EDITINGArrival. Hacksaw Ridge. Hell or High Water. La La Land. Moonlight. Take a look at how that diner scene in Moonlight makes you live in the tension and uncertainty of the moment, and tell me it doesn't deserve the Oscar. The black beans and rice alone! But who are we kidding. It's a thing I worry about. Besides, there's a far better choice, which reflects how very far Star Trek has come from slapping a wad of spirit gum between the eyebrows of a day- player and shoving him in front of a camera. Who Will Win: Star Trek Beyond. MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)Jackie. La La Land. Lion. Moonlight. Passengers. Moonlight's score was beautiful, Jackie's was .. Not to put too fine a point on it? Dreams made of flickering light and shadow. Who Will Win: La La Land. MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG). They could split the vote, allowing something else to squeak in. Which is why we're flinging conventional wisdom to the four winds and going with our heart on this one. Get the O in his EGOT, 2. Be the youngest EGOT- holder in history, and 3. Give an acceptance rap. Those are three good things, right there. Who Will Win: . On the other: War is both hell, and hella noisy. Who Will Win: Hacksaw Ridge. SOUND MIXINGArrival. Hacksaw Ridge. La La Land. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Three war films here (Hacksaw Ridge,Rogue One, and 1. Hours). And if Hacksaw Ridge takes it, it'll be Kevin O'Connor's first win, having been nominated 2. But then again: flickering light, shadow, dreams etc. Who Will Win: La La Land. VISUAL EFFECTSDeepwater Horizon. Doctor Strange. The Jungle Book. Kubo and the Two Strings. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Doctor Strange was trippy, Kubo and the Two Strings was breathtaking (and if it wins, it'll be the first animated film to do so - weird, right?), but the pure technical achievement of The Jungle Book will take the day. Who Will Win: The Jungle Book. WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)Arrival. Fences. Hidden Figures. Lion. Moonlight. Here's a chance for the Academy to recognize both La La Land and Moonlight by splitting the adapted/original writing awards. But it's also a chance for them to give the evening's only nod to the hugely popular Hidden Figures (if Octavia Spencer doesn't win). Who Will Win: Moonlight. WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)Hell or High Water. La La Land. The Lobster. Manchester by the Sea.
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