Panem’s Anthem Symbol Analysis

Panem’s anthem shows how successful the country’s propaganda machine is, as the country’s ideals, as celebrated in the anthem, don’t match up at all with how the country treats a majority of its citizens. During a mentor meeting with Dr. Gaul, Sejanus points out that the anthem promises that Panem will take care of every person who lives in the country—and yet, the very existence of the Hunger Games means that at least 24 citizens, and those citizens’ families, are being directly harmed by the government.

Sejanus, though, is the only character in the novel to ever point out that the anthem’s ideals don’t match up with the country’s actions. And this is, in a way, by design—the Capitol doesn’t encourage anyone, especially Capitol dwellers, to think critically about how the government functions or even to consider those who live in the districts worthy of respect and care. This is best evidenced by Coriolanus’s personal relationship to the anthem. He hears it daily, since the Grandma’am begins every day by playing an old recording of the anthem and singing along. This is a patriotic exercise for her, and it’s resulted in Coriolanus learning every word. But the anthem has, for him, simply become background—its contents aren’t something he ever thinks about, even as he sees firsthand that Panem horrifically abuses district children every year. Put simply, the anthem illustrates how successful Panem has been at expressing lofty, idealistic goals, and then doing the exact opposite of what they proclaim, by turning the expression of those ideals into meaningless background noise.