mrt, Macherey

    One of my favorite homework strategies is to break up my time by reading a chapter of whatever book I’m currently reading after finishing one assignment before moving on to the next. I find it not only increases my productivity, but sometimes I’m able to apply what I’m learning to the characters or systems in place, giving me tangible examples of the concepts at hand. Currently, I’m re-reading one of my childhood favorites, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. You might be thinking, in what world does this have anything to do with critical theory, but I actually felt like there were some interesting ties between the happenings of the book and Macherey’s ideas about the relationship present between the explicit and the implicit. Macherey claims that one cannot exist without the other, “for in order to say anything, there are things which must not be said” (Macherey, P., 1978, p. 17). The central idea that furthers the plot of the trilogy is rebellion, and in the totalitarian government in which the book takes place, most of this rebellion occurs within the silence, within the plausible deniability between the explicit and implicit meanings of one’s actions. There are tons of examples of this throughout the series, but I am going to focus on one that is a recurring theme and is already present within the first thirty pages of the book.

   I am sure most of us have at least some knowledge of the plot of these books/movies. But, I don't want to assume so I will provide some brief background information for context. The government in which this book takes place includes an aristocratic class that demands each of the other twelve districts send two children into a glorified deathmatch once a year as punishment for a previous rebellion. Our main character happens to be one of these two and when she is brought on stage, instead of clapping, the other members of her district engage in a three-finger salute. Katniss describes this as “an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love” (Collins, S., 2008, p. 24). She is very clearly outlining the explicit meaning of this gesture and why her peers chose to use it. When looked at solely through an explicit lens, it is simply an act of respect for Katniss. We don’t see how this is actually quite a daring act of rebellion. She later goes on to illustrate its implicit meaning as well, by explaining how by choosing to use the three-finger salute instead of clapping, “they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong” (Collins, S., 2008, p. 24). Maybe I am biased because I was consuming the two pieces of media side by side, but I feel like this is a near-perfect example of what Macherey was referring to when he said “we investigate the silence, for it is the silence that is doing the speaking” (1978, p.17). I would also argue it's a good example of how the explicit and the implicit are inherently codependent and how true meaning lies in the relationship between the two. As I mentioned before, if we look solely at the explicit meaning of this gesture, it's hard to see how it becomes such an important symbol of the rebellion. But, if only considering the implications of dissent in a society where failure to comply is quite literally punishable by death, it becomes a suicide wish rather than an adequate vehicle for mainstreaming rebellion. The three-fingered salute only works when its meaning exists within the space between the two, “not on one or the other side of that fence” (Marcherey, P., 1978, 18)

link to media examined

Collins, S. (2008). Chapter 2. In The Hunger Games (pp. 21–33). essay, Scholastic Press. 

Macherey, P. (1978). Theory of literary production.