The Omnipresent and The Omnipotent – Surveillance and Power

The objective of this paper is to trace the derivation of power through imperious surveillance upon the citizens of Panem and the consequent denial of citizen rights. The paper also analyses the nature of people’s fear of being watched and how the overbearing surveillance system in action can violate individual privacy. The act of being continuously watched or monitored and the knowledge of being under the control of power, a 'watchful eye', can create a huge impact upon the people under surveillance. In the modern world, people are being watched continuously and closely and are tracked through economic activities and electronic media. The paper aims to prove that surveillance in any form is a constraining force limiting people from being themselves. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins portray a dystopian post-apocalyptic land of Panem where the Capitol uses surveillance and the people’s fear of being watched as tools to assert their power over the citizens. After years of being watched and controlled, the people of Panem have forgotten basic citizen birthrights and the beauty of freedom in their lives. These people lose their real identity in this cage where they are devoid of any individual preferences. If the citizens are not completely aware of the value of privacy which is an inherent human right and much required for individual growth and development, the possibilities of losing the contemporary world to such a dystopian reality are high.

The general nature of the surveillance is incompatible with human rights issued by a democratic nation. According to Bruce Schneir, privacy is an inherent human right and a requirement for maintaining the condition with dignity and respect. The ability to surveil posits not only physical threats but also inflicts a psychological and moral deterioration of the citizens dwelling in a modern developed world. Technology has made our life easier and better, but questions the dignity and integrity of each individual in a particular society. Even in a democratic nation, individual struggles and gropes under the grey shadows of invisible panopticons, engineered by powerful authoritarian figures. With the act of surveillance, the notion of a democratic state with its all-encompassing ideologies seems to collapse as basic individual privacy is being violated. Suzanne Collins introduces the post-apocalyptic state of Panem where the people are threatened and controlled by constant surveillance which allows only restricted movement. They are not only punished for violating these 'rules' but also are constantly reminded of their voicelessness and powerlessness through the hunger games themselves. The Games. This becomes a tremendous problem as this identity crisis becomes a deeper existential dilemma as years go by, again reducing these human beings to mere robots to perform the Capitol's bidding.
The Hunger Games addresses the power hegemony prevailing in the authoritarian totalitarian state of Panem in many dimensions throughout the novel. The people of Panem are not only constantly reminded of the atrocities the Capitol is capable of through the hunger games but also demonstrates the true colour of Capitol's authoritarian regime through punishments like public whippings that happen from time to time. The Capitol mutes and silences the sprouting revolutionaries. Those who revolt against the Capitol end up becoming Avox like the one Katniss recognizes at the training center in the novel. She seems to be puzzled at the initial meeting with an Avox, "What's an Avox?" I ask stupidly. "Someone who committed a crime.
They cut her tongue so she can't speak," says Hay Mitch. "She's probably a traitor of some sort.
Not likely you'd know her." (76) These barbaric acts are enough to instill fear in people and the moment they are aware of the constant surveillance they are under; this fear only escalates.
Along with this, the Capitol also plunders all the necessary materials from the different districts.
Though each of the districts produces products of necessity, none of the products is left in the districts for them to useeverything goes to the Capitol. The district survives with the mere rations provided to them by the Capitol. All these factors come together to actualize the power hegemony in the state.
The social control mechanism that would become a comprehensive symbol for modern authority and discipline is first introduced by Jeremy Bentham by introducing a prison system called the panopticon. Later, Michel Foucault expanded the idea of the panopticon into a symbol of social control that extends into everyday life for all citizens. He argues that social citizens always internalize authority, which is one source of power for prevailing norms and institutions.
According the Capitol would result in serious punishment. Even then Katniss is forced to break these rules and sneak out to hunt. District twelve being one of the poorest of the lot is ever facing the threat of starving themselves to death, so illegal hunting and trade is the only way to survive there.
Katniss uses her talent in shooting arrows to hunt game and earn for her family. She goes out of the seam and crosses over to the woods where entry is restricted by the Capitol, even though she is scared of being watched, to make ends meet. It is evident when she comments "even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you". The real sport of the Hunger Games is watching the tributes kill one another.
Every so often, they do kill a tribute just to remind the players they can. But mostly, they manipulate us into confronting one another face-to-face. This means, if I am no longer being fired at, there is at least one other tribute close at hand.
The pleasure the citizens of Capitol gain from watching the tributes on-screen is limitless. This not only shocks a reader but also disappoints them as none of them is aware of the seriousness of the mental state they are in. After seventy-four years of continuously watching the games taken place, the generation of Capitol crowd does not realize the cruelty of the games and their broadcasting. They are so self-centered that none of the others matters to them and they fail to realize this happening to themselves. Everything is right and natural in their eyes. A tired and they were or what they were doing or how they felt … everything is about them, not the dying boys and girls in the arena" (354) The more numerous those anonymous and temporary observers are, the greater his anxious awareness of being observed. A panopticon is a marvellous machine that produces homogeneous effects of power. It makes it possible to observe performances, to map aptitudes, to assess characters, to draw up rigorous classifications. Panopticon could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, alter behaviour, to train or correct individuals. A panopticon is a privileged place for experiments on men and for analyzing with complete certainty the transformations that may be obtained from them. The panopticon must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of the men. The increase of power created by the panopticon machine may degenerate into tyranny that disturbs the fundamental rights of every citizen belonging to a particular country.
This panopticon is subtly arranged so that an observer may observe and also enables everyone to come and observe any of the observers. It has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole.
These people from the districts, though much more in number, are unable to raise their voice against the injustice they suffer. Games serves as a successful endeavour to unmask the shades of surveillance and its consequences.
The theoretical world has moved from Bentham's and Foucault's theory of panopticon. It has started to test the waters of post-panopticon theories, where a significant change takes place.
Post-Panopticon theorists like Deleuze take the power relations to be much more fluid in contrast to the conscious power exercised in Panem, they talk about a 'flowing of power not confining the subjects from outside but passing through the spaces and subjects.' (Basturk 2  totalitarian regime, instead, they try to improve and nurture themselves by consciously permitting the surveillance. What is even more shocking is that people are willing to be transparent and employ self-surveillance as a part of their living reality. The Circle gains authority and power by controlling the citizen's will by transforming surveillance into a cultural tool. People are welcoming the change and are living with surveillance. Unlike Katniss, Mae believes that surveillance is a part of the refinement of society and not a curse. Thus, proving that the Circle and Panem are two ideologically conflicting entities. The Post-Panopticon theory does go off at a tangent, but this paper tries to limit its study to Bentham's and Foucault's theory of surveillance as a foundation to work upon Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.