Hope and equilibrium in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games

This paper provides evidence of the fruitfulness of combining analytical categories from Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis for the analysis of complex literary characterizations. It does so through a detailed study of the “tributes”, i.e. the randomly selected children who have to fight to death in a nationally televised show, in The Hunger Games. The study proves the effectiveness of such categories to provide an analytically accurate picture of the dystopian world depicted in the novel, which is revealed to include a paradoxical element of hope. The type of dehumanization that characterizes the dystopian society of Panem is portrayed through an internally consistent set of ontological metaphors which project negative aspects of lower forms of existence onto people. This selection of metaphors promotes a biased perspective on the poor inhabitants of Panem, while legitimizing the social inequalities the wealthy Capitol works hard to immortalize. However, Katniss undergoes a metamorphosis through her discovery of her own identity, which hints at an emerging female empowerment. This transformation, together with her identification with the Mockingjay, a supernatural being that voices her beliefs and emotions, contributes to disrupting the status quo imposed by the almighty Gamemakers and to purveying a message of optimism.


Introduction
Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games is set in Panem, a nation located in North America, consisting of twelve impoverished districts and the Capitol, a wealthy area that manipulates the inhabitants of the districts without mercy. The dictatorial power of the Capitol manifests itself through the event known as the Hunger Games, a televised competition in which one boy and one girl from each district, called tributes, are randomly selected and launched to an outdoor arena in the Capitol to fight to death until only one of them is left. Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old girl from district 12, volunteers for the 74 th Hunger Games to replace her young sister Primrose. Katniss and Peeta, the male tribute from her same district, become victors. This unprecedented change of rules whereby there are two winners instead of one is achieved by tricking the Capitol into believing they are madly in love. In the second novel making up the trilogy, Catching Fire, no one emerges victorious after the 75 th Hunger Games. Breaking the rules involves challenging the prevailing status quo of the powerful elite. In the last instalment of the trilogy, The Mockingjay, Katniss works hard to bring together the impoverished districts of Panem in a rebellion against the almighty Capitol.
The literature on this trilogy is abundant and several topics have been addressed: Lacan's trope of sacrificial children (Shau Ming Tan 2013), the metamorphosis of Katniss Everdeen (Strong 2015), gender roles and power relations (Godbey 2014;Miller 2012), symbolism through the use of proper names (González-Vera 2016), the construal of the trilogy as a journey of moral development (Issow 2012), or the power of metaphor and its paradoxical associations (Olthouse 2012). Our study examines these topics from a unified perspective by making use of some of the tools of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. In line with Olthouse (2012: 42), we claim that in The Hunger Games metaphors and symbols proliferate. We argue that the dehumanization that characterizes dystopian societies like the one in The Hunger Games is linguistically channeled through a set of metaphors in which negative aspects of -mainly -lower forms of existence like animals and inanimate beings are picked out and applied to people, offering in this way a biased perspective of such human beings that the inhabitants from the Capitol are interested in conveying and perpetuating. Nonetheless, as pointed out, hope gradually makes its way into the novel. We substantiate Olthouse's (2012) observation that metaphors capture different aspects of a given concept and that these multiple associations might seem contradictory or paradoxical but are worked out in context. We further explore such paradoxical associations and provide evidence that their reconceptualization involves metaphorical thinking. The metamorphosis of Katniss is one of these paradoxes in The Hunger Games. We complement Strong's (2015) analysis by claiming that Katniss' transformation from child to woman is related to a new perspective on gender roles that brings together male and female roles, thus leading to an emerging female empowerment -and positivism -in the novel. This is possible through the balanced personality she develops when she manages to identify herself with The Mockingjay, a supernatural creature. We analyze this journey of moral development (Issow 2012: 11) in terms of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor (Barreras Gómez (2015) has provided evidence of the great structuring power of this metaphor in two poems by Nabokov). Another aspect that contributes to the subtle appearance of positivism in the trilogy, and that is a signal of female empowerment, is the characterization of female characters in terms of plants.
As suggested by González-Vera (2016), the symbolism of proper names in the novel is highly revealing. We account for such symbolism in metaphorical terms and show how it contributes to the optimistic connotations that gradually tinge the novel with hope in spite of adversity.
More specifically, in this proposal, we make use of a combined framework of analysis in order to offer an exhaustive analysis of the way in which the impoverished citizens from Panem, particularly the tributes, are conceptualized in this dystopian novel since the plot revolves around their ruthless struggle to survive. Special attention is paid to Katniss Everdeen, the main character, and to her search for identity throughout the novel. First, we adopt the general framework of Cognitive Poetics because it contributes to the study of literary works by providing an adequate theory of embodied understanding (Semino & Culpeper 2002;Gavins & Steen 2003;Brône & Vandaele 2009). In Cognitive Linguistics, language is not the product of a separate mental activity within the brain but part of the general cognitive processes that human beings use to conceptualize experience. Such processes are termed embodied understanding (Johnson 1987(Johnson , 2015. The embodied nature of Cognitive Poetics allows us to connect language and the world. In addition, within Cognitive Linguistics, the cognitive dimension of figurative language has been a matter of special concern. Metaphorical language is part of the conceptual makeup of human beings. Figurative language is not a matter of language alone. We use figurative language in our everyday speech since its use is unconscious and automatic. Notice should be taken, though, that metaphor can also be deliberate, as argued over the past few years. Nonetheless, the cognitive dimension of metaphorical language should be complemented with its cultural and social import. Figurative language allows for the communication and perpetuation of the attitudes and beliefs of particular social groups. These attitudes and beliefs become ingrained in the minds of the members of such social groups and are part of their conceptual apparatus. Critical Discourse Analysis (Van Dijk 1984, 2011Fairclough 1995Fairclough , 2003 focuses on how language use contributes to and fosters social inequality. Powerful elites might use language as a tool to control submissive groups. Moreover, the evaluative dimension of metaphorical thinking should also be brought to bear (Nunberg, Sag & Watson 1994;Fernando 1996;Moon 1998). Since only partial structure of the source of metaphorical mappings is picked out to be mapped onto the target, a biased perspective based on social prejudices towards certain social groups can be upheld.
Within this context, our research objectives are: (i) to identify the different source domains that structure the target domain of the impoverished people from Panem, specially the tributes; (ii) to account for the reason(s) why certain aspects of such domains are picked out to characterize the tributes in terms of embodied realism; (iii) to analyze how the inhabitants from the Capitol impose their ideas on the poor people from the districts by means of language and try to perpetuate such beliefs; (iv) to show that metaphor is culturally based and plays an important role in the construction of identities by paying special attention to Katniss' search for identity throughout the novel; (v) to examine the evaluative import of metaphorical language in the novel; and (vi) to study the way in which paradoxical scenarios are reframed in the context of the trilogy to make contradictory scenarios compatible, specially the way in which role stereotypes culturally assigned to masculinity and femininity merge thanks to Katniss' struggle, challenging in this way the prevailing status quo defended by the almighty Gamemakers, and the way in which positive connotations gradually make their way into the novel in spite of the overall gloomy atmosphere prevailing in the trilogy. To achieve the goals described above, the present paper is structured as follows: section 2 deals with some notions that provide the theoretical apparatus used for the analysis of The Hunger Games; section 3 spells out the methodology that has been used in order to retrieve the data to be analyzed; section 4 provides an exhaustive qualitative analysis of the conceptualization of the tributes through a set of ontological metaphors; finally, section 5 summarizes our main findings.

Theoretical framework
In what follows we will introduce the reader to some theoretical notions that are fundamental for the understanding of the novel under scrutiny. According to Lakoff (1987), one of the founding fathers of Cognitive Linguistics, we organize our knowledge by means of idealized cognitive models (ICMs). Each ICM is described as a complex whole or a gestalt using four types of structuring principles: propositional structure, image-schemas, metaphoric and metonymic mappings. In this article we mainly focus on the notion of metaphor.
Scholars like Lakoff, Johnson and Turner, who set the foundations of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), were the first to postulate that metaphor is a conceptual rather than a mere literary device (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980;Lakoff & Turner 1989;Lakoff 1993a). They described metaphor as a mapping from a source domain to a target domain, where aspects of the former are made to correspond with the latter. The source, which allows us to reason and talk about the target, is often grounded in everyday, embodied experience, whereas the target is usually an abstract domain of knowledge (e.g. time, causation, emotions). For instance, we conceptualize love in terms of fire, as in the expression I'm burning with love.
Classifying metaphor has been one of the main concerns of cognitive linguists. Ruiz de Mendoza (1997) set forth two criteria: the formal features of the mapping process and the nature of the domains involved. According to the number of correspondences activated by metaphor, one-correspondence and many-correspondence metaphors can be distinguished. Metaphors fit prototypically into the many-correspondence pattern (for example, in I'm burning with love, 'I' is mapped onto a lover and 'burn' onto 'feeling an emotion intensely') that are used predicatively (in an A IS B fashion, as in 'LOVE IS FIRE'). In terms of the nature of domains, Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) seminal distinction identifies structural, orientational, and ontological metaphors. Only ontological metaphors are one-correspondence mappings. In structural metaphors one concept is metaphorically understood in terms of another, as in 'LOVE IS FIRE' or the 'DIVIDED SELF' metaphor. According to this last metaphor, human beings have a dual nature consisting of a Subject (which houses the rational aspects of the person) and a Self (usually controlled by the Subject and representing our body and our emotions) (Lakoff 1993b(Lakoff , 1996. From this metaphor we can derive a series of entailments: (1) Sometimes the Subject can lose control over the Self, which gives rise to the 'LOSS OF THE SELF' metaphor (e.g. He let himself go on the dance floor).
(2) 'THE SPLIT' or 'SCATTERED SELF' metaphor is at work when a person's different interests and concerns are conceptualized as different people in conflict or as people in different places (when a person has two incompatible sides, e.g. He's at war with himself over the decision whether to move).
(3) When the Subject and the Self share the same space, the 'TRUE SELF' metaphor is activated (e.g. She found herself in writing). In turn, the Self is composed of the private and the public self; the former represents the interior self and the latter stands for what others perceive from the outside. (4) Finally, the 'SELF AS SERVANT' metaphor enables us to understand the Subject as the master and the Self as its servant (e.g. I have to get myself to clean the house).
Orientational metaphors are based on directional and/or positional notions such as up/down, in/out or back/ front (e.g. 'HAPPINESS IS UP', as in I'm feeling up). Peña (2003Peña ( , 2008 argued that it would be analytically more adequate to consider spatial orientations as part of the broader notion of image-schematic, which encompasses other recurrent patterns of experience happening in space which are not spatial themselves (e.g. PROCESS or LINK). Finally, ontological metaphors are based on the Great Chain of Being, a hierarchical structure that classifies entities in the world into different categories, each of which is characterized by the properties of the immediately inferior level plus some conspicuous trait/s that distinguish the entities belonging to the same level from the entities pertaining to the other categories (Lakoff & Turner 1989: 167-168). Such distinguishing feature or set of features constitute the very essence of the entities of the category in question. Higher-order entities are human beings, followed by animals, plants, and inanimate substances or things, which represent the lowest category within this chain. Attributing an entity of a level some characteristic trait of another category (located either higher or lower in the scale) can be done in metaphorical terms (e.g. 'PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS', as in Peter is a pig to mean he is dirty and/or immoral).
Metonymy is a mapping within domains. While pioneering studies of cognitive models focused on metaphor to the detriment of metonymy, the last two decades have witnessed an upsurge of research on metonymy (Barcelona 2015;Brdar 2017;Panther & Thornburg 2014;Ruiz de Mendoza 2014). Ruiz de Mendoza (2000) distinguishes between source-in-target and target-in-source metonymies depending on whether the source is a subdomain of the target domain or the other way around. In the mapping, the domain that contains other domains is termed the matrix domain. In a source-in-target metonymy, the source domain is a subdomain of the target, the matrix domain, for which it stands (e.g. 'HANDS FOR PEOPLE', as in We are always in need of new hands on the farm). In the latter, the target domain is a subdomain of the source, which is the matrix domain. A whole domain of experience is mentioned -the matrix domain -in order to highlight one prominent subdomain within that broader domain (e.g. 'SHOES FOR SHOELACES', as in Tie your shoes). In contrast to metaphors, metonymies are prototypically used referentially, that is to say, they are A FOR B patterns.
However, the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is not always so clear-cut since some metaphors can be used referentially (as in The pig is waiting for his check, where 'pig' makes reference to a customer that behaves immorally by showing too much interest in some woman, probably the waitress) and some metonymies can be used predicatively (as in She is a brain, where brain metonymically refers to intelligence) (Ruiz de Mendoza & Otal 2002: 26-28).
Another main concern in Cognitive Linguistics has been the embodied nature of metaphor. Gibbs (2006Gibbs ( , 2014, among other researchers, should be given credit for conducting experimental research on the psychological reality and embodied nature of metaphor in particular and of figurative thinking in general. Within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, meaning emerges from our interaction with the world (Lakoff & Johnson 1999). In other words, meaning is embodied. Our bodily experience shapes our linguistic realizations. As a result, our conceptualization of reality emanates from such cognitive abilities as perception, memory, emotion or reasoning. Our everyday experience allows us to understand and give linguistic shape to abstractions. We frequently use metaphors in everyday language. As stated above, the source of such metaphors is often grounded in embodied experience. For this reason, it is particularly apt to help us understand the abstract target domains. By way of illustration, consider the image-schematic metaphorical mappings MORE IS UP and LESS IS DOWN (as in Prices rose; His income went down). We perceive the level of fluid going up when we pour liquid into a container. We also become aware that, as we pile things up, the pile gets higher (Lakoff 1993: 240). Thus, since perceptual and motor experience are key to conceptualization, it should come as no surprise that metaphors rooted in experience can serve a structuring function for relevant parts of works or even whole artistic pieces.
Within the cognitive linguistic community, there is a growing consensus on the cognitive dimension of metaphor. However, its cultural and social aspects should not be overlooked. Metaphor is a channel through which the attitudes and beliefs of a particular community are conveyed and perpetuated, in such a way that they become part of the conceptual makeup of their members from generation to generation. In other words, social beliefs tend to become dogmas within groups belonging to a given culture. In this connection, within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis especial emphasis is placed on the way in which societal power relations are set up and perpetuated through language. Power asymmetries, exploitation, and in general any form of social inequality are reflected in, and even fostered by, language use.
The evaluative import of most metaphors has also been given considerable attention (Nunberg, Sag & Watson 1994;Fernando 1996;Moon 1998). This assessment usually results in a biased perspective on the part of a speech group towards another, including their customs, beliefs, or behavior. In this connection, López-Rodríguez (2007: 18-19) substantiates Low's (1988: 27) observation that since only partial structure is mapped from the source to the target domain in metaphorical conceptualization, as argued by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a high price is to be paid. Some aspects of the source are picked out to the detriment of others. This may bring about a negative outcome because by hiding or playing down some aspects of a concept, prejudices towards given social groups could be fostered and perpetuated.

Methodology
First-generation Cognitive Linguistics has been blamed for its lack of systematicity in metaphor identification and selection. Over the past thirty years, corpus-based methods have taken hold as the major empirical approach in linguistics (Stefanowitsch 2006: 1). Corpus-based research into metaphor and metonymy poses some thorny methodological problems. An important initial problem is the identification and retrieval of the data to be analyzed from the corpus. Undertaking this task is feasible when the data to be extracted are lexical items, fixed expressions and some grammatical phenomena. By contrast, the complexity of this task increases exponentially in the case of metaphor and metonymy because there is no straightforward correspondence between conceptual mappings and linguistic material. Taking into account that to date no annotated corpora for figurative uses of language exist, four main strategies have been put forward in order to extract occurrences of metaphor and metonymy from corpora (Stefanowitsch 2006: 2-4): -Manual searching, based on the careful examination of the corpus to identify examples of metaphor or metonymy and then formulate the conceptual mappings underlying them (Jäkel 1997); this task is time-consuming and leads to small-scale analysis based on a reduced corpus. -Searching for source domain lexical items (Barlow 1997;Deignan 1999), since metaphorical and metonymic expressions always include lexical items realizing aspects of the source domain, which makes data retrieval and exhaustive identification possible. A second step involves the identification of the target domains of the purported expressions and, finally, the conceptual mappings can be worked out. -Searching for target domain lexical items. Since metaphorical expressions do not invariably contain lexical items from the target domain, this strategy calls for some previous knowledge of the source domains that are likely to structure the target domain. Searching for some keywords that might be included in such metaphorical mappings (Partington 1997) or for metaphorical patterns (Stefanowitsch 2004(Stefanowitsch , 2006) might lead to a representative, but not exhaustive, identification of conceptual mappings. -Searching for sentences containing words from both source and target domains (Martin 2006). If this method is to be used, exhaustive lists of source and target domain vocabulary are necessary.
Our study has required a target-oriented approach since our aim was to study the metaphorical and metonymic conceptualization of the inhabitants of Panem, especially the tributes, in the trilogy known as The Hunger Games. By carefully examining the data, we have identified different source domains, mainly animals, plants, things, and supernatural beings, and we have set out to study the meaning implications that arise from understanding the tributes, the target domain, in terms of higher and lower forms of existence.

The conceptualization of the tributes through ontological metaphors in The Hunger Games
The novel The Hunger Games abounds in metaphors based on the Great Chain of Being. In this section, we discuss some submappings that materialize the conceptual metaphor 'AN ENTITY BELONGING TO ONE CATEGORY

IN THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING IS AN ENTITY BELONGING TO ANOTHER CATEGORY IN THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING'.
Our analysis lends support to López-Rodríguez's (2007) claim that metaphors are one of the main strategies employed for the acculturation and gender discrimination of women. In the context of the trilogy of The Hunger Games, not only women but also citizens from Panem in general make up a social group manipulated by a privileged elite. Through some well-entrenched conceptual metaphors, especially those belonging to the PEOPLE ARE ANI-MALS and PEOPLE ARE THINGS/INANIMATE SUBSTANCES systems, the tributes are portrayed as submissive and second-rate human beings. However, some positive connotations arise from reframing paradoxical scenarios and from plant metaphors.

Ontological metaphors involving downward mapping
In The Hunger Games, two diametrically opposite social groups stand out: the Gamemakers, who are portrayed as almighty and superficial human beings, and the people living in Panem, who make up a community of disadvantaged people. The reader perceives the reality of the trilogy mainly through the lens of Katniss, one of the members of the second group. It should thus come as no surprise that she highlights those aspects of the Gamemakers and of the prep team that are axiologically negative through metaphorical conceptualization. However, contrary to expectations, when the protagonist makes reference to the people of Panem and especially to the tributes, including herself, she also emphasizes and picks out negative aspects of their personality by means of metaphor. This apparent incongruity is solved if we understand this in the context of a dystopian society in which the members of the power elite have worked hard to make their ideas prevail. These ideas have become ingrained in the minds of the submissive group, who will reproduce them under penalty of severe punishment. Nonetheless, when Katniss grows into a real mockingjay and acquires a voice of her own the status quo is challenged. This biased and scornful attitude on the part of the powerful group towards the submissive people of Panem is conveyed through a series of ontological metaphors, especially those in which people are conceptualized in terms of lower forms of existence, mainly animals and things or inanimate substances.
From the very beginning of the novel, the reader gets startled by the shocking and devastating reality of a dehumanized society that manipulates at its whim twelve-to eighteen-year-olds from the twelve districts conforming Panem and decides on their life and death. Becoming eligible for the reaping makes these boys and girls extremely vulnerable. Especially those who get chosen and launched to the arena become second-class human beings or puppets in the hands of the Almighty Gamemakers, Godlike creatures devoid of any feeling of pity for the poor teenagers. Consequently, as advanced, it comes as no surprise that many expressions in The Hunger Games are but examples of the metaphors 'PEOPLE -THE TRIBUTES -ARE ANIMALS' and 'PEOPLE -THE TRIBUTES -ARE THINGS/ INANIMATE SUBSTANCES'. They involve downward mapping, that is to say, the source domain ranks lower on the Great Chain of Being than the target domain.
Finally, the metaphor 'PEOPLE -THE TRIBUTES -ARE PLANTS' is also based on the reconceptualization of higher-order entities in terms of lower-order entities. Nonetheless, such reconstrual does not result in a negative bias towards the tributes, especially females. Notice should be taken that if the trait of the lower-order entity that is picked out does not affect the essence of the higher-order entity, downward mapping does not involve negative connotations. For instance, as will be shown, the feature that is chosen when the tributes are conceptualized as cattle is their lack of individuality and, thus, their impossibility of behaving as individuals able to convey their own thoughts and feelings. Since individuality is key to the very essence of human beings, being deprived of this trait brings about negative connotations.

THE TRIBUTES ARE ANIMALS
Unquestionably, human beings occupy a higher position than animals, plants, and inanimate substances in the world according to the Great Chain of Being. Human beings are endowed with those properties that characterize lower forms of existence (mainly substance, a complex functional structure, life, and interior states like desires and emotions, limited cognitive abilities) together with a series of features that set them apart from non-human beings (especially capacity for abstract reasoning, aesthetics, morality, and highly developed consciousness) (Lakoff & Turner 1989: 167-168). Those features that make citizens in the districts human rarely play any role throughout the novel. Tributes are either understood in terms of animals or things. This tinges The Hunger Games with a sense of foreboding and dehumanization. The helpless tributes are treated as animals from the opening chapter of the book: "Twelve-through eighteen-year-olds are herded into roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones, like Prim, toward the back" (Collins 2008: 17). They are classified as cattle and deprived of their capacity to think and decide by themselves on their actions. There are many other relevant expressions in the novel that highlight this terrible and humiliating treatment (prospective) tributes (and people in the districts in general) are subject to. The Capitol reminds the inhabitants from the districts that they are completely at their mercy, as if they were animals, as illustrated by the sentence Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do (Collins 2008: 19).
Once Katniss and Peeta are dressed up for the opening ceremony of the Hunger Games, they are taken to a gigantic stable -a place to keep horses or farm animals -and packed into a vehicle drawn by horses as if they were things that need to be shipped somewhere, the Training Center in the context of the novel. In Katniss' own words, "We're whisked down to the bottom level of the Remake Center, which is essentially a gigantic stable [...]. Pairs of tributes are being loaded into chariots..." (Collins 2008: 67). Afterwards, the tributes are led into some catacombs beneath the arena where there are some chambers for their preparation. "We follow instructions to my destination, a chamber for my preparation. In the Capitol, they call it the Launch Room. In the districts, it's referred to as the Stockyard. The place animals go before slaughter" (Collins 2008: 143). Once more, the Gamemakers are taking the tributes' identity away in order to manipulate them. They are regarded as groups of animals devoid of individual traits. A noteworthy comment is in order at this point. While Gamemakers use euphemistic names to refer to cruel realities, citizens in the districts do not.
Little by little, Katniss accepts the sad reality of her fate as a tribute and makes up her mind that she has to do her best to survive. She is glad that Effie gives her and Peeta a helping hand in the arena: "In a way, that's a plus because at least she (Effie) can be counted on to corral us around to places on time whereas we haven't seen Haymitch since he agreed to help us on the train" (Collins 2008: 73). The use of the verb corral reveals that Katniss herself is aware of their animal-like nature.
López-Rodríguez (2007: 24) observes that farmyard animals are raised for utility. They contribute to farm labor or are slaughtered to be eaten. This slavish and submissive aspect of livestock animals is singled out to metaphorically characterize women. By contrast, when the tributes are figuratively regarded as an undifferentiated mass, gender differences are not relevant. In fact, both boys and girls are deprived of their own identity and gender is part of their individuality. Thus, they are all considered part of that despicable undifferentiated mass, no matter their gender differences. As López-Rodríguez (2007: 27) further argues, it is the living conditions of these animals, which are crowded together in tiny spaces such as stables that limit their movement so that they get fat and which are fed to be consumed by human beings, that make them undistinguishable. Throughout the novel, especially in the first volume of the trilogy, the tributes enjoy opulent banquets before taking part in the games. Since they are going to be exhibited as if in a horse show, they should gain some weight. Thus, the tributes also provide entertainment. In addition, this recreation component of equines transferred to humans is linguistically reinforced by expressions such as If I had any money, I'd bet on him myself (Collins 2008: 126), as uttered by Katniss herself making reference to Thresh, the boy tribute from district 11, whose strength makes him a fierce competitor in the Games. The Gamemakers' utter contempt for the heterogeneity of the tributes is further contributed by the following facts: -The use of expressions that point to the metaphorical rendering of the tributes as an undifferentiated mass. They are referred to as a pool of tributes -in order to figuratively convey their docile nature (similar to that of still water) and undifferentiated character -or as a pack of people so as to express the idea of a conglomerate or collection of things or animals that act as a group guided by instinct.
-This disrespect for the singularity of the tributes is also illustrated by the fact that many of them remain nameless throughout the trilogy and we only get to know some of the surnames of a few of them. Sometimes they are named 'tributes from district (number)' or some nickname (e.g. Foxface) is used. They are even numbered for identification as if they were animals. This astonishingly contrasts with the one occasion when the tributes' names do matter. As the poor children from Panem have a birthday (from the time they turn twelve until they reach eighteen), their name is entered into a pool as many times as seven so that they are eligible for the reaping. A tribute's name can be added more times in exchange for food and in place of their family members. If chosen, they become competitors who fight to death in extreme conditions. Once the children get to be tributes, their names are not that relevant. They evolve into an insignificant bulk of entities at the mercy of the Gamemakers. -Since the tributes lack individuality, they do not need to have a voice of their own. They are not allowed to express their personal ideas. Only a few tributes are granted permission to speak but as a means to express the powerful group's beliefs or very basic needs when competing in the arena. As observed, it is mainly Katniss' voice, among the tributes, that we witness. However, it is only at the end of the third volume of the trilogy that Katniss develops a voice of her own by completely metamorphosing into a mockingjay.
Therefore, the metaphor TRIBUTES ARE AN UNDIFFERENTIATED MASS and the conceptual mapping TRIBUTES ARE CATTLE/FARMYARD ANIMALS fruitfully combine in The Hunger Games. This combination is the result of a metaphorical amalgam in which tributes are figuratively identified with cattle and, subsequently, these farmyard animals are metaphorically conceptualized as an undifferentiated mass. In the evolutionary scale, animals are more evolved than inanimate objects. However, the degree of complexity of animals varies from quite simple to more advanced animals. By singling out the lack of individuality of cattle to the detriment of other animal features such as their ability to move individually or their at least rudimentary nervous system (the most advanced animals even possess fully developed brains), these animals are placed closer to inanimate beings than to their own category. This results in an extremely negatively loaded view of the tributes, metaphorically equated with cattle.
A note is in order at this point. While the society presented in The Hunger Games seems to favor clear-cut distinctions and categories (e.g. the power elite vs. the citizens from Panem, life vs. death), such divisions sometimes become blurred, as shown by this criss-crossing of categories between animals and things or the merging of humans and animals into the so-called muttations, the most outstanding one being the Mockingjay.
While the previous excerpts illustrate the loss of identity of individuals and their dehumanized nature, other quotations single out a specific animal trait, usually a negative one from an axiological point of view as well, that is carried over to the domain of human beings for focal attention. For instance, Haymitch calls Katniss a dead slug to highlight her disgusting nature (Collins 2008: 121); the Career tributes, the competitors coming from the wealthier districts that have been trained for years to take part in the Hunger Games, are referred to as a wolf pack or to a pack of wild dogs in order to emphasize their fierceness (Collins 2008: 179) and as the Capitol's lapdogs in order to mean that they are but creatures willing to do anything the Capitol asks them to do in a yes-man fashion (Collins 2008: 160); and the girl from District 2 is metaphorically dubbed a predator in order to lay stress on her ability to hunt other animals as if she herself were an animal too (Collins 2008: 149). As observed, these metaphors create a gloomy atmosphere in which human beings lose their essence as such. These metaphors highlight negative aspects about the tributes.
López-Rodríguez (2007: 29) compares pets and farmyard animals to wild animals to claim that, in contrast to the former, the latter enjoy complete freedom and are thus not subjugated to the control and desires of human beings. They are neither dependent on them for food, shelter or protection. The reality of wild animals in The Hunger Games is somehow far from this characterization. Within the paradoxical and dystopian atmosphere of the novel, those tributes figurately portrayed as wild animals pose a threat only to other tributes but not to the powerful elite outside the arena. That part of them, the Career tributes, are not self-determined creatures is highlighted by Katniss' description of this group as "overly vicious, arrogant, better fed, but only because they are the Capitol's lapdogs" (Collins 2008: 160). Moreover, the Career tributes (and tributes in general) are controlled and even fed by the almighty Gamemakers. Thus, the paradoxical nature of tributes as wild animals devoid of freedom of choice is resolved in the context of this dystopian trilogy in which the Gamemakers are God-like creatures that exert complete control over their creations, the tributes.
Nonetheless, a few animal metaphors seem to focus on positive features, producing in this way a reversal of evaluation of downward mappings. These apparently positive characterizations are attributed to Prim and Rue's sisters, who are not tributes, and to Rue, who reminds Katniss of her sister. Notice should be taken, however, that, as observed, Katniss perpetuates the discourse of the powerful. This is evidenced by the negative bias with which her metaphorical portrayal of such cherished characters is tinged. Within the animal world, pets occupy a privileged position. They are kept at home for company and are treated kindly rather than exploited (López-Rodríguez 2007: 25). Their owners are usually attracted by their good-looking appearance, their intelligence, and their relatable and/ or defenseless nature. This fits in nicely with the metaphorical use of pets such as domestic ducks to refer to Prim. This stems from our perception of these animals as having beautiful plumage and being long-necked, which make them seem elegant and attractive. Nevertheless, another attribute of ducks is their vulnerability. They are unable to fly long distances, which makes them easy prey for both predatory birds and aquatic hunters. These two traits are metaphorically exploited in the following excerpt: I (Katniss) protect Prim in every way I can, but I'm powerless against the reaping… "Tuck your tail in, little duck," I say, smoothing the blouse back in place. Prim giggles and gives me a small "Quack." (Collins 2008: 16) When Prim gets chosen for the games, which is euphemistically disguised as the odds being entirely in her favor (Collins 2008: 22-23), it is Prim's untucked blouse forming a ducktail that brings Katniss back to life. To poor and fragile Prim the blouse represents (i.e. is metonymic for) a duck. In fact, both aspects, the beauty of ducks and their weakness, merge to distil a paradoxical sense of 'vulnerable charm'. This is connected to our experience of nice objects being delicate and in need of being wrapped to be protected and to the long-held belief that women, culturally forced to look elegant and attractive, are weak creatures that should be under male protection. Katniss adopts her father's role after his death, one of her duties being to defend her family from adversity.
Cats are also classified into the category of pets. Katniss is metaphorically conceptualized as a cat. Gale renames her 'Catnip' supposedly as a result of a phonetic misunderstanding.
"Hey, Catnip," says Gale. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I'd said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me. (Collins 2008: 8) However, this does not happen by chance. Cats are thought to be good hunters. This ability is metaphorically transferred to Katniss. In The Hunger Games rather than singling out the pet-like character of cats, what is highlighted is their independent nature and their hunting skills. In order to be able to hunt and not be hunted, cats are elusive, agile, and quick-witted. Thus, describing Katniss as a cat leads to connotations of slyness and independence. In fact, Katniss is metaphorically viewed as a wild cat rather than as a pet, which fits well with her personality. She tries hard not to be dependent on others for shelter and protection but is a protector herself and fights against the dictatorial power of the Gamemakers. Moreover, 'Catnip' makes reference to a herb whose smell is very attractive to cats. Here the animal and plant worlds are fused, as will be discussed in section 4.1.3.
Interestingly enough, birds can also be kept as pets, but, when metaphorically transferred to the domain of human beings, especially to young females, the connotations are offensive. This is again linked to our perception that small entities are insignificant if compared to big ones, to our cultural belief that women, because of their generally smaller size, are less important than men and in need of their protection, and to the idea that adulthood leads to wisdom. Nonetheless, the ability of birds to fly has traditionally made them symbols of freedom. These different aspects are brought to the fore in the following quotations: "That's right. You're District Eleven. Agriculture," I say. "Orchards, huh? That must be how you can fly around the trees like you've got wings." (Collins 2008: 199) I can't stop looking at Rue, smaller than ever, a baby animal curled up in a nest of netting… Past harm, but seeming utterly defenseless. (Collins 2008: 233) In the first quotation, Rue's ability to climb trees is pointed out. This is connected to some degree of freedom and safety since she is able to freely move around places which are restricted for other tributes and thus she cannot be fatally reached. This talent allows Rue to survive for some time. However, her fragility, which partly stems from her young age and small size, inevitably leads to her death. In fact, her reduced dimensions represent a double-edged sword inasmuch as small size allows for ability to freely move but also makes Rue vulnerable and in need of protection. Katniss plays a protective male role towards her, but when Rue is left alone, she cannot survive, as illustrated by the second quotation above. Nonetheless, birds are loaded with positive connotations in most traditions. Their ability to soar into the sky reflects the human desire of freeing themselves from bodily limitations to reach heaven and acquire supernatural traits. Once Rue gets rid of physical constraints, she can use her wings to become an angel-like creature. In spite of the immense anguish Katniss feels at Rue's physical death, she comforts herself by knowing that she does not have to worry about her anymore since Rue will be safe from then onwards (Collins 2008: 235). Again, positive innuendos fruitfully combine with negatively-loaded nuances into paradoxical scenarios that are reframed to make complete sense in the context of this dystopian trilogy.

THE TRIBUTES ARE THINGS/INANIMATE BEINGS
Another metaphorical system involving downward mapping is PEOPLE ARE THINGS (or more specifically, THE TRIBUTES ARE THINGS/INANIMATE BEINGS). As observed, the particular features of animals like cattle singled out in The Hunger Games, especially their lack of individuality and thus their likelihood to be controlled and manipulated, which are carried over to the domain of the tributes, make them similar to inanimate beings, which leads to a negatively-loaded view of the tributes in the novel. Tributes are reified. In this connection, the very name 'tributes' carries negative connotations. Tributes are reminiscent of ancient Rome. The word comes from Latin 'tributum' and it means contribution. A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party grants another in order to show respect or submission. In the context of the novel, high-order entities like the teenagers from the districts are metaphorically conceptualized in terms of the lowest-order ones on the scale known as the Great Chain of Being. This results in a pejorative view of the people living in the districts, especially of the tributes. For instance, Katniss wonders what it must be like to live in such a rich place as the Capitol and what these rich people do to spend their time. She is aware that the tributes are seen as a large amount of goods piled up to be sent to the Capitol rather than as human beings: "What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for entertainment?" (Collins 2008: 65).
The Gamemakers control the tributes to their advantage as if they were objects without feelings and brains. Nonetheless, even the tributes themselves describe other competitors as things, more specifically as obstacles or distractions, as shown by the sentence "Now it seems the other tributes were just minor obstacles, distractions, keeping us from the real battle of the game. Cato and me" (Collins 2008: 323). Again, what gets chosen from the source, the inanimate beings, to be mapped onto the target, the tributes, is their lack of individuality and of own will. People get things for utility, pleasure, and/or entertainment. Some objects are useful because they make some tasks easier. In general terms, the tributes are helpful instruments to immortalize the privileged group's ideas. As claimed, the tributes' minds are molded by the power elite. Moreover, the utility of tributes as objects of pleasure and entertainment is revealing. Children who get chosen in the reaping become game pieces. Gamemakers enjoy watching how the tributes compete in the arena and fight to death as dictated by the rules: "Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to . . . to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games," says Peeta (Collins 2008: 140-141).
In addition, some objects have an appealing charm. The different prep teams work hard to make the tributes look splendid and impressive. They should be ready to be exhibited and 'consumed' by the greedy Gamemakers. As argued by Shau Ming Tan (2013), the trilogy places great emphasis on the body of the child. The child's body represents the locus of government supremacy, and political dominance is displayed by means of turning children into commodities, e.g. objects of obsession, celebrity and veneration, and subsequently destroying them. The rituals of preparation of the Games reinforce the idea of the child as an object. From the moment Katniss is chosen as a tribute, she becomes public property. Her body is now in the hands of her prep team, whose role is to beautify her according to the Capitol's standards. The commodification of the tributes and their posterior reduction to items of sport depict Panem as a posthuman world where humanity is given and taken away. The objectification of the child's body is inextricably linked to two seemingly contradictory notions, veneration and violence. This paradoxical scenario is reframed in the context of the Hunger Games. Both veneration and violence arouse passionate and intense feelings among the Gamemakers. In other words, divergent causes (veneration and violence) bring about similar effects. The Gamemakers take great delight in admiring the tributes' outward appearance that, in turn, leads to sexual pleasure. Thus, Katniss is presented on stage as an object of admiration and desire while, in the arena, she becomes a source of bloody spectacle. Children are portrayed as items of adult desire, admired either for their magical innocence or their sexual potential. For instance, Rue is described as "a magical wisp of a tribute" and older tributes can be referred to as "provocative […] sexy all the way" (Collins 2008: 125-126). This adult obsession with the child's body also manifests itself physically as Capitol residents tattoo and surgically alter their bodies to look young. Katniss also reflects on the physical appearance of the members of her prep team by likening them to "a trio of oddly coloured birds" (Collins 2008: 62;347). The citizens of the Capitol might be considered as "cultural necrophiliacs", adults who "effectively prey on and feed off young people, surrounding themselves with the paraphernalia of youth at least in part because it gives the illusion that they are still young" (Reynolds 2007: 77, cited in Shau Ming Tan 2013).
By metaphorically downgrading children to the category of precious objects to be admired and manipulated, Gamemakers deprive the tributes of one of their quintessential features as beings able to reason and experience and express feelings. Katniss straightforwardly disregards physical appearance as part of her essence but Gamemakers, portrayed as frivolous characters, treasure it first and foremost.
When Plutarch finishes and the meeting's adjourned, I have a bad moment when I learn there's a special order for me. But it's merely that I skip the military haircut because they would like the Mockingjay to look as much like the girl in the arena as possible at the anticipated surrender. For the cameras, you know. I shrug to communicate that my hair length's a matter of complete indifference to me. They dismiss me without further comment. (Collins 2010: 116) In doing this, Katniss refuses to accept traditional gender roles that highlight women's physical attractiveness and to be treated as an object of sexual desire to be consumed by the Gamemakers. However, it is not until Katniss' metamorphosis as a mockingjay at the end of the trilogy that she can free herself from the Gamemakers' oppression (see section 4.2). As a human being, Katniss is knotted to a physical body. In order to find her own identity and become a supernatural creature (the Mockingjay), she liberates herself from physical bonds. For instance, in her process of transformation, the breathtaking costume of the mockingjay is not useful anymore: I limp into the shower and program in the gentlest cycle I can remember, free of any soaps and hair products, and squat under the warm spray, elbows on my knees, head in my hands… Back in the room, I find the Mockingjay suit has disappeared. (Collins 2010: 168) Nonetheless, Katniss is aware that in order to survive in the arena, it is necessary to comply with the Gamemakers' desires and in spite of her aversion to be reduced to a mere possession (as stipulated by the metaphor A LOVED ONE IS A POSSESSION), she reluctantly accepts the situation ("Peeta has made me an object of love"; Collins 2008: 135). As the plot of the novel unfolds, Peeta and Katniss fall in love but then Katniss is not viewed as a possession. Therefore, the metaphor THE TRIBUTES ARE THINGS contributes to the negative characterization and dehumanization of the tributes. However, Katniss' challenge of the traditional gender roles held by the Gamemakers and of the great value assigned to physical beauty, which degrades tributes by regarding them as mere ornaments to be praised and consumed as sexual objects, purveys a message of optimism.

THE TRIBUTES ARE PLANTS
The first book of the trilogy begins with the reaping, a celebration of the harvest. In The Hunger Games, as pointed out by Olthouse (2012: 45), this reaping is a reminder of the Capitol's triumph over the inhabitants from Panem and conjures up the image of the Grim Reaper. As pointed out by Kövecses (2010: 269-270), this character is portrayed as a skeleton wearing a robe and cowl that holds a scythe in his hands. This personification of death results from the combination of the metaphors PEOPLE ARE PLANTS and EVENTS ARE ACTIONS. In the story, plants are metaphorically mapped onto the children from Panem aging 12 to 18 years old that can be cut down (killed at a very early age) by a reaper, the powerful elite in the Hunger Games. Death is an event that can be construed as an action in terms of the EVENTS ARE ACTIONS metaphor. This action is cutting down the poor children from Panem. The instrument that the Grim Reaper uses takes the form of a set of rules that aim to condemn weak tributes to death and to show how powerful the Gamemakers are so that the impoverished people living in Panem do not rebel against authority anymore in an attempt to defy the traditional status quo.
In the PEOPLE ARE PLANTS metaphor, the life cycle of plants provides the conceptual blueprint for understanding the different stages in the life of human beings in such a way that BIRTH IS ARRIVAL, LIFE IS BEING PRESENT HERE, and DEATH IS DEPARTURE (Lakoff & Turner 1989: 1, 12). In the same way as plants, people are said to burgeon (grow) and wither or decline (become seriously ill or die). Death, thus, corresponds to the harvest and the falling of the leaves. In The Hunger Games, the metaphor HUMAN DEATH IS THE REAPING OF A PLANT bears pessimistic connotations for two main reasons: first, human death is the end of people's lives, which constitutes a sad event; most importantly, people are supposed to die when they reach an old age. In the novel, people that are likely to pass away have not completed their life cycle, which is extremely dramatic. Many children and adolescents in the novel lose their lives at a very premature age. Notwithstanding, once more Katniss rebels against long-standing assumptions. In an attempt to contravene the Gamemakers' orders, Katniss manages to survive and also to save Peeta's life in the 74 th Hunger Games in spite of the rules of the Hunger Games, which only allow for a winner. In Catching Fire, the 75 th Games take place. These are the last Hunger Games celebrated in Panem and they conclude with no victor. That both Katniss and Peeta emerge victorious from the 74 th Hunger Games and that there are no winners in the 75 th Hunger Games lead to optimistic connotations based on the fact that the traditional values of the Gamemakers, especially their authority, are called into question. Once more the dystopian nature of the trilogy makes room for some positive overtones.
There is a second set of plant metaphors in The Hunger Games that provide a positive characterization of the tributes, especially of females. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that rather than singling out positive features of such characters in a straightforward way, this is done rather subtly and indirectly. When the plant metaphor is used in these cases, this is done referentially rather than predicatively. In other words, the characters' names that are botanical nomenclatures do not fit into the pattern A IS B (e.g. Katniss is a plant of the genus Sagittaria) but into the structure A FOR B (e.g. Katniss stands for an edible plant). As claimed by González-Vera (2016: 99-100) following Nord (2003), literary proper names like the ones in The Hunger Games serve an expressive function in the sense that apart from being mono-referential (they pick out a single entity), they are not mono-but multi-functional because they may carry semantic, semiotic, and/or sound symbolic meanings. The semiotic meaning of the names of the citizens from the impoverished and oppressed districts of Panem is related to nature.
As evidenced throughout the novel, Katniss shows a multifaceted personality. She exemplifies a myriad of talents and abilities that allow for her survival and for her success in the Hunger Games. As argued by Olthouse (2012: 48), complexity is magnificently conveyed by metaphors and symbols. However, a single metaphor cannot do justice to such an eclectic personality. Katniss is variously defined by herself and by others in terms of an array of figures of speech, each of which highlights a conspicuous aspect of Katniss' essence, as already shown. More often than not, these attributes seem to hold a paradoxical relationship with one another, but such inconsistencies are reconciled. For instance, Katniss Everdeen is depicted as an animal and a plant at the same time and epitomizes male and female traits simultaneously. Her name makes reference to an edible aquatic plant of the genus Saggitaria, from Saggitarius the Archer. This astrological sign is represented with a bow and an arrow. Thus, the proper name 'Katniss' is very rich in implications. On the one hand, it is closely linked to the botanical world. Katniss learnt from her father how to distinguish poisonous from edible plants. This helps her survive in the arena, while another male tribute dies after eating a poisonous plant. On the other hand, the genus to which this plant belongs is related to Katniss' ability to hunt in the woods with the help of an old bow. Moreover, as discussed in section 4.1.1, Katniss is figuratively defined as a cat in order to highlight her hunting skills, slyness and independence. How are these two aspects brought together? The name 'Katniss' metaphorically portrays the character as a tough, enduring and edible plant. Most Katniss species have characteristically arrow-shaped leaves. By means of a metonymic operation, the plant provides conceptual access to its distinctive shape, that of an arrow. In turn, this weapon opens up a scenario of hunting that is metonymically narrowed down to pick out a salient element, survival. Not in vain do weapons such as arrows allow hunters to kill other people/animals and outlive them.
Katniss' embodiment of both male and female roles also finds its way in the novel. After Katniss' father's premature death, Katniss is forced to take on a male role, as illustrated by the cat metaphor. She defends her family at home and also Rue and other tributes in the arena. She is strong and independent and disregards beauty as the essence of women. She works hard to keep her emotions in check. Her strength and surviving skills are also contributed by the plant metaphor. These traditional male characteristics gradually become backgrounded and Katniss' female spirit emerges. On the one hand, the cat metaphor and some aspects of the Katniss plant metaphor are related to male features. On the other, traditionally plants symbolize nature, life, fertility, rebirth, resurrection, and immortality, which are related to female roles. Moreover, plants are by default delicate and nice, the same as women, thus needing protection and special care. At the beginning of the trilogy, in order to survive and to safeguard those she loves, Katniss is a male-like character that holds her femininity back not to seem weak, delicate, and in need of help. However, little by little, Katniss' female identity makes its way. She exhibits her vulnerability and lets her emotions out. In addition, Katniss confesses she needs Peeta in her search for true identity. Then, at the end of the trilogy, the reader learns that Katniss and Peeta have had two children. This is tied to Katniss' fertility and search for immortality through her children. The hope of a new generation ready to break free from the impositions of the almighty rich people is a driving force for the impoverished districts of Panem. Katniss makes male and female roles compatible, challenging in this way the privileged group's desire to maintain a sharp distinction between those two roles. Furthermore, Katniss reformulates gender roles, especially female ones. Women are not submissive, delicate, beautiful, and weak creatures anymore. Femininity involves women's power to decide upon their own lives. They are entitled and encouraged to carry out actions traditionally assigned to men. In the context of the novel, female empowerment constitutes a sound rejection of the privileged group's ideas and shakes the very foundations of the status quo that this powerful elite defends staunchly and strives to perpetuate.
The novel also features other female characters' names (Primrose, Rue, Glimmer, and Clove). These are botanical names that create a subtle positive atmosphere. However, we will only focus on the symbolism of the main characters' names.
A primrose is a delicate wild healing plant. In connection with this, the character referred to with this name, Katniss' sister, takes after her mother as a healer after her father's death. In spite of this healing role, which might mislead us into thinking that she is a strong character, she is beautiful, extremely delicate and fragile. These same connotations are contributed by the duck metaphor addressed in section 4.1.1. She exemplifies traditional female roles. Her vulnerability makes her an easy mark for the powerful elite and she eventually dies. Nevertheless, she only passes away physically. In spite of the fact that primroses grow wild in the countryside, the character does not manage to survive in the woods. Aware of this, in order to bring Katniss back to life after the 75 th Hunger Games, Peeta collects some of these flowers from the woods and plants them near Katniss' house: "I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," he (Peeta) says. "I thought we could plant them along the side of the house" (Collins 2010: 171).
This symbolizes Prim's immortality since primroses will follow their life cycle and, in spite of the fact that they will be born, burgeon, and finally wither, new flowers will come up over and over again. Prim's problem of her lack of ability to adapt herself to the woods is solved. Prim is brought near her house to be taken care of by her sister Katniss. Moreover, this idea of eternal life is strengthened by Katniss and Primrose's surname, since 'Everdeen' phonetically reminds us of 'evergreen'. This symbolic immortality and rebirth add up to the positive connotations in the novel.
Rue's name is also reminiscent of a medical plant. It is a beautiful plant that grows in gardens and is a repellent to many creatures. Related to this, the character is described as a beautiful and delicate girl that makes her way into the woods and heals Katniss. By contrast, in being compared to a garden plant, she is delicate and eventually loses her life. However, her bird-like features, as discussed in section 4.1.1, allow her to free herself from her bodily limitations and from the privileged group's oppression, so she becomes a quasi-supernatural immortal being.
As attested, these names with positive plant connotations correspond to female characters and point to the emerging female empowerment that subtly surfaces in the novel. There are two revealing exceptions, though. As will be further explained in section 4.2, Gale Hawthorne's surname hints at a thorny tree with flowers and fruits. If metaphorically applied to Gale, the flowers and fruits map onto the character's provider role rather than onto his ability to survive and become immortal, while the thorns correspond to Gale's rebellious nature. Additionally, Katniss claims that Gale is fire in order to place special emphasis on his uncontrollable nature and unbalanced personality. Thus, no positive innuendos are communicated by the plant metaphor in the case of Gale. As regards Peeta, Katniss refers to him as the dandelion in the spring (Collins 2010: 172), evoking in this way rebirth and survival -both Katniss and Peeta become victorious in the Hunger Games -even though this plant metaphor is not inherent in his name. Peeta is shown not to be afraid of disclosing his feelings, which makes him somehow a female-like character. But Peeta also exemplifies male traits. By having a balanced personality, Peeta serves the function of being a perfect match for the main character, Katniss, and both survive in spite of the cruel and heartless conditions of the arena.
In sum, the referential use of most plant metaphors in the trilogy hints at the subtle flourishing of female empowerment. Hope paradoxically emerges from devastation, death, and cruelty.

Ontological metaphors involving upward mapping: The Mockingjay metaphor
Without any doubt, the most relevant metaphor in the trilogy is that of the Mockingjay, a symbolic name drawn from the term applied to the special breed resulting from the accidental mating of jabberjays and mockingbirds. The association between Katniss and the Mockingjay is somewhat reminiscent of the transhumanist philosophy which defends human modification and enhancement technologies as a way to free us from the limitations of our bodies and minds (Young 2006: 20). Thus, according to More (2003), the transhuman is an enhanced human in constant development towards the posthuman whose capacities surpass by far those of present humans.
As stated by Olthouse (2012: 53), Katniss ends up finding a Mockingjay identity she can truly identify with. But how is this possible? We claim that the Mockingjay metaphor is inextricably intertwined with the DIVIDED SELF metaphor. The whole novel seems to be about finding one's identity. Katniss' father told her "As long as you can find yourself, you'll never starve" (Collins 2008: 52). But what is the meaning of this statement in the trilogy? How does Katniss manage to find her own identity? Katniss will discover herself by channelling her thoughts and emotions through the Mockingjay's voice. Once she takes control of the mutt's voice, her true identity will reveal itself. Throughout The Hunger Games we witness Katniss' continuous struggle between her Subject and her Self. The overriding triumph of the Subject over the Self gives way to a gradual but open display of Katniss' personality. In other words, the SELF AS SERVANT metaphor develops into the TRUE SELF entailment at the end of the trilogy.
The Capitol created a kind of bird called jabberjays whose main function and ability was to spy on the people living in the districts and to relay their conversations. These animals crossed with mockingbirds and then the mockingjays came into existence. These genetically modified birds inherited the ability to replicate conversations. They are portrayed as creatures that easily adapt to the wild, becoming in this way a symbol of resistance and hope. Mockingjays make their way into the trilogy little by little and in a very subtle way. At the beginning it is only their capacity to reproduce sounds and to endure hard environmental conditions that is highlighted. By contrast, in the third volume of the trilogy, mockingjays gain extraordinary prominence. In fact, only one of those unique creatures is singled out, the Mockingjay. Rather than being metaphorically identified with this creation, Katniss becomes the creature itself. But Katniss goes through a process of recognition of her self-identity. In the struggle to find her true self, Katniss does not manage to succeed until she takes control of the mockingjay's voice and vents her feelings. In this way, she finds her own identity. This process of recognition of Katniss' true identity is beset with both physical and psychological hardship. She not only has to survive in the arena but she also has to overcome her own internal conflict to be able to reveal her true self. In the remainder of this subsection, we deal with the way in which this is shown in the novel.
In the first volume of the trilogy, mockingjays make their first subtle appearance as half-human and half-animal creatures endowed with a parrot-like ability to repeat words and tunes and to adapt to hard conditions, as illustrated by the excerpt below. When Madge gives Katniss a circular gold pin with the image of a mockingjay after she volunteers to be a tribute in the arena instead of her sister Prim, Katniss confesses she had not paid much attention to it before (Collins 2008: 39).
They're funny birds and something of a slap in the face to the Capitol. During the rebellion, the Capitol bred a series of genetically altered animals as weapons… One was a special bird called a jabberjay that had the ability to memorize and repeat whole human conversations. They were homing birds, exclusively male, that were released into regions where the Capitol's enemies were known to be hiding. After the birds gathered words, they'd fly back to centers to be recorded. It took people awhile to realize what was going on in the districts, how private conversations were being transmitted. Then, of course, the rebels fed the Capitol endless lies, and the joke was on it. So the centers were shut down and the birds were abandoned to die off in the wild.
Only they didn't die off. Instead, the jabberjays mated with female mockingbirds creating a whole new species that could replicate both bird whistles and human melodies. (Collins 2008: 43-44) Several traits of mockingjays are metaphorically attributed to Katniss, even though she is not still aware of them: she fights to protect her family, friends, and the inhabitants from Panem and she is also a messenger (Olthouse 2012: 51).
Gradually Katniss becomes aware that the mockingjay on her pin has grown into a symbol of resistance used by the rebels. Additionally, the weapon created by the power elite did not only survive but became itself a weapon in the hands of the inhabitants of the districts.
Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance? (Collins 2009: 69) Evidently, Effie doesn't know that my mockingjay pin is now a symbol used by the rebels. At least in District 8. In the Capitol, the mockingjay is still a fun reminder of an especially exciting Hunger Games. (Collins 2009: 87) Cinna, one of the members of the prep team, makes Katniss look like a mockingjay. Caesar compares her to a bird by means of a simile ("You're like a bird", Collins 2009: 116) but Katniss is already aware of her mockingjay role beyond mere outward appearance, which she knows must be kept secret ("A mockingjay, I think," I say, giving my wings a small flap, Collins 2009: 116). However, she does not yet understand the far-reaching consequences of her function and does not fully identify with the mockingjay.
When it is widely known that Katniss is the symbol of the rebellion, Plutarch, the Head Gamemaker in Catching Fire, explicitly acknowledges Katniss' role, which he adds is the reason for her to be kept alive. The jabberjays did not die, they grew into different enhanced creatures. Likewise, Katniss does lose her life but evolves into a superior being.
"We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss", says Plutarch. "While you live, the revolution lives" The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion. It's what I suspected in the woods when I found Bonnie and Twill escaping. Though I never really understood the magnitude. But then, I wasn't meant to understand. (Collins 2009: 176) The novel reaches a turning point when Katniss states "I am the mockingjay" instead of her previous "I am a mockingjay". When she discovers that she is not part of the undifferentiated mass of tributes, she classifies herself as a mockingjay. This is followed by her realization that she is the mockingjay. One particular such mutt is singled out and brought into prominence in the novel. This is so to such an extent that the third volume in the trilogy is entitled Mockingjay. However, after this climax, Katniss still has a long way to completely grasp the whole significance of her mockingjay role. In fact, in spite of her recognition, at the beginning of Mockingjay she realizes that her identity is something she does not own: What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay... I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution… I won't have to do it alone. They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances--as if that doesn't sound horribly familiar--and all I have to do is play my part. (Collins 2010: 14) She is only a puppet manipulated by the Gamemakers. She is not in control of herself. Katniss is even metaphorically portrayed as an actress performing a role she has been assigned.
While the prep team in particular and the Gamemakers in general encourage Katniss to become the Mockingjay and to develop her personality as such, they only want to achieve this by way of entertainment. When they realize they can lose control of Katniss, they begin to regard her as a threat: "She (Coin) has been the quickest to determine that I have an agenda of my own and am therefore not to be trusted. She has been the first to publicly brand me as a threat" (Collins 2010: 36).
Katniss' voice as a mockingjay emerges little by little, which means that she can show her Self. The SELF AS SERVANT metaphor begins to be replaced with the TRUE SELF metaphor. Katniss describes herself as coming out as the Mockingjay (Collins 2010: 59). The Subject, once in possession of the Self, stops playing the domineering role and lets the Self come to the surface.
However, Katniss goes through several emotional ups and downs until she can fully take on her role as a real mockingjay. For instance, when Peeta is in danger she feels unable to accept such a responsibility and loses her voice: "My voice cuts off in a dry, squeaking sound…It's impossible to be the Mockingjay. Impossible to complete even this one sentence" (Collins 2010: 78).
Moreover, even the prep team are worried about Katniss' voice. They do not want her to become speechless, but they want to have full command over her discourse. Thus, Katniss' true self is constrained again, and she is forced to convey the powerful elite's thoughts: "Freeze," Haymitch's voice whispers in my ear. I follow his order, realizing that this is what all of District 2, all of Panem maybe, must be seeing at the moment. The Mockingjay at the mercy of a man with nothing to lose. (Collins 2010: 100) Katniss' forced submissive behavior as a puppet yielding to the privileged group's desires is also contributed by her own recognition as a foot soldier ("It's as if they don't want to entirely lose the Mockingjay, but they want to downgrade my role foot soldier", Collins 2010: 119), and by Katniss' portrayal as something devoid of will through the use of causative constructions ("If it goes well, we'll fly you in for the surrender", Collins 2010: 109; "They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances", Collins 2010: 114), orders ("Try the lines again", says Cressida", Collins 2010: 78), and passive sentences ("I get an extra-large portion of pea soup and am headed back to Compartment E when Boggs intercepts me", Collins 2010: 64).
After Katniss has been badly injured, the prep team works hard to keep up appearances by making her look like a real mockingjay on the outside, but inside she feels empty. She metaphorically compares herself to a wasteland: "I can't believe how normal they've made me look on the outside when inwardly I'm such a wasteland" (Collins 2010: 164). Katniss becomes aware that she does not need to wear any disguise to look like a mockingjay because she is a mockingjay. As a matter of fact, she does not care about outward appearance in spite of being a girl, which defies traditional gender roles: When Plutarch finishes and the meeting's adjourned, I have a bad moment when I learn there's a special order for me. But it's merely that I skip the military haircut because they would like the Mockingjay to look as much like the girl in the arena as possible at the anticipated surrender. For the cameras, you know. I shrug to communicate that my hair length's a matter of complete indifference to me. (Collins 2010: 116) I limp into the shower and program in the gentlest cycle I can remember, free of any soaps and hair products, and squat under the warm spray, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. (Collins 2010: 168) After emerging victorious from two consecutive hunger games, reluctantly agreeing to act as the Mockingjay, and getting to know that her beloved sister Prim has been killed, Katniss feels depressed and is sent back to her district, number 12. Back home, she is unable to go on living and find her place. Despite knowing she is now free to lead her own life, she cannot gather her strength and lets herself go for some time: Greasy Sae does the dishes and leaves, but she comes back up at dinnertime to make me eat again. I don't know if she's just being neighborly or if she's on the government's payroll, but she shows up twice every day. She cooks, I consume. I try to figure out my next move. There's no obstacle now to taking my life. But I seem to be waiting for something. (Collins 2010: 170) What Katniss needs to come back to life is Peeta, as she herself states, and nature. Peeta turns out to be her perfect match: I can't stand in a television studio wearing a costume and makeup in a cloud of fake smoke and rally the districts to victory. It's amazing, really, how long I have survived the cameras. The credit for that, of course, goes to Peeta. Alone, I can't be the Mockingjay. (Collins 2010: 42) Katniss' process of identification with the mockingjay is figuratively portrayed as a journey whose start and end points are the same, the woods in district 12. Thus, we might be misled into thinking that after going through such hardship along a path full of obstacles, Katniss achieves nothing. This is the result of another paradox in the trilogy. Nature represents freedom in the novel. It is the only place where Katniss can reveal her true self. However, she needs to endure extreme adversity to give voice to her Self and to discover Peeta, and not Gale, as her other half to get a well-balanced personality. Katniss rises from her ashes when Peeta brings some primroses, that remind her of her sister, from the woods to Katniss' house. This fact provokes Katniss' outburst of anger and anxiety that makes her rise from her own ashes and is also an incentive for her to come back to the woods to hunt. After her makeover in the Games, Katniss knows that "the devil thing is inside, not out" (Collins 2010: 171) and makes her way to finding herself by voicing her emotions. Katniss cries bitter tears at the loss of her sister, shouts in despair, and gradually comes back to life: "A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair." (Collins 2010: 172).
The Mockingjay (Katniss') voice has also undergone a remarkable change since outside the Capitol, Katniss is no longer under the Gamemakers' command. She is not a mere messenger of the powerful elite's messages and can freely express her innermost feelings and thoughts.
The figurative journey that Katniss travels in order to find her own identity as a mockingjay also involves, as remarked, a conspicuous change from a triumph of Katniss' rational part over her emotional part to a balanced personality in which the emotional part is not completely overridden. Nonetheless, to find inner equilibrium, Katniss goes through stages in which the Subject loses control over the Self. Thus, the SELF AS SERVANT metaphor does not evolve into the TRUE SELF in a straightforward way. After withholding her emotional part for such a long time, Katniss is at a loss to cope with her Subject and her Self and loses control of the latter. In other words, the figurative change from the SELF AS SERVANT entailment to the TRUE SELF metaphor is feasible after Katniss experiences an outward, open, and violent disclosure of feelings that disturbs her personal equilibrium and her search for her mockingjay identity. In Mockingjay, her emotions well up inside her and she is carried away by them: So in the fading light I shut my eyes and kiss Gale to make up for all the kisses I've withheld... I empty my mind and let the sensations run through my flesh, happy to lose myself… My hand automatically goes to the scar on my left temple, which I associate with confusion. "Now kiss me." Bewildered, unblinking, I stand there while he leans in and presses his lips to mine briefly. He examines my face closely. "What's going on in your head?" (Collins 2010: 94) However, Katniss realizes that what she needs to finally find her own identity is a balanced personality rather than the disruptive force of emotions. Emotions are not to be completely restrained but they should be somehow controlled. To this end, her ideal match is Peeta, who displays a harmonious and stable personality. He is not afraid of expressing his emotions but is not carried away by them: I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. (Collins 2010: 172) Katniss uses two metaphors to describe both Gale's and Peeta's essence. Gale is figuratively mapped onto fire. This metaphor is grounded in metonymy. The source of the metaphor has to be metonymically developed to understand the whole import of the cross-domain mapping GALE IS FIRE. The EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy, more specifically the submapping FIRE FOR STRONG AND DISRUPTIVE EMOTIONS, allows us to understand Gale as consisting mainly of the Self. In other words, Gale exemplifies the LOSS OF SELF metaphor. This is further reinforced by Gale's proper name itself. Gales evoke agitation, confusion, and turmoil and can trigger dramatic consequences. This can be metaphorically attributed to Gale, whose emotional outbursts can cause chaos (González-Vera 2016: 100). Moreover, Gale's surname, Hawthorne, hints at a plant. Hawthorns are trees with thorns, white or pink flowers in spring and red fruits in autumn. If applied to Gale Hawthorne, the flowers and fruits suggest the character's provider role, which is somehow counterbalanced by the thorns, which remind us of Gale's defiant nature. Therefore, Gale's most remarkable trait is his unbalanced personality as his Subject is ruled by his Self. On the other hand, Peeta is characterized as the dandelion in the spring, which means rebirth rather than destruction. Additionally, the symbolic meaning of dandelions is related to healing from emotional and physical injury. It is also worth noting that the proper name 'Peeta' makes reference to pita bread and bread bears associations with resurrection and survival.
In sum, the Mockingjay metaphor, which involves upward mapping, brings forth positive innuendos that grant an aura of hope to this dystopian novel. Katniss is conceptualized as a supernatural human being able to challenge the traditional status quo in a number of different ways: -The mockingjay (Katniss) is the by-product of the fusion of a bird and a human being resulting in this way in a supernatural creature that is capable of defying the power elite's control over the poor people of Panem; this enhanced version of the Gamemakers' invention, as shown, inherits positive attributes of birds and human beings. The ability of birds to fly metonymically stands for freedom, and the human capability of speaking allows for the expression of feelings and thoughts. Katniss breaks new ground and will not be a vehicle for the reproduction and perpetuation of the privileged group's long-standing assumptions. She develops a voice of her own. -Possessing a voice of her own allows Katniss to develop her own personality, to become an individual rather than part of the undifferentiated mass of tributes. The Gamemakers end up losing control over Katniss since she distances herself from the oppressed group. -The cultural belief that women are inferior if compared to their male counterparts is seriously called into question, which brings hope within a dystopian society. Not in vain were the Gamemakers' creations, the original jabberjays, male creatures. However, Katniss' metamorphosis also casts doubt on traditional gender roles.

Conclusion
Our discussion of the dystopian trilogy entitled The Hunger Games has evidenced the fruitfulness of the combination of analytical categories from Cognitive Poetics and Critical Discourse Analysis. Examining the way in which the tributes are conceptualized in the novel helps us come to terms with the dystopian world of The Hunger Games.
Our analysis has revealed that four main source domains structure the target domain of the tributes: animals, things, plants, and supernatural creatures, giving shape in this way to ontological metaphors. The first three involve downward mappings and the last one an upward mapping. We have found that there is no straightforward correspondence between downward mapping and negative connotations, on the one hand, and upward mapping and positive implications, on the other. This assessment hinges on the nature of the attributes that are carried over from the source to the target domain. Only if they affect the very essence of the target domain, pessimistic connotations arise. Additionally, we have proved that the choice of (particular aspects of) source domains to characterize the tributes is not random but grounded in experience. Picking out the lack of individuality of cattle to highlight the tributes' deprivation of the right to decide on their own emanates from our experience in the world. Farmers feed, fatten up, purchase, and sell cattle. Much in the same way, the tributes are at the mercy of the almighty Gamemakers, who control their lives. A similar feature of the tributes is brought to bear when the tributes are figuratively depicted as things or inanimate beings. Most of the animal metaphors and all of the thing metaphors help create a dreary and heartless atmosphere in the novel. Curiously enough, this pejorative view of the tributes is offered by Katniss especially in the first volume of the trilogy. The reason is that her speech is controlled by the powerful elite to immortalize their beliefs and attitudes. As the plot of the novel unfolds and Katniss finds her own voice (and identity), these long-standing assumptions are threatened.
As regards plant conceptual mappings, the reaping metaphor conjures up the ruthless scenario of very young children dying at a premature age as if they were plants to be harvested. The tributes are again reified and are not allowed to complete their life cycle, which increases the degree of cruelty. By contrast, the proper names of the main female tribute characters in the novel (mainly Katniss, Primrose, and Rue) metaphorically portray them as strong and immortal human beings because of their capacity to reproduce. Primrose and Rue physically die but they enjoy eternal life. Some primroses are planted round Katniss' house to be cared for by Katniss and after some of them wither and eventually die, new such flowers will bloom. Regarding Rue, after she passes away, her bird-like nature will help her break free from physical limitations and live forever as a supernatural being. Only a male character, Peeta, is metaphorically described as a plant, a dandelion, to place emphasis on his readiness to show feelings. Moreover, he survives in the 74 th Hunger Games in spite of the Gamemakers' rules and Katniss confesses she needs him to find her own identity, which she gets through her identification with The Mockingjay. In sum, the girl tributes' botanical names constitute a glimmer of hope in the context of the novel since they imply some positivity, some close communion with nature. Nature, as represented by the woods in The Hunger Games, means not only danger but also survival since it provides human beings with water, shelter, and edible resources.
Finally, the Mockingjay metaphor also contributes to purveying an optimistic message. Throughout the novel, the reader witnesses Katniss' struggle to find her identity, something her father encouraged her to do. She goes through three main stages to succeed: first, she keeps her emotions in check not to show signs of weakness that might condemn her to death; second, she cannot withhold her emotions anymore and is carried away by them; and finally, she develops a balanced personality. This three-stage process is metaphorically conveyed by means of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor, which results from our experience of beings consisting of a rational part (the Subject) and an emotional (the Self) part. In this connection, Katniss finds herself through the Mockingjay metaphor as she develops a voice of her own to express her emotions and thoughts. This represents a challenge to the prevailing status quo defended by the almighty Gamemakers mainly for two reasons: first, Katniss will not perpetuate their ideas anymore. She already has a voice of her own. The sharp and clear-cut distinction between the almighty and the disadvantaged groups is questioned. Katniss, a member of the submissive group, is able and willing to express her own beliefs. Furthermore, such beliefs will be kept alive by her offspring; second, traditional gender roles are seriously called into question. Katniss reformulates them by adopting conventional male roles and by integrating them into her own female personality. Female empowerment gradually and subtly makes its way into the novel. This also shows that our analysis is capable of reconciling these and other paradoxical scenarios in the novel and that optimism can be born from pessimism.