The dystopian genre is often defined by government control and post-apocalyptic settings. Depending on the intended age of the reader, dystopian authors generally create these works using simple sentence structure and cold diction with the goal of putting the reader into the sad and compassionless setting. Collins does just that in The Hunger Games as she has Katniss fight for her life in place of her sister.

The novel is written for a young adult audience, and the language Collins uses follows suit. While she is a detailed writer, ensuring her readers are engaged, she never uses high-level, academic language to get her point across or create imagery. She uses simple diction to help the reader step into this world.

For example, look at how she describes the tributes eating lunch at the practice facility.

Breakfast and dinner are served on our floor, but at lunch the twenty-four of us eat in a dining room off the gymnasium. Food is arranged on carts around the room and you serve yourself. The Career Tributes tend to gather rowdily around one table, as if to prove their superiority, that they have no fear of one another and consider the rest of us beneath notice.

The diction is simplistic, and the sentence structure is easy to read. The reader understands the setting, yet little emotion is put into these words.

We see this again during an emotional moment as Katniss watches Rue die.

I can't stop looking at Rue, smaller than ever, a baby animal curled up in a nest of netting. I can't bring myself to leave her like this. Past harm, but seemingly utterly defenseless. To hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so vulnerable in death, seems inadequate. It's the Capitol I hate, for doing this to all of us.

The tone here is somber yet is undercut with the anger Katniss feels for being forced into this position. The use of figurative language pulls the reader into the scene, so we, too, can see the tragedy that Katniss sees.

Here is another example of simplistic comparisons that help the reader imagine what Katniss witnesses as Cinna dresses her.

The creature standing before me in the full-length mirror has come from another world. Where skin shimmers and eyes flash and apparently they make their clothes from jewels. Because my dress, oh my dress is entirely covered in reflective precious gems, red and yellow and white with bits of blue that accent the tips of the flame design. The slightest movement gives the impression I am engulfed in tongues of fire.

This explanation of Katniss's dress is basic yet filled with figurative language that any reader can visualize. The colors and imagery of faux flames cover her body and shine like the sun.

Throughout the novel, Collins sets up her dystopian world through her simplistic diction and easy-to-read sentence structure. She does not use high-level vocabulary and leaves most of the emotion removed from the text. However, her use of basic comparisons helps the reader understand what Katniss is feeling and witnessing in a cold, dark, and cruel world.