The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins
Katniss isn't a flower, it is a root. It is strong and sturdy, and though tough it can be used to survive. It is a symbol about how our character, Katniss, is a survivor.
The rue plant is the common name for the ruta genus, which consists of about 40 species, and is a member of the rutaceae family and rutoideae subfamily. These strange-smelling subshrubs are native to regions of Macaronesia, southwest Asia, and the Mediterranean. The stems of these plants are woody and prostrate; the foliage is a light green to bluish green in hue, either bipinnate or tripinnate, and slightly feathery in appearance; while the flowers are tiny, yellow, and made up of four or five small petals that form atop a cyme.
The rue plant has a long history as an exceedingly helpful piece of vegetation. Although rue is best noted as one of the oldest medicinal plants grown in England, it took quite some time for it to find such a wide distribution. Some of its earliest recorded uses date back to Ancient Rome, where it was initially planted around temples as a tribute to Mars. Later, the Romans introduced it to other parts of Europe, as it was discovered that the rue plant was responsible for curing more than eighty known ailments. In Greece, Hippocrates – the well known physician – noted that this plant was the main ingredient in mithridate, a potent antidote to a number of poisons. During the time of the Black Death, many thieves robbed the fallen bodies of plague victims, but seemed to get by without any damage done. It was later learned that the immunity that these thieves received came from a homemade potion called “Vinegar of the Four Thieves,” which contained garlic, mint, wormwood, rosemary, lavender, vinegar, sage and rue leaves. This story leads into a bit of plant mythology, which stated that when the basilisk – a vicious serpent of Greek folklore – would breathe upon a garden every plant die, save for the rue. Since these plants were impervious to the vile breath of the beast, animals that were bitten by it would consume the leaves of the rue plant to soak up its immunity. In modern times, rue plants are still used to treat a number of complaints such as tired eyes, skin wounds, and arthritis. They are also used within the culinary realm, and in modern day rituals.
Rue plants carry a good deal of meaningful symbolism that ranges from health and patience, to mental endurance and pure love. Because of its unusual scent, rue plants are rarely given as gifts; however, when they are given, it is usually in the form of a wreath or small bouquet.
The rue plant has a long history as an exceedingly helpful piece of vegetation. Although rue is best noted as one of the oldest medicinal plants grown in England, it took quite some time for it to find such a wide distribution. Some of its earliest recorded uses date back to Ancient Rome, where it was initially planted around temples as a tribute to Mars. Later, the Romans introduced it to other parts of Europe, as it was discovered that the rue plant was responsible for curing more than eighty known ailments. In Greece, Hippocrates – the well known physician – noted that this plant was the main ingredient in mithridate, a potent antidote to a number of poisons. During the time of the Black Death, many thieves robbed the fallen bodies of plague victims, but seemed to get by without any damage done. It was later learned that the immunity that these thieves received came from a homemade potion called “Vinegar of the Four Thieves,” which contained garlic, mint, wormwood, rosemary, lavender, vinegar, sage and rue leaves. This story leads into a bit of plant mythology, which stated that when the basilisk – a vicious serpent of Greek folklore – would breathe upon a garden every plant die, save for the rue. Since these plants were impervious to the vile breath of the beast, animals that were bitten by it would consume the leaves of the rue plant to soak up its immunity. In modern times, rue plants are still used to treat a number of complaints such as tired eyes, skin wounds, and arthritis. They are also used within the culinary realm, and in modern day rituals.
Rue plants carry a good deal of meaningful symbolism that ranges from health and patience, to mental endurance and pure love. Because of its unusual scent, rue plants are rarely given as gifts; however, when they are given, it is usually in the form of a wreath or small bouquet.
The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins
Key Facts
full title · The Hunger Games
author · Suzanne Collins
type of work · Novel
genre · Dystopia
language · English
time and place written · Connecticut, United States, in the mid- to late-2000s
date of first publication · September 2008
publisher · Scholastic
narrator · Katniss Everdeen narrates The Hunger Games as the events of the novel occur.
point of view · The story is told in the first person and recounts the narrator’s personal history and experiences. The narrator is mostly objective, but on occasion she will imagine what other characters must be feeling.
tone · Mostly stoic, but occasionally very emotional
tense · Present
setting (time) · An indeterminate time more than one hundred years in the future
setting (place) · Panem, the country created after the governments of North America collapsed
protagonist · Katniss Everdeen
major conflict · Katniss must endure numerous deadly ordeals, navigate complex personal relationships, and learn to control how others perceive her in order to survive the Hunger Games.
rising action · After volunteering to take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, Katniss has to manage others’ perceptions of her to gain the best strategic advantage possible, then learn to survive inside the arena.
climax · Having outlasted the other tributes, Katniss and Peeta threaten suicide rather than fight one another after a rule change turns them from allies into adversaries.
falling action · Even though she and Peeta won the Hunger Games, Katniss must try to assuage the Capitol, which is angry with Katniss for threatening suicide and forcing a decision they didn’t like.
themes · The inequality between rich and poor; suffering as entertainment; the importance of appearances
motifs · Fire, defiance, hunting
symbols · Mockingjay, Panem, Katniss’s dresses
foreshadowing · Katniss demonstrates her ability to hunt and forage in order to survive; Madge gives Katniss the mockingjay pin; Peeta excels at the camouflage station in training; Katniss saves the berries that killed Foxface.
Growing up, Suzanne Collins was a military brat. Her father was a career airman in the United States Air Force, as a result, Collins and her siblings—two older sisters and an older brother—moved around frequently, spending time in numerous locations in the eastern United States as well as in Europe. The military, in fact, played a leading role in the family’s history. Collins’s grandfather had served in World War I, her uncle served in World War II, and the year Collins turned six, her father left to serve his own tour in the Vietnam War. War, consequently, was a part of life for Collins, something very real and not just an abstract idea. While her father was gone, she would sometimes see video footage of the war zone on the news, and she recognized that her father was there fighting. Though her father returned after a year, Collins’s connection to war didn’t end. In addition to being a soldier, Collins’s father was also a military historian and a doctor of political science. That knowledge and experiences serving in the Air Force and fighting in Vietnam had a profound effect on his relationships with his children, and he made sure they learned what they could about war. While other girls’ fathers were telling them fairytales, Collins’s father educated her about military history. When the family was moved to Brussels, Belgium, for instance, her father educated her about the region’s violent history and took her on tours of the country’s historic battlefields.
Eventually, Collins attended Indiana University. There, she met the man who would later become her husband, Cap Pryor. At 25, she began an M.F.A. program at New York University where she specialized in playwriting, and after graduation, worked for about a year before landing her first television-writing job on the show “Hi Honey, I’m Home!” Since then, Collins has been on the writing staff of several shows, including the Emmy-nominated “Clarissa Explains It All.” She and her husband also had two children, and ultimately they decided to leave New York for Connecticut. It was there that Collins began work on her first series of books for children, “The Underland Chronicles.” The series was another success for Collins, making the New York Times bestseller list. Collins was 41 when the first book, Gregor The Overlander, was published.
One night, Collins was watching television, flipping back and forth between coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a reality-TV show. That’s when Collins had the idea that would ultimately turn into The Hunger Games. A longtime fan of Greek and Roman mythology, Collins borrowed a great deal from those sources to give the story its shape. One notable contribution came from the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which the Cretan king Minos demanded that seven maidens and seven youths be sent as a tribute every nine years. He gave these tributes to the Minotaur, who would consume them. Collins also borrowed from Ancient Roman history. The gladiatorial games were updated and turned into a televised competition, and Collins took the name of her fictional dystopia from the Latin phrase “panem et circenses.” While Collins finished her often dark and violent book, she continued to write for television, working on the markedly less violent show “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!”
The Hunger Games was published in September 2008 and quickly found critical success, with reviewers and other authors, including Stephen King, praising the book. Among the features that received the most attention were the plotting and pace. Collins has attributed her skill in these areas to her background as a playwright and her time spent working in television, where there is little downtime allowed and character development has to occur simultaneously with the storyline constantly moving forward. The book also rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and subsequently spent more than three consecutive years on the list. The other books in the trilogy, published over the next two years, followed the same pattern, all becoming huge commercial successes. Then, in March 2012, The Hunger Games movie was released. It had the third-highest opening weekend in history, and the highest opening weekend ever for a movie that was not a sequel. There are now more than 18 million copies of The Hunger Games in print, and with the trilogy now available in fifty languages, the books have genuinely become a worldwide phenomenon.
Katniss Everdeen wakes up on the day of the reaping, when the tributes are chosen who will take part in the Hunger Games. Her mother and little sister, Prim, sleep nearby. Her father died in a mine explosion years earlier. She goes hunting in the woods outside her district, District 12, with Gale, her best friend. That night, at the reaping ceremony, the mayor gives a speech describing how the governments of North America collapsed and the country of Panem rose up in their place. A war ensued between the Capitol and the districts. The Capitol won, and as a reminder of their defeat, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games every year. The mayor then introduces Haymitch Abernathy, District 12’s only living Hunger-Games winner, and he’s so drunk he ends up falling in his own vomit.
The district’s female tribute is chosen, and to Katniss’s horror, it’s Prim. Katniss volunteers immediately in Prim’s place. Then the male tribute is selected. It’s Peeta Mellark, and Katniss remembers how years earlier, while searching for food for her family in the garbage bins behind the town shops, Peeta gave her bread from his family’s bakery. Katniss credits him with saving her that day. Katniss and Peeta say goodbye to their friends and families and board a train for the Capitol. During the trip, she and Peeta convince Haymitch, their mentor in the Games and the person responsible for getting them gifts from sponsors, to take his duties seriously.
Once there, Katniss meets with her stylist, Cinna, who is designing her dress for the opening ceremony. At the ceremony, Katniss and Peeta wear simple black outfits lit with synthetic flames. The outfits are a huge hit with the audience and make Katniss and Peeta stand out among the tributes. The next day, Katniss and Peeta attend group training, and the tributes from rich districts who have trained for the Games their whole lives, called Career Tributes, show off their skills. Later, the tributes are interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, a television host. In his interview, Peeta reveals that he’s had a crush on Katniss for several years.
Finally the time comes. From a small underground room, Katniss is lifted into the arena and the Games officially begin. All the tributes are there, and in front of her is the Cornucopia, which houses an abundance of supplies. Rather than fight, she runs away as Haymitch advised. She hikes all day before making camp. After dark, someone starts a fire nearby, and it isn’t long before a pack of Career Tributes arrives and kills the person. To Katniss’s shock, Peeta is with them. The next day Katniss goes in search of water. She walks for hours and collapses from exhaustion, but ultimately she finds a stream. She’s woken in the night by a wall of fire moving in her direction, and as she runs away one of the numerous fireballs falling around her grazes her leg, injuring it.
That night, while she hides in a tree from the pack of Careers below, she notices a young girl named Rue from District 11 in a nearby tree. Rue points out a nest of tracker jackers, wasps engineered by the Capitol to be lethal, over Katniss’s head, and Katniss cuts the branch holding the nest, dropping it onto the Careers. Two of them die from the stings and the rest scatter. Katniss is stung a few times as well, but as she’s running away, she remembers one of the girls who died had a bow and arrows, the weapons she’s become proficient with from hunting. She runs back to retrieve them, and Peeta happens to arrive as she’s grabbing the bow. He yells at Katniss to run just as Cato, a very large and dangerous Career from District 2, shows up. Peeta stops him so Katniss can escape, and she passes out in a ditch shortly after.
Katniss encounters Rue again, and the two quickly form a bond. They are able to get food hunting and foraging, and Katniss realizes that the Careers would have difficulty surviving without the supplies at the Cornucopia, so she and Rue devise a plan. While Rue lights decoy fires, Katniss sneaks up to the Cornucopia. The supplies are in a pyramid away from the main camp, and after the Careers leave to investigate the fires, Katniss manages to blow up the supplies by cutting open a bag of apples with her arrows, which sets off the mines set to protect the pyramid. When Katniss doesn’t find Rue at their meeting spot, she goes looking for her and finds her just as another tribute stabs her with a spear. Katniss kills the other tribute, and when Rue dies, she covers her body in flowers.
Katniss is depressed all the next day, until an announcement is made that there has been a rule change: Now, two tributes from the same district can be declared winners. Katniss goes looking for Peeta, and it takes her a day but finally she finds him. He’s severely injured from his fight with Cato and can barely walk, but Katniss helps him to a cave where they’ll be hidden. Thinking Peeta may die, Katniss impulsively kisses him. A moment later she hears a noise outside and finds a pot of broth sent from Haymitch. She realizes that Haymitch will reward her for playing up the romance between her and Peeta. The next morning Katniss sees that Peeta’s leg is badly infected and he’ll die without treatment. Another announcement is made, this time saying each tribute will find an item they desperately need at the Cornucopia. Katniss knows that means medicine for Peeta’s leg, but Peeta thinks it’s too dangerous and doesn’t want Katniss to go. Using a sleep syrup sent from Haymitch, Katniss knocks him out.
At the Cornucopia, Katniss tries to run and grab the item marked for District 12, but she gets into a fight with a female tribute. The tribute is about to kill her when Thresh, the male tribute from District 11 who came to the Games with Rue, kills the girl instead. He spares Katniss because of the way she treated Rue, and Katniss makes it back to the cave. She injects Peeta with the medicine just before passing out. They stay there for a few days while it rains nonstop outside, and in this time the romance between Katniss and Peeta progresses. When the rain lets up, Peeta and Katniss need to find food. Katniss leaves Peeta in charge of foraging while she goes to hunt. She comes back hours later and finds a small pile of poisonous berries Peeta collected thinking they were safe. They discover the body of a tribute who Katniss nicknamed Foxface, and Katniss realizes she died from eating the berries. By this point Cato, who killed Thresh, is the only tribute left, and Katniss decides to keep some berries in case they can trick Cato the same way. Eventually the streams and ponds dry up, and they know the only source of water left is the lake near the Cornucopia. Without any other choice, they start walking to the lake.
By the lake, Cato comes suddenly barreling toward them. Unexpectedly, however, he runs straight by them. Katniss realizes there are strange creatures chasing him, and they all run to the Cornucopia and climb up. The creatures are mutant wolves engineered by the Capitol, and Katniss realizes they are actually the dead tributes, who have been turned into these monsters. Taking advantage of the situation, Cato attacks Peeta, but Katniss and Peeta manage to push him over the edge. The creatures overpower him, but because of the body armor he’s wearing he remains alive for hours, until Katniss shoots him out of pity. Just as Katniss and Peeta think they’ve won, another announcement is made that there can only be one winner again. Neither Katniss nor Peeta will kill the other, so Katniss takes out the poisonous berries. Just as she and Peeta pop them in their mouths, the announcer shouts for them to stop and declares them both winners.
They go back to the Training Center and Katniss is kept alone for days while she recuperates. When she is let out, Haymitch warns her that she’s in danger. The Capitol took her stunt with the berries as an act of defiance, so she has to convince everyone that she was desperate at the thought of losing Peeta and not being rebellious, or even her family could be at risk. In their final interview, she’s reunited with Peeta, who lost his leg and now has a prosthetic. After, when Haymitch tells her she did great, Peeta wonders what he means, and Katniss explains everything, including the romance strategy during the Games. Peeta is angry and hurt, but as they arrive back in District 12, they hold hands one more time to greet the crowd and cameras.
Katniss Everdeen - the protagonist and female tribute of District 12. She is an excellent hunter and tremendously resourceful
Read an in-depth analysis of Katniss Everdeen.
Peeta Mellark - the boy tribute of District 12 and the son of a baker. He is kind and loyal, and he becomes Katniss’s love interest and main ally during the Hunger Games.
Read an in-depth analysis of Peeta Mellark.
Haymitch Abernathy - Katniss’s and Peeta’s trainer. He is a drunk and one of only two people from District 12 to win the Hunger Games (and the only one still living).
Read an in-depth analysis of Haymitch Abernathy.
Effie Trinket - the escort of the tributes from District 12. She is very concerned with appearances and her own career.
Gale - Katniss’s friend and hunting partner. Gale is probably the person closest to Katniss, and he is the only with whom she can ever fully relax and be herself.
Prim Everdeen - Katniss’s little sister. She is small and gentle, and Katniss volunteers in her place when her name is drawn in the reaping.
Mother (Everdeen) - Katniss’s mother. After her husband died, she essentially stopped caring for Katniss and Prim, forcing Katniss to become the family’s primary provider.
Cinna - Katniss’s main stylist. He becomes Katniss’s friend over the course of the story and counsels Katniss to be herself.
Madge Undersee - the Mayor’s daughter and the only person Katniss is friendly with at school. She gives Katniss the mockingjay pin.
Mayor Undersee - the mayor of District 12
Venia - the person who waxes Katniss before she sees Cinna, her stylist
Cato - the male tribute from District 2. He is a career tribute, meaning he has trained for the Hunger Games his entire life, and he is large, short-tempered, and a fierce fighter.
Rue - the female tribute from District 11. Katniss and Rue become allies during the Games, and Katniss
Foxface - a female tribute in the Hunger Games characterized by her wiliness and intelligence. She dies by eating poisonous berries collected by Peeta.
Thresh - the male tribute from District 11. He shows mercy toward Katniss because of the way Katniss treated Rue.
Glimmer - the female tribute from District 1. She dies when Katniss drops a tracker jacker nest on her and some other tributes.
Clove - the female tribute from District 2. She actually defeats Katniss in a fight and nearly kills her, but Thresh intervenes and saves Katniss’s life.
Caesar Flickerman - the ostentatious television host who interviews Katniss and Peeta before and after the Games
Claudius Templesmith - the announcer during the Hunger Games
President Snow - the president of Panem
Katniss Everdeen
The protagonist of the novel and its narrator, Katniss Everdeen is a strong, resourceful sixteen-year-old who is far more mature than her age would suggest. Katniss is the main provider in her family, which consists of Katniss, her mother, and her younger sister, Prim. Katniss is fiercely protective of her younger sister, and she volunteers to take Prim’s place in the Hunger Games to protect her. In fact, Katniss is more responsible than anyone else for her family’s wellbeing. Notably, she is responsible for feeding her family, which she does by hunting and foraging, skills she learned from her father before his death in a mine explosion years earlier. Hunting, however, is illegal and punishable by death. Katniss does it anyway, indicating a rebellious streak in her. Moreover, what she catches or collects that her family doesn’t need to eat, she sells in the district’s black market, again implying a disregard for rules.
This disregard, however, developed out of necessity rather than an inherent defiance. After Katniss’s father died, her mother sank into a depression, leaving Katniss to take care of the family despite her young age. Katniss realized that, without her hunting, her family wouldn’t have enough to eat, a serious problem in District 12, where starvation is common. As a result of these conditions, Katniss has grown into a tough, unsentimental, and practical girl. Ironically, the hardships she faced as a result of her impoverished upbringing wind up working to her advantage once she’s in the arena. The skills and qualities she developed to cope with the everyday challenges of being poor, including her ability to hunt, her toughness, and her resourcefulness, turn out to be what keeps her alive through the Games.
During the weeks over which the Games occur, Katniss’s character does not fundamentally change. What changes are her circumstances, and most of the novel watches her dealing with the situations she encounters. She does not begin to seek attention once she becomes a celebrity and begins doing television interviews. Rather, she always tries to figure out how to get through the interviews so she can go back to her life. The Hunger Games similarly do not turn her into an unfeeling killer, and the only times she kills she does so out of necessity, and to some degree in Cato’s case, pity. That her sense of compassion remains intact is clear through the way she treats Rue. Furthermore, before the Games, she has little interest in boys and is instead focused on her responsibilities, and though she develops feelings for Peeta and becomes aware of feelings for Gale during the Games, romance remains a peripheral interest for her at the end of the novel. This lack of change, however, can be seen as a victory for Katniss. She maintains her sense of identity and integrity, just as Peeta at one point says he would like to, despite the horrible ordeals she faces in the Games.
Peeta Mellark
The male tribute from District 12, Peeta is in love with Katniss and becomes her main ally and romantic interest during the Games. Peeta is best characterized by his love for Katniss and willingness to sacrifice himself for her. Katniss’s first memory of him, for instance, is from an incident years before the Games in which Peeta willingly risked a beating to help her. Katniss was starving and searching for food behind Peeta’s family’s bakery, and Peeta apparently burned two loaves of bread deliberately so the bakery couldn’t use them, then gave those loaves to Katniss. Peeta’s mother hit him for burning the bread, and Katniss believes Peeta must have known he would be punished for it. During the Games, he is similarly selfless when he saves Katniss after she comes back to retrieve the bow but finds herself suddenly stunned by the tracker jacker stings. To allow Katniss to escape, Peeta fights Cato, the most deadly of the other tributes, and suffers a serious injury as a result.
Though we have a limited perspective on Peeta since we only seen him through Katniss’s eyes, he comes across as thoughtful, artistic, and genuinely kind. We learn that he’s a gifted visual artist, capable of creating beautiful designs in frosting for the cakes at his family’s bakery and mimicking patterns of light and shade when he camouflages himself. When Haymitch falls in his own vomit, it is Peeta who volunteers to clean him up. Katniss wonders what his motive is in volunteering for this task, then realizes that Peeta is just being nice. In one particularly memorable scene before the Games occur, Peeta confesses to Katniss that his only hope for the Games is to retain his identity and not to be made into a monster by his circumstances. The incident reveals Peeta to be a good and introspective person who prides his dignity and decency perhaps above all else. (It is never answered whether he would sacrifice that for Katniss as well.)
Haymitch Abernathy
As District 12’s only surviving winner of the Hunger Games, Haymitch acts as Katniss’s and Peeta’s coach throughout the Games. Though he is drunk most, in fact nearly all, of the time, he proves a cunning advisor to the young tributes. It is never made explicit in the novel, but it appears to be Haymitch who devises the strategy of playing up the romance between Katniss and Peeta, a move that ultimately allows both of them to survive the Games even though traditionally only one winner has been allowed. Haymitch also finds a way of communicating with Katniss during the Games through the gifts he sends her, essentially coaching her on how she should behave to get more sponsors. Albeit in a very limited way, he also acts as somewhat of a father figure to Katniss, who lost her father years earlier. While Haymitch is often indelicate and manipulative, frequently using Peeta and his feelings for Katniss to get the results he wants, he is undeniably effective. When Katniss and Peeta wonder how he won the Hunger Games, Peeta suspects he must have outsmarted the other tributes.
Themes
The inequality between rich and poor
In Panem, wealth is heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich, particularly those people living in the Capitol and certain of the districts, and the result is a huge disparity between their lives and the lives of the poor. This disparity reveals itself in numerous ways throughout the novel, but among the notable is food. In the poor districts, many of the residents do not even have enough to eat. Katniss notes that starvation is common in District 12, and she has to hunt illegally in the woods beyond the district’s borders to feed her family. The novel suggests that most of the district’s residents are not able to or don’t know how to hunt, meaning even given the little Katniss’s family has, it is still more than many of the other families in her district. Furthermore, all but the most basic foods are luxuries. Katniss later learns that Peeta’s family, which owns a bakery and is thus one of the more well-off in the district, can’t afford most of the food they bake and eat mostly the stale leftovers that nobody guys. In contrast, when Katniss arrives in the Capitol, she is awed by the lavish feasts and elaborately prepared dishes. The food is rich and abundant, and Katniss, for the first time, tries hot chocolate.
Perhaps the best example of the inequality between rich and poor can be seen in the tessera system and the way the tributes are selected for the Games. In theory, the lottery by which tributes are chosen, called the reaping, is random and anyone can be picked. But in reality, the poor are much more likely than the rich to end up as tributes. In exchange for extra rations of food and oil, called tesserae, those children eligible for the Hunger Games can enter their names into the reaping additional times. Most children of poor families have to take tesserae to survive, so the children of poor families have more entries in the reaping than children of wealthy families who need no tesserae. They’re more likely to be picked as a result. Moreover, the rich who do become tributes tend to have an additional advantage, because they are often trained to take part in the Games and volunteer to do so. These trained tributes, which Katniss refers to as Career Tributes, are generally bigger, stronger, and better prepared for the tribulations of the Hunger Games than those poor tributes selected by chance. They are consequently more likely to survive. For these rich tributes, it is an honor to compete in the Games, while for the poor tributes it is essentially a death sentence.
Suffering as entertainment
The Hunger Games present the tributes’ suffering as mass entertainment, and the more the tributes suffer, ideally in battle with one another, the more entertaining the Games become. The main draw of the Games for viewers is its voyeurism, in this case watching the tributes, who are of course children, fighting and dying. Katniss at various points talks about past Games and what made them successful or unsuccessful, and the recurring motif is that the viewers want to see the tributes battling one another and not dying too quickly (because then the entertainment is over). The principle is best exemplified in Cato’s slow death at the end of the novel. Once the muttations have defeated Cato, they don’t kill him immediately, and Katniss realizes that the Gamemakers want Cato to remain alive because it creates an exceedingly gruesome spectacle. It is the finale of the Games, and so they want to deliver prolonged suffering the audience at home won’t be able to turn away from. The suffering, however, doesn’t have to be purely physical. It can be psychological as well. Katniss’s and Peeta’s romance, for instance, is the subject of so much fascination because it is presumed to be doomed. They become the “star-crossed lovers,” meaning ill-fated, and that promise of suffering adds drama and makes them fun to watch.
In essence, the Games are the equivalent of a televised sporting event in which several participants compete to win. Katniss even refers to the tributes as “players” sometimes when talking about the Games of past years. Most of the players, however, are unwilling, and winning entails outliving the other tributes, mostly by fighting and killing them. In both these ways the Hunger Games recall the gladiatorial Games of Ancient Rome (notably, the gladiatorial Games were one of the most popular forms of entertainment of their time), in which armed competitors, some voluntarily and others not, would fight to the death. That the Games are televised and discussed incessantly in Panem’s media also, of course, recalls today’s reality television, and the novel consequently draws a parallel between the gladiatorial Games and reality TV. This parallel suggests that reality television, though perhaps not quite as barbarous as the gladiatorial Games, still offers up real life as entertainment, and in doing so it turns real people into commodities. Their value becomes determined by how much entertainment they provide, and as such they lose their identities as people. Reality television, the novel suggests, is a form of objectification.
The importance of appearances
Throughout the novel, Katniss and her team use her external appearance, including what she says and how she behaves, to control how other people perceive her. At the reaping ceremony, for instance, she won’t allow herself to cry in front of the cameras because she doesn’t want to give the impression of being weak (and therefore an easy target). Moreover, at the opening ceremony of the Games, the novel emphasizes how important appearances are by focusing a great deal on Katniss’s preparations. The main feature of this focus is the dress Cinna creates for her. It is covered in synthetic flames, earning Katniss the epithet “the girl who was on fire,” and it makes Katniss stand out among the tributes. Drawing attention is more than just vanity in the Games. The tributes that are most memorable tend to attract sponsors, who can provide gifts that may prove critical during the Games. Katniss hides her tears during the Games for a similar reason, as self-pitying tributes are unattractive to sponsors. A tribute’s appearance and behavior can therefore serve as a significant part of their survival strategy.
Perhaps the most notable part of Katniss’s strategy involves her romance with Peeta. This romance is not entirely genuine on Katniss’s end. She cares about Peeta and develops a romantic interest him, but her feelings don’t have nearly the same intensity as his and she always remains ambivalent about him. For the cameras, however, Katniss plays up her feelings for Peeta and works to convince the viewers, and especially the Capitol, that she’s deeply in love with him. The act is one Haymitch devised for strategic reasons: Katniss’s and Peeta’s love story elicits more gifts from sponsors than if they’re simply friends, and it seems even to influence the Capitol’s decision to allow two tributes to be declared winners rather than the customary one. Consequently, the act Katniss puts on has a significant effect on both her and Peeta’s survival. Through these events, the novel suggests that what cameras show, on reality television for instance, is not necessarily reality, and that appearances are just as consequential as the truth.
Motifs
Fire
Fire plays different roles throughout the story, but most often it represents Katniss. Notably, fire is the element that gives the various outfits Cinna designs for Katniss their character. Her first dress, for example, is covered in synthetic flames, while later outfits use fire more subtly but still maintain it as a motif. Katniss’s fire dress earns her the epithet “the girl who was on fire,” and this title comes to pertain to more than just her dress. After Katniss’s surprisingly high training score is announced, Haymitch explains that they must have liked her “heat.” Cinna calls her “the girl who was on fire” again, this time using “fire” to refer to Katniss’s spirit and temperament. During the Games, the phrase takes on a literal meaning after Katniss is struck in the leg by a fireball and thinks the Gamemakers must be laughing at “the girl who was on fire.”
Defiance
The novel is full of acts of defiance against the Capitol despite the Capitol’s authoritarian control over the people of Panem. Katniss’s and Gale’s illegal hunting is an act of defiance, since they’re willfully violating the Capitol’s rules. The same can be said for the existence of the Hob, the bustling black market of District 12. The gesture of respect the residents of District 12 offer Katniss after she volunteers as tribute is similarly a form of defiance in that it contradicts the behavior the Capitol wants, and expects, to see. The mockingjay, which appears throughout the novel, represents defiance in that it recalls the Capitol’s failures, and Peeta essentially hopes to defy the Capitol and Gamemakers when he tells Katniss he wants to retain his identity and show them he’s not just a part of their Games. The most significant acts of defiance come from Katniss, however. Decorating Rue’s body after her death directly violates the spirit of the Hunger Games, which demand that tributes show no mercy for one another, and Katniss’s idea for her and Peeta to threaten suicide with the berries shows that they will not accept the Gamemakers’ rules.
Hunting
Hunting reappears numerous times in the story, but it takes on vastly different connotations depending on the circumstances. Katniss, we learn at the very beginning of the book, is a hunter, and she feeds her family primarily with what she can catch or kill in the woods outside District 12. In fact, she spends most of her day hunting, typically with her friend, Gale, and consequently it appears in one form or another in many of her stories about life before the Hunger Games. For instance, most of her stories about her father revolve around hunting. She also met Gale while hunting, and one of her favorite stories, the one she tells Peeta about how she managed to get a goat for Prim, begins with hunting. Hunting also allows her to stay alive during the Games when there is no other food to be found. In these circumstances, hunting to Katniss is always a positive experience.
In the context of the Hunger Games, however, hunting takes on a very different meaning. When Katniss talks to Gale before she leaves for the Training Center, he wonders if hunting a human will be any different than hunting an animal. As Katniss discovers, it is substantially different, and despite her experience killing animals for food, killing a person in a competition is emotionally traumatizing for her. Moreover, Peeta often refers to the Career Tributes as “hunting” when they’re searching for other tributes to kill. Though the act of hunting remains essentially the same in the arena, the connotation shifts from a positive one for Katniss to an entirely negative one.
Symbols
Mockingjays
The mockingjay represents defiance in the novel, with the bird’s symbolism deriving initially from its origins. The mockingjay, we learn, came about as a result of a failed project by the Capitol to spy on the rebellious districts, and since then the bird has served as a reminder of this failure and the districts’ recalcitrance—Katniss describes them as “something of a slap in the face to the Capitol.” The mockingjay pin Madge gives to Katniss is at first an emblem of that resistance. Later in the novel, however, the birds come to symbolize a different sort of defiance. Mockingjays become a link between Katniss and Rue, with the two using the birds to communicate. When Rue dies, Katniss decorates her body with flowers as a means of memorializing Rue, but also to defy the Capitol. When Katniss later sees mockingjays, they remind her of Rue, and that memory inevitably stirs her hatred of the Capitol and her wish to rebel, and take revenge, against it. The mockingjay consequently takes on an additional layer of symbolism, representing not only a general rebellion against the Capitol, but also Katniss’s specific desire to defy it.
Panem
Panem is the country in which The Hunger Games takes place, and it symbolizes a dystopian United States. The word panem is Latin for “bread,” and given the similarity of the Hunger Games to the gladiatorial Games of Ancient Rome, it recalls panem et circenses, or “bread and circuses.” The phrase refers to the Roman Caesars’ strategy of quelling public discontent by providing the people with plenty of food and entertainment. The entertainment, of course, was largely provided by gladiatorial Games. In the novel, these gladiatorial Games are crossed with reality television to create the Hunger Games. Setting Panem in the location of the present-day United States, and retaining parts of U.S. culture like the mining industry of Appalachia that we see in District 12, draws a link between the two. But the metaphor gets more complicated because of the Ancient Roman influences of Panem. The result is a triple metaphor that uses Panem to draw connections between Ancient Rome and the modern United States, and it suggests that the modern United States has something like its own panem et circenses strategy in place, with reality television taking on the role of the gladiatorial Games.
The metaphor offered by Panem, however, does not align perfectly with Ancient Rome’s panem et circenses formula. For one, that formula is designed to keep the people content, but the people of Panem are decidedly not content, at least not in the poor districts. In fact, the Hunger Games, unlike the gladiatorial Games which appeased the masses, play a significant role in their dissatisfaction. The Games were created as a reminder to the districts of their powerlessness after their uprising against the Capitol ended in defeat, and it is the children of the districts who are drafted involuntarily into the Games to be killed. Second, a key element of the panem et circenses strategy missing from Panem is the bread. Most of the people in the districts are severely underfed, and again this is a cause of much of the people’s discontent. It leads directly to various forms of rebellion, such as Katniss’s illegal hunting and the existence of a large black market in District 12. Rather than commenting on the fictional Panem, it instead comments the real United States in the ways described above, thus offering a valuable criticism of modern culture in the U.S.
Katniss’s dresses
The dresses Cinna designs for Katniss not only give Katniss her epithet, “the girl who was on fire,” but also come to symbolize her spirit. Cinna designs the first dress to reflect the main industry of Katniss’s home district, coal mining, and since coal’s purpose is to burn, Cinna creates a dress that would be lit with synthetic flames. This dress begins the association between Katniss and fire while also giving Katniss her epithet, “the girl who was on fire.” That epithet comes to describe Katniss generally, however, and not just how she appears in Cinna’s designs. Haymitch, for instance, explains Katniss’s high training score by saying the judges must have liked her temper and her “heat.” (Katniss also thinks the Gamemakers may have targeted her with fireballs in the arena as a reference to “the girl who was on fire.”) The dresses, notably the first one for the opening ceremony but also the more subdued versions Cinna creates for Katniss’s interviews, serve as outward, nearly literal representations of Katniss’s inner “fire.”
Study Questions
1. What role does debt play in the novel?
Debt, not of the financial sort necessarily but in the form of owing someone for their help, comes up multiple times in the novel. The most significant instance concerns Katniss’s first encounter with Peeta. Katniss was starving at the time, and Peeta essentially saved her life by giving her bread from his family’s bakery. Moreover, he apparently burned bread deliberately to help Katniss, despite knowing he would be punished as a result. Katniss describes how she has felt indebted to Peeta ever since. Thresh also brings up debt when he spares Katniss after learning about her alliance with Rue. He says they are “even” and no more is “owed.”
These feelings of indebtedness, Katniss suggests, stem from the experience of growing up poor. When Peeta expresses his surprise that Thresh let Katniss live, Katniss tells him he wouldn’t understand because he’s “always had enough.” What she implies is that Peeta has never been dependent on another person for either his or his loved ones’ wellbeing, so he can’t understand the feelings of debt associated with that experience. The tessera system plays into this mentality of indebtedness. The poor take extra food rations essentially on credit, which is paid back in the form of extra entries into the reaping. They often need the tessera in order to survive, so they take them knowing they will have to pay back what is essentially a debt later.
2. Does Katniss truly begin wanting a relationship with Peeta, or is she playing a role to gain a strategic advantage? Explain.
Though Katniss does begin to develop sincere romantic feelings for Peeta, she never appears to want their friendship to turn into a real relationship, and she primarily keeps up the romance with Peeta for the strategic advantage it provides. In numerous instances in which they kiss, Katniss thinks of what Haymitch would want to see rather than thinking that she actually wants to kiss Peeta, and only once does she say they shared a kiss that left her wanting another. In one of the most dramatic moments of their romance, Katniss tells Peeta he doesn’t have competition anywhere, referring to Gale, but even in this situation she thinks of what Haymitch would want her to say.
Just as tellingly, when they’re on their way back to District 12 Katniss makes it clear she doesn’t think she’s the type of person who can be in the sort of relationship Peeta wants. By all indications, she felt this way well before any romance began between them. Early in the novel, for instance, she thinks she could never get married and have children knowing that they might one day have to take part in the Hunger Games. Katniss’s feelings, in other words, have not changed, and she is still not interested in a relationship, perhaps with anyone.
3. Why does the author spend so much time focusing on the dresses Cinna creates for Katniss?
Given that Katniss’s life is at stake in the Hunger Games, the author’s focus on Katniss’s appearance at various times can seem frivolous. But as becomes clear over the course of the novel, appearances are extremely important to Katniss’s survival. The author’s focus on Cinna’s dresses subtly emphasizes this theme by forcing the reader to take notice of Katniss’s appearance. Katniss’s dress for the opening ceremony, we learn, makes her (and Peeta, who is similarly dressed) stand apart from the other tributes. The significance of this move isn’t fully clear until Katniss is in the arena and in need of sponsors. By making her stand out, the dress makes her popular, and this popularity is amplified by the public romance she shares with Peeta. Consequently, she becomes more likely to receive gifts, and these gifts actually turn out to be vital to her survival.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Is Haymitch a good mentor to Katniss and Peeta? Explain.
2. In what ways does Katniss’s hunting experience prepare her for the Games, and in what ways does it fail to prepare her?
3. How does Katniss’s role in her family affect her behavior in the Games?
4. What is Katniss’s greatest strength in the Games, and what is her greatest weakness?
5. Science fiction often uses a futuristic setting to comment on the present day. What does The Hunger Games suggest about the present-day United States?
1. “I volunteer!” I gasp. “I volunteer as tribute!”
At the outset of Chapter 2, just after Prim has been selected in the reaping, Katniss volunteers to serve as the female tribute for District 12 in the Hunger Games. This event sets the rest of the plot in motion, and for the remainder of the book we watch Katniss struggling to survive the Games. The reason Katniss volunteers is, of course, to save Prim, her little sister. Despite the odds being in her favor, Prim is selected by the lottery system that decides which children become tributes. Because she is just twelve years old, and because she is a sensitive, nurturing person who has difficulty with any kind of suffering or violence, she is almost certain to die in the Games. Katniss, meanwhile, is four years older and very protective of Prim, and so without hesitation she volunteers to take her sister’s place. Moreover, she has years of experience hunting (and therefore killing) and is far less sensitive than her sister, making her more likely to survive the ordeal of the Games.
Katniss’s volunteering is also notable because, as Katniss explains, volunteers in her district are basically unheard of. Tributes from poor districts, such as Katniss’s District 12, rarely win the Games because their poverty puts them at a distinct disadvantage. They are often malnourished compared to the children from the wealthier districts, making them weaker and less able to endure prolonged exertion and difficult conditions. Additionally, as we learn later, some children in the wealthy districts actually train their whole lives to take part in the Hunger Games. Volunteers in these districts are common because winning the Games is a great honor for them. But because the tributes from the poor areas are vastly more likely to be killed, it is exceedingly rare that someone volunteers, even apparently to take the place of a sibling. Katniss’s gesture instantly earns the respect of her district and makes her unusual among the tributes in the Hunger Games.
2. The boy took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him.
This quotation occurs toward the end of Chapter 2, as Katniss relates her first encounter with Peeta once Peeta has been selected as District 12’s male tribute. Katniss credits Peeta’s actions with essentially saving her life at the time and helping her realize that she would have to act as the provider for her family. When Peeta gave Katniss the bread, Katniss and her family were basically starving. The bread Peeta gave her allowed them to have their first real meal in a long while, and when Katniss saw Peeta the next day at the same time she saw the dandelion in the schoolyard, she realized that, if she wanted her family to eat, she would have to hunt and forage like her father taught her to feed them. Since then, Katniss has associated Peeta with this realization.
The quote and the events leading up to it additionally laid the groundwork for the relationship Peeta and Katniss would later develop, and they foreshadow how Peeta acts in the arena. Just before Peeta gives Katniss the bread, Katniss hears some sort of commotion in the bakery and she notices that Peeta emerges with a welt on his cheek, suggesting his mother hit him. Katniss suspects she hit Peeta because he burned the bread, and she also suspects he burned the bread deliberately so that it would be considered damaged and he could give it to Katniss. In other words, Peeta endures a physical beating so that he can help Katniss. He does the same later in the Hunger Games, when he saves Katniss after she’s dropped the tracker jacker nest on the group of Career Tributes. When Peeta finds Katniss stunned from the tracker jacker stings, he allows her to run away and fights Cato to protect her, suffering a serious injury in the process.
3. “I want the audience to recognize you when you’re in the arena," says Cinna dreamily. “Katniss, the girl who was on fire.”
Cinna says these words to Katniss in Chapter 5 as he prepares her dress for the opening ceremony of the Hunger Games. The quote points to one of the main themes of the novel: the importance of appearances. Cinna understands how necessary it is to make Katniss stand out, not just for the sake of vanity, but because he knows that appearances in the Hunger Games can have a significant, tangible effect. By standing out during the ceremony, for instance, Katniss can attract fans that might not otherwise have noticed her, and among these fans may be sponsors who could provide gifts that might prove critical during the Hunger Games. Though Katniss doesn’t feel spectacular, especially compared to some of the other tributes who are bigger and stronger than she is, she becomes one of the most notable among them, beginning with her appearance as “the girl who was on fire.”
4. In District 12, we call them the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like as not, the winner will be one of them.
Katniss’s explanation of what a Career Tribute occurs when the tributes gather together for their first day of training in Chapter 7. As Katniss explains, the Career Tributes are those tributes from the wealthier districts (typically Districts 1, 2, and 4) who have trained their whole lives to take part in the Hunger Games. They know how to fight and use a variety of weapons, and they are typically large and look strong and well-fed, compared to the tributes from the poorer districts who often look undernourished. As a result, they are generally better prepared for the challenges of the Hunger Games and are typically the winners. When Katniss sees the other tributes for the first time on their first day of training, she realizes the Careers will pose the greatest threat to her survival in the arena.
In addition, the quote highlights the inequality between rich and poor in Panem, a major theme of the novel. Because of the tessera system, in which children eligible for the Hunger Games can have their names entered into the reaping additional times in exchange for extra rations of food, the poor are already more likely than the wealthy to be chosen as tributes. Since the poor are also ill-prepared for the Games when compared with the Career Tributes, they are at a serious disadvantage. Being chosen as a tribute is essentially a death sentence for the poor, whereas Career Tributes often volunteer to compete since winning for them is an honor rather than a mere matter of survival.
5. Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. “Because…because…she came here with me.”
In Chapter 9, as Caesar Flickerman interviews Peeta before the Games, Peeta reveals to Caesar and all of Panem that he’s in love with Katniss. Peeta’s revelation sets in motion the storyline of him and Katniss as ill-fated lovers that carries on throughout the Games. This storyline has a significant influence on the Games and on Peeta’s and Katniss’s survival. First, it makes Peeta and Katniss into a sensation among the viewers, in turn attracting sponsors. Haymitch has Katniss play up the romance for this reason, and in return he’s able to secure gifts that prove vital, including food and the burn ointment Katniss uses to heal her leg. Second, the novel suggests that the love storyline is the reason the Capitol decides to allow both tributes from a district to be named winners. The unprecedented move appears to be a response to Katniss’s and Peeta’s popularity, and it is essentially the reason that both Katniss and Peeta survive the Hunger Games (though Katniss, of course, has to force the Capitol in the end).
Peeta’s revelation of his love for Katniss is also the source of much of Katniss’s internal conflict in the novel. Katniss can’t discern whether Peeta is playing out a strategy devised by Haymitch or if his feelings are genuine. As a result, Katniss spends a great deal of time trying to puzzle out what he really feels. When he teams with the Careers, for instance, Katniss suspects Peeta was lying and will do whatever is necessary to stay alive. Later he confuses Katniss by saving her at the expense of being injured himself, suggesting he really does care for her. She remains uncertain about Peeta’s true feelings almost until the end of the novel, only conceding to herself that Peeta is telling the truth when he recalls details about the first time he saw her that prove he isn’t simply acting.
6. And right now, the most dangerous part of the Hunger Games is about to begin.
Katniss says these words at the end of Chapter 26, after Haymitch tells her the Capitol was extremely angry at her stunt with the berries. The dangerous event Katniss refers to here is her interview with Caesar Flickerman, and it’s dangerous because the lives of Katniss, her family, Peeta, and even possibly his family are now all at risk. As Haymitch told her, the Capitol feels that Katniss made them look foolish by forcing them to allow her and Peeta to both be declared winners after she and Peeta essentially threatened suicide. Consequently, though Katniss survived the Hunger Games, she is again in danger. She realizes that, in her interview with Caesar Flickerman, she must convince everyone she suggested to Peeta they eat the poisonous berries because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, not to deliberately defy the Capitol. In other words, she has to portray herself as desperately in love with Peeta and downplay any appearance of being a rebel. The quote and the events surrounding it again underscore how important appearances are in the novel.
1. What is Katniss’s sister’s full name?
(A) Pamela
(B) Primly
(C) Prim
(D) Primrose
2. How did Katniss’s father die?
(A) In a hunting accident
(B) In a mine explosion
(C) He became trapped in a collapsed mine
(D) He was murdered by the Capitol
3. At what skill is Gale better than Katniss?
(A) Setting snares
(B) Using an axe
(C) Swimming
(D) Bird calls
4. Who or what is Katniss named after?
(A) Her grandmother
(B) A plant with edible roots
(C) A type of bird
(D) Catnip
5. Who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin?
(A) Gale
(B) Cinna
(C) Madge
(D) Prim
6. Why does the Capitol hold the Hunger Games?
(A) As a way to control the size of the population
(B) To keep the districts happy
(C) Because they are part of a religious festival
(D) To remind the districts that they are powerless against it
7. Which word best describes Haymitch?
(A) Sensitive
(B) Polite
(C) Silly
(D) Gruff
8. Under what circumstances did Katniss first meet Peeta?
(A) Katniss was looking for food and Peeta gave her bread
(B) They were both in the woods hunting
(C) They did a project at school together
(D) Peeta was injured and Katniss’s mother helped him
9. What does Katniss think when she first sees the residents of the Capitol?
(A) They are sophisticated and beautiful
(B) They are superficial and ridiculous
(C) They are overweight and tall
(D) They are ungroomed and slovenly
10. What are tesserae?
(A) Extra rations of grain and oil
(B) Hybrid animals created by the Capitol
(C) A type of plant
(D) What the children are called who are chosen to compete in the Games
11. Which training station does Peeta excel at?
(A) Archery
(B) Knife throwing
(C) Camouflage
(D) Knot tying
12. What does Peeta tell Katniss he wants to do in the Games?
(A) Kill as many Career Tributes as possible
(B) Hide
(C) Find a way to escape the arena
(D) Show the Capitol he’s not just a piece in their game
13. What item does Katniss manage to grab at the Cornucopia when the Games begin?
(A) Bow
(B) Knife
(C) Backpack
(D) Helmet
14. What is the first thing Katniss looks for after running from the Cornucopia?
(A) Food
(B) Water
(C) Shelter
(D) Fire
15. What does Peeta do that surprises Katniss on their first night in the arena?
(A) He hunts with the Career Tributes
(B) He camouflages himself expertly in mud
(C) He kisses Katniss
(D) He cries
16. When Katniss is severely dehydrated, how does Haymitch indicate to her that she’s near water?
(A) He sends her a map
(B) He sends her a cup
(C) He sends her iodine drops
(D) He doesn’t send her anything
17. What does Rue point out to Katniss that lets her get away from the group of Career Tributes?
(A) A sheaf of arrows
(B) A tracker jacker nest
(C) A boulder
(D) A mockinjay nest
18. What do Rue and Katniss realize is their advantage over the Career Tributes?
(A) They can hide well
(B) They're faster
(C) They can hunt and forage their own food
(D) They’re deadlier with weapons
19. What does Katniss do when Rue is killed?
(A) She buries her body
(B) She camouflages her body
(C) She covers her body in flowers
(D) She runs away as fast as she can
20. Where does Katniss find Peeta after it’s declared that two tributes can win the Games?
(A) Hiding in a cave
(B) Lying camouflaged in mud
(C) In a tree
(D) By the Cornucopia
21. How does Haymitch indicate to Katniss that he wants her to play up the romance with Peeta?
(A) He sends her a pot of broth after she and Peeta kiss
(B) He sends her a note telling her what he wants her to do
(C) He sends her an item from Gale
(D) He doesn’t send her anything
22. What does Thresh say to Katniss when he spares her life?
(A) He can’t kill a girl
(B) He’s in love with her
(C) He’s afraid of her
(D) They’re even now
23. How does Cato finally die?
(A) The muttations kill him
(B) Katniss shoots him
(C) He eats poisonous berries
(D) He starves to death
24. How do Katniss and Peeta force the Capitol to declare them both winners?
(A) They threaten to run away
(B) They threaten that the winner will tell about everything
(C) They threaten to commit suicide
(D) They threaten to cause a rebellion against the Capitol
25. What event does Katniss refer to when she says the most dangerous part of the Hunger Games is about to begin?
(A) Her last interview with Caesar Flickerman
(B) Her imminent confrontation with Cato at the Cornucopia
(C) Her entrance into the arena
(D) Her first kiss with Peeta
By Suzanne Collins
Key Facts
full title · The Hunger Games
author · Suzanne Collins
type of work · Novel
genre · Dystopia
language · English
time and place written · Connecticut, United States, in the mid- to late-2000s
date of first publication · September 2008
publisher · Scholastic
narrator · Katniss Everdeen narrates The Hunger Games as the events of the novel occur.
point of view · The story is told in the first person and recounts the narrator’s personal history and experiences. The narrator is mostly objective, but on occasion she will imagine what other characters must be feeling.
tone · Mostly stoic, but occasionally very emotional
tense · Present
setting (time) · An indeterminate time more than one hundred years in the future
setting (place) · Panem, the country created after the governments of North America collapsed
protagonist · Katniss Everdeen
major conflict · Katniss must endure numerous deadly ordeals, navigate complex personal relationships, and learn to control how others perceive her in order to survive the Hunger Games.
rising action · After volunteering to take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, Katniss has to manage others’ perceptions of her to gain the best strategic advantage possible, then learn to survive inside the arena.
climax · Having outlasted the other tributes, Katniss and Peeta threaten suicide rather than fight one another after a rule change turns them from allies into adversaries.
falling action · Even though she and Peeta won the Hunger Games, Katniss must try to assuage the Capitol, which is angry with Katniss for threatening suicide and forcing a decision they didn’t like.
themes · The inequality between rich and poor; suffering as entertainment; the importance of appearances
motifs · Fire, defiance, hunting
symbols · Mockingjay, Panem, Katniss’s dresses
foreshadowing · Katniss demonstrates her ability to hunt and forage in order to survive; Madge gives Katniss the mockingjay pin; Peeta excels at the camouflage station in training; Katniss saves the berries that killed Foxface.
Growing up, Suzanne Collins was a military brat. Her father was a career airman in the United States Air Force, as a result, Collins and her siblings—two older sisters and an older brother—moved around frequently, spending time in numerous locations in the eastern United States as well as in Europe. The military, in fact, played a leading role in the family’s history. Collins’s grandfather had served in World War I, her uncle served in World War II, and the year Collins turned six, her father left to serve his own tour in the Vietnam War. War, consequently, was a part of life for Collins, something very real and not just an abstract idea. While her father was gone, she would sometimes see video footage of the war zone on the news, and she recognized that her father was there fighting. Though her father returned after a year, Collins’s connection to war didn’t end. In addition to being a soldier, Collins’s father was also a military historian and a doctor of political science. That knowledge and experiences serving in the Air Force and fighting in Vietnam had a profound effect on his relationships with his children, and he made sure they learned what they could about war. While other girls’ fathers were telling them fairytales, Collins’s father educated her about military history. When the family was moved to Brussels, Belgium, for instance, her father educated her about the region’s violent history and took her on tours of the country’s historic battlefields.
Eventually, Collins attended Indiana University. There, she met the man who would later become her husband, Cap Pryor. At 25, she began an M.F.A. program at New York University where she specialized in playwriting, and after graduation, worked for about a year before landing her first television-writing job on the show “Hi Honey, I’m Home!” Since then, Collins has been on the writing staff of several shows, including the Emmy-nominated “Clarissa Explains It All.” She and her husband also had two children, and ultimately they decided to leave New York for Connecticut. It was there that Collins began work on her first series of books for children, “The Underland Chronicles.” The series was another success for Collins, making the New York Times bestseller list. Collins was 41 when the first book, Gregor The Overlander, was published.
One night, Collins was watching television, flipping back and forth between coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a reality-TV show. That’s when Collins had the idea that would ultimately turn into The Hunger Games. A longtime fan of Greek and Roman mythology, Collins borrowed a great deal from those sources to give the story its shape. One notable contribution came from the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which the Cretan king Minos demanded that seven maidens and seven youths be sent as a tribute every nine years. He gave these tributes to the Minotaur, who would consume them. Collins also borrowed from Ancient Roman history. The gladiatorial games were updated and turned into a televised competition, and Collins took the name of her fictional dystopia from the Latin phrase “panem et circenses.” While Collins finished her often dark and violent book, she continued to write for television, working on the markedly less violent show “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!”
The Hunger Games was published in September 2008 and quickly found critical success, with reviewers and other authors, including Stephen King, praising the book. Among the features that received the most attention were the plotting and pace. Collins has attributed her skill in these areas to her background as a playwright and her time spent working in television, where there is little downtime allowed and character development has to occur simultaneously with the storyline constantly moving forward. The book also rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and subsequently spent more than three consecutive years on the list. The other books in the trilogy, published over the next two years, followed the same pattern, all becoming huge commercial successes. Then, in March 2012, The Hunger Games movie was released. It had the third-highest opening weekend in history, and the highest opening weekend ever for a movie that was not a sequel. There are now more than 18 million copies of The Hunger Games in print, and with the trilogy now available in fifty languages, the books have genuinely become a worldwide phenomenon.
Katniss Everdeen wakes up on the day of the reaping, when the tributes are chosen who will take part in the Hunger Games. Her mother and little sister, Prim, sleep nearby. Her father died in a mine explosion years earlier. She goes hunting in the woods outside her district, District 12, with Gale, her best friend. That night, at the reaping ceremony, the mayor gives a speech describing how the governments of North America collapsed and the country of Panem rose up in their place. A war ensued between the Capitol and the districts. The Capitol won, and as a reminder of their defeat, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games every year. The mayor then introduces Haymitch Abernathy, District 12’s only living Hunger-Games winner, and he’s so drunk he ends up falling in his own vomit.
The district’s female tribute is chosen, and to Katniss’s horror, it’s Prim. Katniss volunteers immediately in Prim’s place. Then the male tribute is selected. It’s Peeta Mellark, and Katniss remembers how years earlier, while searching for food for her family in the garbage bins behind the town shops, Peeta gave her bread from his family’s bakery. Katniss credits him with saving her that day. Katniss and Peeta say goodbye to their friends and families and board a train for the Capitol. During the trip, she and Peeta convince Haymitch, their mentor in the Games and the person responsible for getting them gifts from sponsors, to take his duties seriously.
Once there, Katniss meets with her stylist, Cinna, who is designing her dress for the opening ceremony. At the ceremony, Katniss and Peeta wear simple black outfits lit with synthetic flames. The outfits are a huge hit with the audience and make Katniss and Peeta stand out among the tributes. The next day, Katniss and Peeta attend group training, and the tributes from rich districts who have trained for the Games their whole lives, called Career Tributes, show off their skills. Later, the tributes are interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, a television host. In his interview, Peeta reveals that he’s had a crush on Katniss for several years.
Finally the time comes. From a small underground room, Katniss is lifted into the arena and the Games officially begin. All the tributes are there, and in front of her is the Cornucopia, which houses an abundance of supplies. Rather than fight, she runs away as Haymitch advised. She hikes all day before making camp. After dark, someone starts a fire nearby, and it isn’t long before a pack of Career Tributes arrives and kills the person. To Katniss’s shock, Peeta is with them. The next day Katniss goes in search of water. She walks for hours and collapses from exhaustion, but ultimately she finds a stream. She’s woken in the night by a wall of fire moving in her direction, and as she runs away one of the numerous fireballs falling around her grazes her leg, injuring it.
That night, while she hides in a tree from the pack of Careers below, she notices a young girl named Rue from District 11 in a nearby tree. Rue points out a nest of tracker jackers, wasps engineered by the Capitol to be lethal, over Katniss’s head, and Katniss cuts the branch holding the nest, dropping it onto the Careers. Two of them die from the stings and the rest scatter. Katniss is stung a few times as well, but as she’s running away, she remembers one of the girls who died had a bow and arrows, the weapons she’s become proficient with from hunting. She runs back to retrieve them, and Peeta happens to arrive as she’s grabbing the bow. He yells at Katniss to run just as Cato, a very large and dangerous Career from District 2, shows up. Peeta stops him so Katniss can escape, and she passes out in a ditch shortly after.
Katniss encounters Rue again, and the two quickly form a bond. They are able to get food hunting and foraging, and Katniss realizes that the Careers would have difficulty surviving without the supplies at the Cornucopia, so she and Rue devise a plan. While Rue lights decoy fires, Katniss sneaks up to the Cornucopia. The supplies are in a pyramid away from the main camp, and after the Careers leave to investigate the fires, Katniss manages to blow up the supplies by cutting open a bag of apples with her arrows, which sets off the mines set to protect the pyramid. When Katniss doesn’t find Rue at their meeting spot, she goes looking for her and finds her just as another tribute stabs her with a spear. Katniss kills the other tribute, and when Rue dies, she covers her body in flowers.
Katniss is depressed all the next day, until an announcement is made that there has been a rule change: Now, two tributes from the same district can be declared winners. Katniss goes looking for Peeta, and it takes her a day but finally she finds him. He’s severely injured from his fight with Cato and can barely walk, but Katniss helps him to a cave where they’ll be hidden. Thinking Peeta may die, Katniss impulsively kisses him. A moment later she hears a noise outside and finds a pot of broth sent from Haymitch. She realizes that Haymitch will reward her for playing up the romance between her and Peeta. The next morning Katniss sees that Peeta’s leg is badly infected and he’ll die without treatment. Another announcement is made, this time saying each tribute will find an item they desperately need at the Cornucopia. Katniss knows that means medicine for Peeta’s leg, but Peeta thinks it’s too dangerous and doesn’t want Katniss to go. Using a sleep syrup sent from Haymitch, Katniss knocks him out.
At the Cornucopia, Katniss tries to run and grab the item marked for District 12, but she gets into a fight with a female tribute. The tribute is about to kill her when Thresh, the male tribute from District 11 who came to the Games with Rue, kills the girl instead. He spares Katniss because of the way she treated Rue, and Katniss makes it back to the cave. She injects Peeta with the medicine just before passing out. They stay there for a few days while it rains nonstop outside, and in this time the romance between Katniss and Peeta progresses. When the rain lets up, Peeta and Katniss need to find food. Katniss leaves Peeta in charge of foraging while she goes to hunt. She comes back hours later and finds a small pile of poisonous berries Peeta collected thinking they were safe. They discover the body of a tribute who Katniss nicknamed Foxface, and Katniss realizes she died from eating the berries. By this point Cato, who killed Thresh, is the only tribute left, and Katniss decides to keep some berries in case they can trick Cato the same way. Eventually the streams and ponds dry up, and they know the only source of water left is the lake near the Cornucopia. Without any other choice, they start walking to the lake.
By the lake, Cato comes suddenly barreling toward them. Unexpectedly, however, he runs straight by them. Katniss realizes there are strange creatures chasing him, and they all run to the Cornucopia and climb up. The creatures are mutant wolves engineered by the Capitol, and Katniss realizes they are actually the dead tributes, who have been turned into these monsters. Taking advantage of the situation, Cato attacks Peeta, but Katniss and Peeta manage to push him over the edge. The creatures overpower him, but because of the body armor he’s wearing he remains alive for hours, until Katniss shoots him out of pity. Just as Katniss and Peeta think they’ve won, another announcement is made that there can only be one winner again. Neither Katniss nor Peeta will kill the other, so Katniss takes out the poisonous berries. Just as she and Peeta pop them in their mouths, the announcer shouts for them to stop and declares them both winners.
They go back to the Training Center and Katniss is kept alone for days while she recuperates. When she is let out, Haymitch warns her that she’s in danger. The Capitol took her stunt with the berries as an act of defiance, so she has to convince everyone that she was desperate at the thought of losing Peeta and not being rebellious, or even her family could be at risk. In their final interview, she’s reunited with Peeta, who lost his leg and now has a prosthetic. After, when Haymitch tells her she did great, Peeta wonders what he means, and Katniss explains everything, including the romance strategy during the Games. Peeta is angry and hurt, but as they arrive back in District 12, they hold hands one more time to greet the crowd and cameras.
Katniss Everdeen - the protagonist and female tribute of District 12. She is an excellent hunter and tremendously resourceful
Read an in-depth analysis of Katniss Everdeen.
Peeta Mellark - the boy tribute of District 12 and the son of a baker. He is kind and loyal, and he becomes Katniss’s love interest and main ally during the Hunger Games.
Read an in-depth analysis of Peeta Mellark.
Haymitch Abernathy - Katniss’s and Peeta’s trainer. He is a drunk and one of only two people from District 12 to win the Hunger Games (and the only one still living).
Read an in-depth analysis of Haymitch Abernathy.
Effie Trinket - the escort of the tributes from District 12. She is very concerned with appearances and her own career.
Gale - Katniss’s friend and hunting partner. Gale is probably the person closest to Katniss, and he is the only with whom she can ever fully relax and be herself.
Prim Everdeen - Katniss’s little sister. She is small and gentle, and Katniss volunteers in her place when her name is drawn in the reaping.
Mother (Everdeen) - Katniss’s mother. After her husband died, she essentially stopped caring for Katniss and Prim, forcing Katniss to become the family’s primary provider.
Cinna - Katniss’s main stylist. He becomes Katniss’s friend over the course of the story and counsels Katniss to be herself.
Madge Undersee - the Mayor’s daughter and the only person Katniss is friendly with at school. She gives Katniss the mockingjay pin.
Mayor Undersee - the mayor of District 12
Venia - the person who waxes Katniss before she sees Cinna, her stylist
Cato - the male tribute from District 2. He is a career tribute, meaning he has trained for the Hunger Games his entire life, and he is large, short-tempered, and a fierce fighter.
Rue - the female tribute from District 11. Katniss and Rue become allies during the Games, and Katniss
Foxface - a female tribute in the Hunger Games characterized by her wiliness and intelligence. She dies by eating poisonous berries collected by Peeta.
Thresh - the male tribute from District 11. He shows mercy toward Katniss because of the way Katniss treated Rue.
Glimmer - the female tribute from District 1. She dies when Katniss drops a tracker jacker nest on her and some other tributes.
Clove - the female tribute from District 2. She actually defeats Katniss in a fight and nearly kills her, but Thresh intervenes and saves Katniss’s life.
Caesar Flickerman - the ostentatious television host who interviews Katniss and Peeta before and after the Games
Claudius Templesmith - the announcer during the Hunger Games
President Snow - the president of Panem
Katniss Everdeen
The protagonist of the novel and its narrator, Katniss Everdeen is a strong, resourceful sixteen-year-old who is far more mature than her age would suggest. Katniss is the main provider in her family, which consists of Katniss, her mother, and her younger sister, Prim. Katniss is fiercely protective of her younger sister, and she volunteers to take Prim’s place in the Hunger Games to protect her. In fact, Katniss is more responsible than anyone else for her family’s wellbeing. Notably, she is responsible for feeding her family, which she does by hunting and foraging, skills she learned from her father before his death in a mine explosion years earlier. Hunting, however, is illegal and punishable by death. Katniss does it anyway, indicating a rebellious streak in her. Moreover, what she catches or collects that her family doesn’t need to eat, she sells in the district’s black market, again implying a disregard for rules.
This disregard, however, developed out of necessity rather than an inherent defiance. After Katniss’s father died, her mother sank into a depression, leaving Katniss to take care of the family despite her young age. Katniss realized that, without her hunting, her family wouldn’t have enough to eat, a serious problem in District 12, where starvation is common. As a result of these conditions, Katniss has grown into a tough, unsentimental, and practical girl. Ironically, the hardships she faced as a result of her impoverished upbringing wind up working to her advantage once she’s in the arena. The skills and qualities she developed to cope with the everyday challenges of being poor, including her ability to hunt, her toughness, and her resourcefulness, turn out to be what keeps her alive through the Games.
During the weeks over which the Games occur, Katniss’s character does not fundamentally change. What changes are her circumstances, and most of the novel watches her dealing with the situations she encounters. She does not begin to seek attention once she becomes a celebrity and begins doing television interviews. Rather, she always tries to figure out how to get through the interviews so she can go back to her life. The Hunger Games similarly do not turn her into an unfeeling killer, and the only times she kills she does so out of necessity, and to some degree in Cato’s case, pity. That her sense of compassion remains intact is clear through the way she treats Rue. Furthermore, before the Games, she has little interest in boys and is instead focused on her responsibilities, and though she develops feelings for Peeta and becomes aware of feelings for Gale during the Games, romance remains a peripheral interest for her at the end of the novel. This lack of change, however, can be seen as a victory for Katniss. She maintains her sense of identity and integrity, just as Peeta at one point says he would like to, despite the horrible ordeals she faces in the Games.
Peeta Mellark
The male tribute from District 12, Peeta is in love with Katniss and becomes her main ally and romantic interest during the Games. Peeta is best characterized by his love for Katniss and willingness to sacrifice himself for her. Katniss’s first memory of him, for instance, is from an incident years before the Games in which Peeta willingly risked a beating to help her. Katniss was starving and searching for food behind Peeta’s family’s bakery, and Peeta apparently burned two loaves of bread deliberately so the bakery couldn’t use them, then gave those loaves to Katniss. Peeta’s mother hit him for burning the bread, and Katniss believes Peeta must have known he would be punished for it. During the Games, he is similarly selfless when he saves Katniss after she comes back to retrieve the bow but finds herself suddenly stunned by the tracker jacker stings. To allow Katniss to escape, Peeta fights Cato, the most deadly of the other tributes, and suffers a serious injury as a result.
Though we have a limited perspective on Peeta since we only seen him through Katniss’s eyes, he comes across as thoughtful, artistic, and genuinely kind. We learn that he’s a gifted visual artist, capable of creating beautiful designs in frosting for the cakes at his family’s bakery and mimicking patterns of light and shade when he camouflages himself. When Haymitch falls in his own vomit, it is Peeta who volunteers to clean him up. Katniss wonders what his motive is in volunteering for this task, then realizes that Peeta is just being nice. In one particularly memorable scene before the Games occur, Peeta confesses to Katniss that his only hope for the Games is to retain his identity and not to be made into a monster by his circumstances. The incident reveals Peeta to be a good and introspective person who prides his dignity and decency perhaps above all else. (It is never answered whether he would sacrifice that for Katniss as well.)
Haymitch Abernathy
As District 12’s only surviving winner of the Hunger Games, Haymitch acts as Katniss’s and Peeta’s coach throughout the Games. Though he is drunk most, in fact nearly all, of the time, he proves a cunning advisor to the young tributes. It is never made explicit in the novel, but it appears to be Haymitch who devises the strategy of playing up the romance between Katniss and Peeta, a move that ultimately allows both of them to survive the Games even though traditionally only one winner has been allowed. Haymitch also finds a way of communicating with Katniss during the Games through the gifts he sends her, essentially coaching her on how she should behave to get more sponsors. Albeit in a very limited way, he also acts as somewhat of a father figure to Katniss, who lost her father years earlier. While Haymitch is often indelicate and manipulative, frequently using Peeta and his feelings for Katniss to get the results he wants, he is undeniably effective. When Katniss and Peeta wonder how he won the Hunger Games, Peeta suspects he must have outsmarted the other tributes.
Themes
The inequality between rich and poor
In Panem, wealth is heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich, particularly those people living in the Capitol and certain of the districts, and the result is a huge disparity between their lives and the lives of the poor. This disparity reveals itself in numerous ways throughout the novel, but among the notable is food. In the poor districts, many of the residents do not even have enough to eat. Katniss notes that starvation is common in District 12, and she has to hunt illegally in the woods beyond the district’s borders to feed her family. The novel suggests that most of the district’s residents are not able to or don’t know how to hunt, meaning even given the little Katniss’s family has, it is still more than many of the other families in her district. Furthermore, all but the most basic foods are luxuries. Katniss later learns that Peeta’s family, which owns a bakery and is thus one of the more well-off in the district, can’t afford most of the food they bake and eat mostly the stale leftovers that nobody guys. In contrast, when Katniss arrives in the Capitol, she is awed by the lavish feasts and elaborately prepared dishes. The food is rich and abundant, and Katniss, for the first time, tries hot chocolate.
Perhaps the best example of the inequality between rich and poor can be seen in the tessera system and the way the tributes are selected for the Games. In theory, the lottery by which tributes are chosen, called the reaping, is random and anyone can be picked. But in reality, the poor are much more likely than the rich to end up as tributes. In exchange for extra rations of food and oil, called tesserae, those children eligible for the Hunger Games can enter their names into the reaping additional times. Most children of poor families have to take tesserae to survive, so the children of poor families have more entries in the reaping than children of wealthy families who need no tesserae. They’re more likely to be picked as a result. Moreover, the rich who do become tributes tend to have an additional advantage, because they are often trained to take part in the Games and volunteer to do so. These trained tributes, which Katniss refers to as Career Tributes, are generally bigger, stronger, and better prepared for the tribulations of the Hunger Games than those poor tributes selected by chance. They are consequently more likely to survive. For these rich tributes, it is an honor to compete in the Games, while for the poor tributes it is essentially a death sentence.
Suffering as entertainment
The Hunger Games present the tributes’ suffering as mass entertainment, and the more the tributes suffer, ideally in battle with one another, the more entertaining the Games become. The main draw of the Games for viewers is its voyeurism, in this case watching the tributes, who are of course children, fighting and dying. Katniss at various points talks about past Games and what made them successful or unsuccessful, and the recurring motif is that the viewers want to see the tributes battling one another and not dying too quickly (because then the entertainment is over). The principle is best exemplified in Cato’s slow death at the end of the novel. Once the muttations have defeated Cato, they don’t kill him immediately, and Katniss realizes that the Gamemakers want Cato to remain alive because it creates an exceedingly gruesome spectacle. It is the finale of the Games, and so they want to deliver prolonged suffering the audience at home won’t be able to turn away from. The suffering, however, doesn’t have to be purely physical. It can be psychological as well. Katniss’s and Peeta’s romance, for instance, is the subject of so much fascination because it is presumed to be doomed. They become the “star-crossed lovers,” meaning ill-fated, and that promise of suffering adds drama and makes them fun to watch.
In essence, the Games are the equivalent of a televised sporting event in which several participants compete to win. Katniss even refers to the tributes as “players” sometimes when talking about the Games of past years. Most of the players, however, are unwilling, and winning entails outliving the other tributes, mostly by fighting and killing them. In both these ways the Hunger Games recall the gladiatorial Games of Ancient Rome (notably, the gladiatorial Games were one of the most popular forms of entertainment of their time), in which armed competitors, some voluntarily and others not, would fight to the death. That the Games are televised and discussed incessantly in Panem’s media also, of course, recalls today’s reality television, and the novel consequently draws a parallel between the gladiatorial Games and reality TV. This parallel suggests that reality television, though perhaps not quite as barbarous as the gladiatorial Games, still offers up real life as entertainment, and in doing so it turns real people into commodities. Their value becomes determined by how much entertainment they provide, and as such they lose their identities as people. Reality television, the novel suggests, is a form of objectification.
The importance of appearances
Throughout the novel, Katniss and her team use her external appearance, including what she says and how she behaves, to control how other people perceive her. At the reaping ceremony, for instance, she won’t allow herself to cry in front of the cameras because she doesn’t want to give the impression of being weak (and therefore an easy target). Moreover, at the opening ceremony of the Games, the novel emphasizes how important appearances are by focusing a great deal on Katniss’s preparations. The main feature of this focus is the dress Cinna creates for her. It is covered in synthetic flames, earning Katniss the epithet “the girl who was on fire,” and it makes Katniss stand out among the tributes. Drawing attention is more than just vanity in the Games. The tributes that are most memorable tend to attract sponsors, who can provide gifts that may prove critical during the Games. Katniss hides her tears during the Games for a similar reason, as self-pitying tributes are unattractive to sponsors. A tribute’s appearance and behavior can therefore serve as a significant part of their survival strategy.
Perhaps the most notable part of Katniss’s strategy involves her romance with Peeta. This romance is not entirely genuine on Katniss’s end. She cares about Peeta and develops a romantic interest him, but her feelings don’t have nearly the same intensity as his and she always remains ambivalent about him. For the cameras, however, Katniss plays up her feelings for Peeta and works to convince the viewers, and especially the Capitol, that she’s deeply in love with him. The act is one Haymitch devised for strategic reasons: Katniss’s and Peeta’s love story elicits more gifts from sponsors than if they’re simply friends, and it seems even to influence the Capitol’s decision to allow two tributes to be declared winners rather than the customary one. Consequently, the act Katniss puts on has a significant effect on both her and Peeta’s survival. Through these events, the novel suggests that what cameras show, on reality television for instance, is not necessarily reality, and that appearances are just as consequential as the truth.
Motifs
Fire
Fire plays different roles throughout the story, but most often it represents Katniss. Notably, fire is the element that gives the various outfits Cinna designs for Katniss their character. Her first dress, for example, is covered in synthetic flames, while later outfits use fire more subtly but still maintain it as a motif. Katniss’s fire dress earns her the epithet “the girl who was on fire,” and this title comes to pertain to more than just her dress. After Katniss’s surprisingly high training score is announced, Haymitch explains that they must have liked her “heat.” Cinna calls her “the girl who was on fire” again, this time using “fire” to refer to Katniss’s spirit and temperament. During the Games, the phrase takes on a literal meaning after Katniss is struck in the leg by a fireball and thinks the Gamemakers must be laughing at “the girl who was on fire.”
Defiance
The novel is full of acts of defiance against the Capitol despite the Capitol’s authoritarian control over the people of Panem. Katniss’s and Gale’s illegal hunting is an act of defiance, since they’re willfully violating the Capitol’s rules. The same can be said for the existence of the Hob, the bustling black market of District 12. The gesture of respect the residents of District 12 offer Katniss after she volunteers as tribute is similarly a form of defiance in that it contradicts the behavior the Capitol wants, and expects, to see. The mockingjay, which appears throughout the novel, represents defiance in that it recalls the Capitol’s failures, and Peeta essentially hopes to defy the Capitol and Gamemakers when he tells Katniss he wants to retain his identity and show them he’s not just a part of their Games. The most significant acts of defiance come from Katniss, however. Decorating Rue’s body after her death directly violates the spirit of the Hunger Games, which demand that tributes show no mercy for one another, and Katniss’s idea for her and Peeta to threaten suicide with the berries shows that they will not accept the Gamemakers’ rules.
Hunting
Hunting reappears numerous times in the story, but it takes on vastly different connotations depending on the circumstances. Katniss, we learn at the very beginning of the book, is a hunter, and she feeds her family primarily with what she can catch or kill in the woods outside District 12. In fact, she spends most of her day hunting, typically with her friend, Gale, and consequently it appears in one form or another in many of her stories about life before the Hunger Games. For instance, most of her stories about her father revolve around hunting. She also met Gale while hunting, and one of her favorite stories, the one she tells Peeta about how she managed to get a goat for Prim, begins with hunting. Hunting also allows her to stay alive during the Games when there is no other food to be found. In these circumstances, hunting to Katniss is always a positive experience.
In the context of the Hunger Games, however, hunting takes on a very different meaning. When Katniss talks to Gale before she leaves for the Training Center, he wonders if hunting a human will be any different than hunting an animal. As Katniss discovers, it is substantially different, and despite her experience killing animals for food, killing a person in a competition is emotionally traumatizing for her. Moreover, Peeta often refers to the Career Tributes as “hunting” when they’re searching for other tributes to kill. Though the act of hunting remains essentially the same in the arena, the connotation shifts from a positive one for Katniss to an entirely negative one.
Symbols
Mockingjays
The mockingjay represents defiance in the novel, with the bird’s symbolism deriving initially from its origins. The mockingjay, we learn, came about as a result of a failed project by the Capitol to spy on the rebellious districts, and since then the bird has served as a reminder of this failure and the districts’ recalcitrance—Katniss describes them as “something of a slap in the face to the Capitol.” The mockingjay pin Madge gives to Katniss is at first an emblem of that resistance. Later in the novel, however, the birds come to symbolize a different sort of defiance. Mockingjays become a link between Katniss and Rue, with the two using the birds to communicate. When Rue dies, Katniss decorates her body with flowers as a means of memorializing Rue, but also to defy the Capitol. When Katniss later sees mockingjays, they remind her of Rue, and that memory inevitably stirs her hatred of the Capitol and her wish to rebel, and take revenge, against it. The mockingjay consequently takes on an additional layer of symbolism, representing not only a general rebellion against the Capitol, but also Katniss’s specific desire to defy it.
Panem
Panem is the country in which The Hunger Games takes place, and it symbolizes a dystopian United States. The word panem is Latin for “bread,” and given the similarity of the Hunger Games to the gladiatorial Games of Ancient Rome, it recalls panem et circenses, or “bread and circuses.” The phrase refers to the Roman Caesars’ strategy of quelling public discontent by providing the people with plenty of food and entertainment. The entertainment, of course, was largely provided by gladiatorial Games. In the novel, these gladiatorial Games are crossed with reality television to create the Hunger Games. Setting Panem in the location of the present-day United States, and retaining parts of U.S. culture like the mining industry of Appalachia that we see in District 12, draws a link between the two. But the metaphor gets more complicated because of the Ancient Roman influences of Panem. The result is a triple metaphor that uses Panem to draw connections between Ancient Rome and the modern United States, and it suggests that the modern United States has something like its own panem et circenses strategy in place, with reality television taking on the role of the gladiatorial Games.
The metaphor offered by Panem, however, does not align perfectly with Ancient Rome’s panem et circenses formula. For one, that formula is designed to keep the people content, but the people of Panem are decidedly not content, at least not in the poor districts. In fact, the Hunger Games, unlike the gladiatorial Games which appeased the masses, play a significant role in their dissatisfaction. The Games were created as a reminder to the districts of their powerlessness after their uprising against the Capitol ended in defeat, and it is the children of the districts who are drafted involuntarily into the Games to be killed. Second, a key element of the panem et circenses strategy missing from Panem is the bread. Most of the people in the districts are severely underfed, and again this is a cause of much of the people’s discontent. It leads directly to various forms of rebellion, such as Katniss’s illegal hunting and the existence of a large black market in District 12. Rather than commenting on the fictional Panem, it instead comments the real United States in the ways described above, thus offering a valuable criticism of modern culture in the U.S.
Katniss’s dresses
The dresses Cinna designs for Katniss not only give Katniss her epithet, “the girl who was on fire,” but also come to symbolize her spirit. Cinna designs the first dress to reflect the main industry of Katniss’s home district, coal mining, and since coal’s purpose is to burn, Cinna creates a dress that would be lit with synthetic flames. This dress begins the association between Katniss and fire while also giving Katniss her epithet, “the girl who was on fire.” That epithet comes to describe Katniss generally, however, and not just how she appears in Cinna’s designs. Haymitch, for instance, explains Katniss’s high training score by saying the judges must have liked her temper and her “heat.” (Katniss also thinks the Gamemakers may have targeted her with fireballs in the arena as a reference to “the girl who was on fire.”) The dresses, notably the first one for the opening ceremony but also the more subdued versions Cinna creates for Katniss’s interviews, serve as outward, nearly literal representations of Katniss’s inner “fire.”
Study Questions
1. What role does debt play in the novel?
Debt, not of the financial sort necessarily but in the form of owing someone for their help, comes up multiple times in the novel. The most significant instance concerns Katniss’s first encounter with Peeta. Katniss was starving at the time, and Peeta essentially saved her life by giving her bread from his family’s bakery. Moreover, he apparently burned bread deliberately to help Katniss, despite knowing he would be punished as a result. Katniss describes how she has felt indebted to Peeta ever since. Thresh also brings up debt when he spares Katniss after learning about her alliance with Rue. He says they are “even” and no more is “owed.”
These feelings of indebtedness, Katniss suggests, stem from the experience of growing up poor. When Peeta expresses his surprise that Thresh let Katniss live, Katniss tells him he wouldn’t understand because he’s “always had enough.” What she implies is that Peeta has never been dependent on another person for either his or his loved ones’ wellbeing, so he can’t understand the feelings of debt associated with that experience. The tessera system plays into this mentality of indebtedness. The poor take extra food rations essentially on credit, which is paid back in the form of extra entries into the reaping. They often need the tessera in order to survive, so they take them knowing they will have to pay back what is essentially a debt later.
2. Does Katniss truly begin wanting a relationship with Peeta, or is she playing a role to gain a strategic advantage? Explain.
Though Katniss does begin to develop sincere romantic feelings for Peeta, she never appears to want their friendship to turn into a real relationship, and she primarily keeps up the romance with Peeta for the strategic advantage it provides. In numerous instances in which they kiss, Katniss thinks of what Haymitch would want to see rather than thinking that she actually wants to kiss Peeta, and only once does she say they shared a kiss that left her wanting another. In one of the most dramatic moments of their romance, Katniss tells Peeta he doesn’t have competition anywhere, referring to Gale, but even in this situation she thinks of what Haymitch would want her to say.
Just as tellingly, when they’re on their way back to District 12 Katniss makes it clear she doesn’t think she’s the type of person who can be in the sort of relationship Peeta wants. By all indications, she felt this way well before any romance began between them. Early in the novel, for instance, she thinks she could never get married and have children knowing that they might one day have to take part in the Hunger Games. Katniss’s feelings, in other words, have not changed, and she is still not interested in a relationship, perhaps with anyone.
3. Why does the author spend so much time focusing on the dresses Cinna creates for Katniss?
Given that Katniss’s life is at stake in the Hunger Games, the author’s focus on Katniss’s appearance at various times can seem frivolous. But as becomes clear over the course of the novel, appearances are extremely important to Katniss’s survival. The author’s focus on Cinna’s dresses subtly emphasizes this theme by forcing the reader to take notice of Katniss’s appearance. Katniss’s dress for the opening ceremony, we learn, makes her (and Peeta, who is similarly dressed) stand apart from the other tributes. The significance of this move isn’t fully clear until Katniss is in the arena and in need of sponsors. By making her stand out, the dress makes her popular, and this popularity is amplified by the public romance she shares with Peeta. Consequently, she becomes more likely to receive gifts, and these gifts actually turn out to be vital to her survival.
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Is Haymitch a good mentor to Katniss and Peeta? Explain.
2. In what ways does Katniss’s hunting experience prepare her for the Games, and in what ways does it fail to prepare her?
3. How does Katniss’s role in her family affect her behavior in the Games?
4. What is Katniss’s greatest strength in the Games, and what is her greatest weakness?
5. Science fiction often uses a futuristic setting to comment on the present day. What does The Hunger Games suggest about the present-day United States?
1. “I volunteer!” I gasp. “I volunteer as tribute!”
At the outset of Chapter 2, just after Prim has been selected in the reaping, Katniss volunteers to serve as the female tribute for District 12 in the Hunger Games. This event sets the rest of the plot in motion, and for the remainder of the book we watch Katniss struggling to survive the Games. The reason Katniss volunteers is, of course, to save Prim, her little sister. Despite the odds being in her favor, Prim is selected by the lottery system that decides which children become tributes. Because she is just twelve years old, and because she is a sensitive, nurturing person who has difficulty with any kind of suffering or violence, she is almost certain to die in the Games. Katniss, meanwhile, is four years older and very protective of Prim, and so without hesitation she volunteers to take her sister’s place. Moreover, she has years of experience hunting (and therefore killing) and is far less sensitive than her sister, making her more likely to survive the ordeal of the Games.
Katniss’s volunteering is also notable because, as Katniss explains, volunteers in her district are basically unheard of. Tributes from poor districts, such as Katniss’s District 12, rarely win the Games because their poverty puts them at a distinct disadvantage. They are often malnourished compared to the children from the wealthier districts, making them weaker and less able to endure prolonged exertion and difficult conditions. Additionally, as we learn later, some children in the wealthy districts actually train their whole lives to take part in the Hunger Games. Volunteers in these districts are common because winning the Games is a great honor for them. But because the tributes from the poor areas are vastly more likely to be killed, it is exceedingly rare that someone volunteers, even apparently to take the place of a sibling. Katniss’s gesture instantly earns the respect of her district and makes her unusual among the tributes in the Hunger Games.
2. The boy took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pig, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him.
This quotation occurs toward the end of Chapter 2, as Katniss relates her first encounter with Peeta once Peeta has been selected as District 12’s male tribute. Katniss credits Peeta’s actions with essentially saving her life at the time and helping her realize that she would have to act as the provider for her family. When Peeta gave Katniss the bread, Katniss and her family were basically starving. The bread Peeta gave her allowed them to have their first real meal in a long while, and when Katniss saw Peeta the next day at the same time she saw the dandelion in the schoolyard, she realized that, if she wanted her family to eat, she would have to hunt and forage like her father taught her to feed them. Since then, Katniss has associated Peeta with this realization.
The quote and the events leading up to it additionally laid the groundwork for the relationship Peeta and Katniss would later develop, and they foreshadow how Peeta acts in the arena. Just before Peeta gives Katniss the bread, Katniss hears some sort of commotion in the bakery and she notices that Peeta emerges with a welt on his cheek, suggesting his mother hit him. Katniss suspects she hit Peeta because he burned the bread, and she also suspects he burned the bread deliberately so that it would be considered damaged and he could give it to Katniss. In other words, Peeta endures a physical beating so that he can help Katniss. He does the same later in the Hunger Games, when he saves Katniss after she’s dropped the tracker jacker nest on the group of Career Tributes. When Peeta finds Katniss stunned from the tracker jacker stings, he allows her to run away and fights Cato to protect her, suffering a serious injury in the process.
3. “I want the audience to recognize you when you’re in the arena," says Cinna dreamily. “Katniss, the girl who was on fire.”
Cinna says these words to Katniss in Chapter 5 as he prepares her dress for the opening ceremony of the Hunger Games. The quote points to one of the main themes of the novel: the importance of appearances. Cinna understands how necessary it is to make Katniss stand out, not just for the sake of vanity, but because he knows that appearances in the Hunger Games can have a significant, tangible effect. By standing out during the ceremony, for instance, Katniss can attract fans that might not otherwise have noticed her, and among these fans may be sponsors who could provide gifts that might prove critical during the Hunger Games. Though Katniss doesn’t feel spectacular, especially compared to some of the other tributes who are bigger and stronger than she is, she becomes one of the most notable among them, beginning with her appearance as “the girl who was on fire.”
4. In District 12, we call them the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like as not, the winner will be one of them.
Katniss’s explanation of what a Career Tribute occurs when the tributes gather together for their first day of training in Chapter 7. As Katniss explains, the Career Tributes are those tributes from the wealthier districts (typically Districts 1, 2, and 4) who have trained their whole lives to take part in the Hunger Games. They know how to fight and use a variety of weapons, and they are typically large and look strong and well-fed, compared to the tributes from the poorer districts who often look undernourished. As a result, they are generally better prepared for the challenges of the Hunger Games and are typically the winners. When Katniss sees the other tributes for the first time on their first day of training, she realizes the Careers will pose the greatest threat to her survival in the arena.
In addition, the quote highlights the inequality between rich and poor in Panem, a major theme of the novel. Because of the tessera system, in which children eligible for the Hunger Games can have their names entered into the reaping additional times in exchange for extra rations of food, the poor are already more likely than the wealthy to be chosen as tributes. Since the poor are also ill-prepared for the Games when compared with the Career Tributes, they are at a serious disadvantage. Being chosen as a tribute is essentially a death sentence for the poor, whereas Career Tributes often volunteer to compete since winning for them is an honor rather than a mere matter of survival.
5. Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. “Because…because…she came here with me.”
In Chapter 9, as Caesar Flickerman interviews Peeta before the Games, Peeta reveals to Caesar and all of Panem that he’s in love with Katniss. Peeta’s revelation sets in motion the storyline of him and Katniss as ill-fated lovers that carries on throughout the Games. This storyline has a significant influence on the Games and on Peeta’s and Katniss’s survival. First, it makes Peeta and Katniss into a sensation among the viewers, in turn attracting sponsors. Haymitch has Katniss play up the romance for this reason, and in return he’s able to secure gifts that prove vital, including food and the burn ointment Katniss uses to heal her leg. Second, the novel suggests that the love storyline is the reason the Capitol decides to allow both tributes from a district to be named winners. The unprecedented move appears to be a response to Katniss’s and Peeta’s popularity, and it is essentially the reason that both Katniss and Peeta survive the Hunger Games (though Katniss, of course, has to force the Capitol in the end).
Peeta’s revelation of his love for Katniss is also the source of much of Katniss’s internal conflict in the novel. Katniss can’t discern whether Peeta is playing out a strategy devised by Haymitch or if his feelings are genuine. As a result, Katniss spends a great deal of time trying to puzzle out what he really feels. When he teams with the Careers, for instance, Katniss suspects Peeta was lying and will do whatever is necessary to stay alive. Later he confuses Katniss by saving her at the expense of being injured himself, suggesting he really does care for her. She remains uncertain about Peeta’s true feelings almost until the end of the novel, only conceding to herself that Peeta is telling the truth when he recalls details about the first time he saw her that prove he isn’t simply acting.
6. And right now, the most dangerous part of the Hunger Games is about to begin.
Katniss says these words at the end of Chapter 26, after Haymitch tells her the Capitol was extremely angry at her stunt with the berries. The dangerous event Katniss refers to here is her interview with Caesar Flickerman, and it’s dangerous because the lives of Katniss, her family, Peeta, and even possibly his family are now all at risk. As Haymitch told her, the Capitol feels that Katniss made them look foolish by forcing them to allow her and Peeta to both be declared winners after she and Peeta essentially threatened suicide. Consequently, though Katniss survived the Hunger Games, she is again in danger. She realizes that, in her interview with Caesar Flickerman, she must convince everyone she suggested to Peeta they eat the poisonous berries because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, not to deliberately defy the Capitol. In other words, she has to portray herself as desperately in love with Peeta and downplay any appearance of being a rebel. The quote and the events surrounding it again underscore how important appearances are in the novel.
1. What is Katniss’s sister’s full name?
(A) Pamela
(B) Primly
(C) Prim
(D) Primrose
2. How did Katniss’s father die?
(A) In a hunting accident
(B) In a mine explosion
(C) He became trapped in a collapsed mine
(D) He was murdered by the Capitol
3. At what skill is Gale better than Katniss?
(A) Setting snares
(B) Using an axe
(C) Swimming
(D) Bird calls
4. Who or what is Katniss named after?
(A) Her grandmother
(B) A plant with edible roots
(C) A type of bird
(D) Catnip
5. Who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin?
(A) Gale
(B) Cinna
(C) Madge
(D) Prim
6. Why does the Capitol hold the Hunger Games?
(A) As a way to control the size of the population
(B) To keep the districts happy
(C) Because they are part of a religious festival
(D) To remind the districts that they are powerless against it
7. Which word best describes Haymitch?
(A) Sensitive
(B) Polite
(C) Silly
(D) Gruff
8. Under what circumstances did Katniss first meet Peeta?
(A) Katniss was looking for food and Peeta gave her bread
(B) They were both in the woods hunting
(C) They did a project at school together
(D) Peeta was injured and Katniss’s mother helped him
9. What does Katniss think when she first sees the residents of the Capitol?
(A) They are sophisticated and beautiful
(B) They are superficial and ridiculous
(C) They are overweight and tall
(D) They are ungroomed and slovenly
10. What are tesserae?
(A) Extra rations of grain and oil
(B) Hybrid animals created by the Capitol
(C) A type of plant
(D) What the children are called who are chosen to compete in the Games
11. Which training station does Peeta excel at?
(A) Archery
(B) Knife throwing
(C) Camouflage
(D) Knot tying
12. What does Peeta tell Katniss he wants to do in the Games?
(A) Kill as many Career Tributes as possible
(B) Hide
(C) Find a way to escape the arena
(D) Show the Capitol he’s not just a piece in their game
13. What item does Katniss manage to grab at the Cornucopia when the Games begin?
(A) Bow
(B) Knife
(C) Backpack
(D) Helmet
14. What is the first thing Katniss looks for after running from the Cornucopia?
(A) Food
(B) Water
(C) Shelter
(D) Fire
15. What does Peeta do that surprises Katniss on their first night in the arena?
(A) He hunts with the Career Tributes
(B) He camouflages himself expertly in mud
(C) He kisses Katniss
(D) He cries
16. When Katniss is severely dehydrated, how does Haymitch indicate to her that she’s near water?
(A) He sends her a map
(B) He sends her a cup
(C) He sends her iodine drops
(D) He doesn’t send her anything
17. What does Rue point out to Katniss that lets her get away from the group of Career Tributes?
(A) A sheaf of arrows
(B) A tracker jacker nest
(C) A boulder
(D) A mockinjay nest
18. What do Rue and Katniss realize is their advantage over the Career Tributes?
(A) They can hide well
(B) They're faster
(C) They can hunt and forage their own food
(D) They’re deadlier with weapons
19. What does Katniss do when Rue is killed?
(A) She buries her body
(B) She camouflages her body
(C) She covers her body in flowers
(D) She runs away as fast as she can
20. Where does Katniss find Peeta after it’s declared that two tributes can win the Games?
(A) Hiding in a cave
(B) Lying camouflaged in mud
(C) In a tree
(D) By the Cornucopia
21. How does Haymitch indicate to Katniss that he wants her to play up the romance with Peeta?
(A) He sends her a pot of broth after she and Peeta kiss
(B) He sends her a note telling her what he wants her to do
(C) He sends her an item from Gale
(D) He doesn’t send her anything
22. What does Thresh say to Katniss when he spares her life?
(A) He can’t kill a girl
(B) He’s in love with her
(C) He’s afraid of her
(D) They’re even now
23. How does Cato finally die?
(A) The muttations kill him
(B) Katniss shoots him
(C) He eats poisonous berries
(D) He starves to death
24. How do Katniss and Peeta force the Capitol to declare them both winners?
(A) They threaten to run away
(B) They threaten that the winner will tell about everything
(C) They threaten to commit suicide
(D) They threaten to cause a rebellion against the Capitol
25. What event does Katniss refer to when she says the most dangerous part of the Hunger Games is about to begin?
(A) Her last interview with Caesar Flickerman
(B) Her imminent confrontation with Cato at the Cornucopia
(C) Her entrance into the arena
(D) Her first kiss with Peeta