The Hunger Games

”Happy Hunger Games” (Collins,2008,p.8)

I think almost everybody knows the hunger games, especially the movies at least I did, but when reading the book you get a better ideo of what is going on inside the head of Katniss. The bigger picture about what happened to her before and during The Hunger Games. The way she was always just trying to survive and the way how together with her best friend Gale as hunting in the forest. Hunting for food to feed her family, which after they’d lost her father became her task, as her mother was unable to do so.

”I suppose now that my mother was locked in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well.”(Collins, 2008, p.28)

She feels very responsible for her family and her main task is to take care of them, especially her sister who she loves more than anybody.  

”I protect Prim in every way I can, but I’m powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she’s in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face.”(Collins, 2008,p.16)

But then the real surviving starts when she volunteers to participate in the Hunger Games instead of her little sister Prim, and suddenly it is a matter of life and death. The things she feels and the way she acts towards to outside world, not showing anyone her real feelings and just be a strong young woman. All these feelings are also feelings that are felt by adolescents and that’s why this book is an excellent choice for them, especially age 12-18. They are also finding themselves, looking for what is right and what is wrong. As states by Appleyard (1991) “Sense of a divided selfhood, of a split between a secret, authentic inner self and a changing personality needed to deal with the outside world, need to be proof of alienation’’. (The reader as thinker, P.2)

”I force myself to take deep, slow breaths, feeling quite certain the cameras are on my face. I can’t show weakness at this injury.”(Collins, 2008,p.178)

This takes the next level with Katniss as she has also a conflict about what is good and bad, and especially how to be herself during this crazy time, when there’s expected to just kill other people. Especially the people of the capitol who themselves do not have to participate and just want to be entertained by a group of children murdering each other.

”Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch- this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.” (Collins, 2008,p.19)

Which is also stated by Erikson (1970) ’’The age appropriation of the book is age 12-18, as stated by Erikson teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. Success leads to an ability to stay true to yourself, while failure leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self’’.

It is hard for her to stay true to herself yet she does so, and shows it in several ways. Katniss stays true to herself during her time in the arena by taking care of others when she allies with Rue, a young girl from district 11, they help each other. When Rue is killed, she places flowers around her body showing compassion against the forced and violent competitiveness pressured by the Capitol.

I turn and head back to the stream, feeling somehow worried. About Rue being killed, about Rue not being killed and the two of us being left for last, about leaving Rue alone, about leaving Prim alone back home. No, Prim has my mother and Gale and a baker who has promised she won’t go hungry. Rue has only me(Collins, 2008,p.211)

We had a discussion in class about what we did and did not like about the book. The main things we liked was the presentation of Katniss Everdeen before the sponsors when she shoots her arrow through the apple, and leaves the sponsors astonished behind. Also in the end, when their defiance is successful. There were also some parts we did not like, like the part where the Hunger Games is promoted as an enjoyable viewing experience for the audiences at home, because it’s far from the truth it in reality is.

There are some patterns in the book like Katniss repetitive sacrificing herself, first shown when volunteering as tribute instead of her younger sister, later when facing danger to nurse Peeta back to health and finally as sole survivors when she and Peeta consider double suicide, she initially wanted to sacrifice herself in order for Peeta to survive and win the game.

Throughout the whole book she is having an internal battle between hating to participate in the Games and doing exactly what the Capitol wants her to do and between what she is feeling and the resistance she feels towards everybody, especially the Capitol. This can be compared by the feelings adolescents are having and the need to feel to rebel against their parents or teachers. As stated by Appleyard (2012), ‘’so they have to work out a set of balances between their newfound sense of possibility and the restrictions with which adult society often appears to be threatening them’’.(The reader as thinker, p.3)

”Gale’s voice is in my head. His ravings against the Capitol no longer pointless, no longer to be ignored. Rue’s death has forced me to confront my own fury against the cruelty, the injustice they inflict upon us. But here, even more strongly than at home, I feel my impotence. There’s no way to take revenge on the Capitol. Is there? ”(Collins, 2008, p.233)

The Hunger Games is a good book to use for adolescents as it specifies in the internal battles teenagers can have. It is a book they can relate to and can help them to always stay yourself also when the whole world tries to make you someone you are not.

Bibliography

Appleyard, J.A. (1991). Becoming a Reader: The reader as thinker. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press

Collins, S (2008). The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press.

Erikson, E.H. (1970) Reflections on the dissent of contemporary youth. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 51, 11-22.

Image 1 – [Untitled image of Katniss and Peeta].(n.d). Glamour. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from
https://www.glamour.nl/nieuws/films-series-tv/a28078509/hunger-games-film-boek-prequel/