Hunger Games Summary and Analysis

Hunger Games Summary and Analysis – English A-level 12-12-2011

Hunger Games – Summary and Analysis The story is told f rom the perspective of Katniss, as a personally bound first-person narrator, present tense. Setting: Near future; post-apocalyptic North America. The world has been ravaged by natural disasters, and

the coastlines have receded; the sea having taken over most of the land. The new civilization that has sprung forth – Panem – is ruled from The Capitol, and is divided into twelve districts. Each of the districts have their own trade, e.g. district twelve is a mining town because it sits upon large deposits of coal, and district four is a fishing town, because of its coastline. There used to be a thirteenth district, until the districts rebelled against The Capitol’s rule. The Capitol repelled the rebellion, and as retribution, destroyed

the entire thirteenth district. The Capitol has – to remind the districts of their humbleness – since held the titular Hunger Games every year, where a boy and a girl between twelve and eighteen years old are chosen from each district, to be sent to the capitol where they will fight to the death. This is all televised across Panem as a sort of reality cum gladiator cum survival show. Summary: Act 1: The story is told from the perspective of Katniss, a sixteen year-old girl, who lives with her mother

and her twelve year-old sister Primrose. Katniss is an independent girl; forced to grow up before her time. They live in the coal-mining District Twelve; one of the poorest districts. Katniss spends much of her time with her good friend Gale, poaching creatures in the woods outside the city for food, even though it is illegal. She sells the animals for various other items, such as bread and clothes. On the day of the Reaping, the lottery that determines who will be sent to the Hunger Games, Primrose’s name is called, despite her being only twelve years old, and only having a single ticket in the ballot box (one ticket is added for each year you are over twelve, and you can trade a ticket fo r a modest supply of food. This way, older teenagers are more likely to be chosen, and poorer kids are even more common). Katniss cannot bear this, and volunteers in a moment of desperation. A boy is also called upon: Peeta, who Katniss remembers very fondly for saving her and her family from starvation some years back, when Katniss’

mother had a mental breakdown. This m akes Katniss feel terrible, since the Hunger Games are to the death, and no one, not even people from the same districts, can win together. Katniss and Peeta are put on a train with an overzealous capitol representative and a drunken hobo - the only person from district twelve to ever win the Hunger Games. They are briefed on the procedure going


forward, and receive some tips from the former winner. They are fed abundant amounts of food, more than they have ever seen, made of exotic ingredients. Katniss and Peeta get to know each other a little bit, but Katniss is suspicious by nature, and so remains cautious o f Peeta’s attempts to make friends with her. When they arrive at The Capitol, they are whisked into the ceremony of the Hunger Games. They are put into the hands of a fashion designer. At the start of the Hunger Games, there is a ceremonial procession where the tributes are wheeled through wearing a costume that represents the District’s specific trade. Historically, district twelve have done very badly, since coal costumes are usually very dark and dirty and downplayed. Katniss and Peeta have gotten lucky, because their fashion designer has decided to go all out. He has made costumes that will light on fire. This absolutely steals the show, and Katniss and Peeta are cheered for from the moment they enter the stage. After the ceremony, the tributes’ skills are tested. They show off to the judges, or gamemakers, and are

given a grade between 1 and 12. A higher grade will inspire confidence, and will earn you sponsors who send helpful items by air drop when you are in the Games. The other tributes put on good shows, but since Katniss is up last, the judges are well and truly fed up with tributes when she shows off. The unfairness of this angers Katniss, who demonstratively fires an arrow straight into the apple in a pig’s mouth, while the

judges are eating. This wakes the judges up, and they wind up giving her an 11 out of 12; the highest grade of all the tributes. After the tests, Peeta publicly confesses his love for Katniss, but she believes that it is yet another ploy to garner attention form possible sponsors. Act 2: The Hunger Games begin. As the Hunger Games begin, the contestants are left with a choice: Go to

the cornucopia – a pyre full of weaponry, supplies, and whatever else the intrepid young gladiator may require – or alternatively, leg it in the opposite direction, and avoid the massacre that is sure to arise immediately. Katniss is torn by this decision, and ends up picking something i n between. She manages to get a hold of a bright orange backpack, and has a k nife thrown at her, which she keeps . “ I lunge forward, scoop up the sheet of plastic and a loaf of bread. The pickings are so small and Im so angry with Peeta for distracting me that I sprint in twenty yards to retrieve a bright orange backpack that could hold anything because I can’t stand leaving with virtually nothing. A boy , I think from District 9, reaches the pack at the same time I do and for a brief time we grapple for it and then he coughs, splattering my face with blood.”

She sprints away from the plains and the lake, and into the forest, where she checks out her loot. She has been relatively lucky, since the bag contained a lot of valuable supplies: “I carefully lay out the provisions. One thin black sleeping bag that reflects body heat. A pack of crackers. A pack of dried beef strips. A bottle of iodine. A box of wooden matches. A small coil of wire. A pair of sunglasses. And a half-gallon plastic bot tle with a cap for carrying water that's bone dry. No water.” after this, she starts to consider her tasks


ahead, the first and foremost being the acquisition of water. She deigns to venture further into the forest, since she does not want to risk returning to the lake. She walks for an entire day, until the darkness starts to encroach. She sets up rabbit snares, and sets up a camp in a tree. As she settles in, the deaths are announced: Eleven in all.

In the night, she spots a light flickering on further in the woods; a girl having started a fire for warmth. “ I have to bite my lip not to scream every foul name I know at the fire starter. What are they thinking? A fire just at nightfall would have been one thing. Those who battled at the Cornucopia, with their superior strength and surplus of supplies, they couldn’t possibly have been near enough to spot the flames then. But now, when they’ve probably been combing the woods for hours looking for victims.You might as well be waving a flag and shouting, Come and get me!” The girl is sure enough, killed swiftly by the career tributes who, after searching her start to walk towards Katniss’ tree. Katniss is mortified, and tries to remain still as

the Careers a rgue. “ An argument breaks out until one tribute silences the others. We’re wasting time! I’ll go finish her and let’s move on! I almost fall out of the tree. The voice belongs to Peeta.” This, in Katniss’ mind,

confirms her suspicion that Peeta was just garnering attention with all the making friends with- and declaring his love for Katniss. Katniss loses whatever remorse she felt about having to kill Peeta, and practically pledges vengeance. In the morning, with the Careers gone, Katniss packs up her camp and heads further into the woods, looking for water. She finds none, and for two days, she wanders around the forest valley in search of water, finding none, and quickly losing hope. In true melodramatic fashion, she finally falls to the ground, exasperated, only five yards away from a pond. She realizes this as she falls into the mud, and manages to crawl to the pond, where she happily guzzles the water.

After Katniss has set herself up by the pond, the gamemakers decide to toy with the Games a little bit: they set the forest on fire. Katniss awakens to the smell of smoke, and has to quickly pack up her bag before the flames reach her. She then sprints through the forest as fireballs fly left and right. She ends up taking a fireball to the calf, which singes her badly. She takes cover, but has little hope for her survival. The fires eventually die down, however, and she manages to live through it. She tries to cool her leg in a pond, and ends up setting up camp around herself, with the leg still in the water. She falls asleep, well knowing that the Careers will find her. And they do.

Katniss has a minute’s head start from she is awoken by the sound of footsteps. She uses the time to sprint to a tree, and starts climbing up it. She’s a ways up when the Careers reach the tree. “Now I smile. “How’s everything with you?” I call down cheerfully. This takes them aback, but I know the crowd will love it. “Well


enough”, says the boy from District 2. “Yourself?” “It’s been a bit warm for my taste”, I say. I can almost hear the laughter from the Capitol. “The air’s better up here. Why don’t you come on up?” The Careers are

all much heavier than Katniss, and realizing the stalemate, decide to set up camp at the foot of the tree. Katniss sets up a sleeping area in the branches. In the night, Katniss is signaled by Rue, the youngest tribute of the games, who points out a nest of trackerjacker hornets in a branch slightly above where Katniss is sleeping. Katniss hatches a sinister plan, and decides to cut part of the way through the branch that night, so as to drop it on the Careers the next morning. In the night, she receives a vial of soothing cream for her burns by airdrop, sent by her sponsors. She thanks the night sky for it, and applies it to her calf and hands with much gusto.

The next morning, she executes her plan, and drops the hornet’s nest into the Career’s camp. The Career’s

run scared, two of them dying. Katniss is stung a few times in the process, however, and after recovering the bow and arrows from one of the dead girls, proceeds to go completely mad. The Careers come back, Peeta in the lead, but Peeta urges Katniss to run instead of killing her off. K atniss proceeds to run, while circling the drain of insanity. She eventually regains consciousness and clarity of mind. After getting her bearings, hydrating, cleaning herself and eating, she goes into the woods once more. She meets Rue again, and they team up. They spend a few days together, and have divided up their supplies, when they hatch another dastardly scheme to beat the Careers. Rue will run around the forest, setting up fires, which will attract the Careers’ attention. Katniss will then sneak past them, into their camp, where she will attempt to

steal and/or destroy their copious amounts of supplies. The Careers have taken the mines that were there to keep the tributes from starting early, and have placed them around their pile of supplies, where they have rearmed them. Katniss witnesses as another independent tribute moves into the pi le with great agility, and pilfers a few supplies. “ Then she begins to approach the pyramid with strange little hops, sometimes landing on one foot, teetering slightly, sometimes risking a few steps. At one point, she launches up in the air, over a small barrel and lands poised on her tiptoes. But she overshot slightly, and her momentum throws her forward. I hear her give a sharp squeal as her hands hit the ground, but nothing happens. In a moment, she’s regained her feet and continues until she has reached the bulk of the supplies. So, I’m right about the booby trap, but it’s clearly more complex than I had imagined.”

Katniss makes her way to the supply pile, and has a look at the situation: “ I know what to do. I move into range and give myself three arrows to get the job done. I place my feet carefully, block out the rest of the world as I take meticulous aim, The first arrow tears through the side of the bag near the top, leaving a split in the burlap. The second widens it to a gaping hole. I can see the first apple teetering when I let the


third arrow go, catching the torn flap of burlap and ripping it from the bag. For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then the apples spill to the ground and I’ m blown backward into the air.” She is shell-

shocked from the explosion, but manages to crawl back into the woods on her hands and knees. After a while of traveling in the woods, she gets to the place where her and Rue were supposed to meet up. Rue doesn’t show. Katniss makes her way back along Rue’s planned path. She finally hears Rue’s

voice; a scream, and arrived just in time to see her being impaled by a boy wielding a spear. Katniss is overcome with rage, and kills the boy with an arrow. Katniss grieves, and gives Rue as good a ceremonial funeral as she can manage, showing a traditional district 12 sign of respect, and covering Rue with flowers, Before she is lifted off by the hovercraft. As Rue is dying, we very clearly see why Katniss feels such great remorse for her, as she mistakes her name for Prim’s: “ Sing. My throat is tight with tears, hoarse from smoke and fatigue. But if this is Prims, I mean, Rues last request, I have to at least try. The song that comes to me i s a simple lullaby, one we sing fretful, hungry babies to sleep with. It’s old, very old I think.” As Katniss makes camp that night, an announcement pops up; the rules have changed: “ A rule change! That in itself is mind bending since we dont really have any rules to speak of except dont step off your circle for sixty seconds and the unspoken rule about not eating one another. Under the new rule, both tributes from the same district will be declared winners if they are the last two alive. Claudius pauses, as if he knows were not getting it, and repeats the change again. The news sinks in. Two tributes can win this year. If theyre from the same district. Both can live. Both of us can live. Before I can stop myself, I call out Peetas name.”

Act 3: Katniss sets out to find Peeta, and she succeeds, but he has been wounded by one of the Careers,

and is bleeding badly. She spends a few days nursing him back to health, and in that time develops romantic feelings for him. Peeta gets blood poisoning, and h e and Katniss realize that if he doesn’t get medicine soon, he will perish. The medicine that he needs is, however much too expensive for their sponsors to be able to afford at this point, so they begin to lose hope. An announcement comes on, however, saying that there will be a feast the following morning, containing an item that the tributes from each district desperately needs. Katniss wants to go there, but Peeta refuses, out of concern for Katniss’

safety. Katniss is given a sleep drug by their sponsors, which she feeds to Peeta, knocking him out, and letting her go to the feast. She comes to the feast and retrieves the medicine, but is attacked by the female tribute from district 2; Clove. Clove mocks Katniss with Rue’s death, but Katniss is saved when Thresh – the

male tribute from district 11, same as Rue, and the man with the single most Butch name in human history – runs Clove down and beats her skulls until it is concave, thinking that she was responsible for Rue’s death.

Katniss explains the circumstances of Rue’s death to Thresh, who lets Katniss go. “Tears spring in my eyes. The tension, the fight goes out of me at the memory. And I’m ov erwhelmed by Rue and the pain in my head,


and my fear of Thresh, and the moaning of the dying girl a metre away. My hand reaches up, but not for an arrow that I know I’ll never reach. Just to wipe my nose. “Do it fast, OK, Thresh?” “Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we’re even then. No more owed. You understand? ””

Katniss makes it back to Peeta, despite her grave wounds, and after they have recovered, a tribute accidentally kills herself by stealing and eating some poison berries from Katniss and Peeta. They later discover that Thresh has been killed off by Cato, the leader of the Careers. After a while in the forest, they realize that the gamemakers have caused the ponds and rivers to dry up, forcing the remaining three players to the lake, back at the cornucopia. They arrive at the cornucopia and wait a long time for Cato to show up, but when he does, it’s under radically different circumstances than expected. He arrives sprinting,

with a group of mutants in hot pursuit. The mutants resemble anthropomorphic wolves or wild hounds, each one with features resembling one of the dead tributes. Cato, Katniss and Peeta all climb to the top of the cornucopia, so as to not be mauled by the hounds. Cato takes Peeta hostage up there, daring Katniss to shoot him, knowing that that she would be throwing Peeta to the hounds as well. Cato thinks Katniss loves Peeta too much for her to risk this, but is taken aback when Katniss shoots an arrow through Cato’s hand,

causing him to release his grip on Peeta. Peeta throws Cato off the cornucopia, down to the mutant hounds, which proceed to maul him with great enthusiasm. Cato does not go down without a fight, however, and he manages to hold his own against the hounds for a good hour, circling aroung the cornucopia to rejoin Peeta and Katniss at the top. He is skilled, but is finally overwhelmed; the mutts dragging him into the cornucopia. Here, Katniss and Peeta just wait for the cannon to sound, signaling Cato’s death, but it doesn’t come. They wait the entire day and night, until they themselves are dying of

fatigue, the cold, and their wounds. All through the night, Cato is whimpering as the hounds eat him alive. As dawn comes, Katniss deigns to finish him off with an arrow of pity. Cato dies, but just as Peeta and Katniss assume that they have been victorious, another announcement comes up for the two of them, stating that the rules cannot be changed anyway. That the two must pick one of them to emerge victorious. Peeta and Katniss are infuriated, but each of them refuses to kill the other. Peeta starts unwrapping his earlier wound, so as to kill himself. Katniss scrambles to stop him, and they end up agreeing that they would rather die together. They get their hands on the poisonous berries from before, and decide to show the Capitol a final act of defiance. On the count of three? Peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. The count of three, he says. We stand; our backs pressed together, our empty hands locked tight. Hold them out. I want everyone to see, he says. I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta’ s hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. One. Maybe Im wrong.


Two. Maybe they don’t care if we both die. Three! It ’s too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth, taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare. The frantic voice of Claudius Templesmith shouts above them.“ Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you the tributes of District Twelve!” After this, they spit out the berries, and are ferried back to the

Capitol. After their convalescence, they are interviewed, but moments before the interview, their trainer approaches them with a warning. “Listen up. You’ re in trouble. Word is the Capitols furious about you showing them up in the arena. The one thing they can’t stand is being laughed at and they ’ re the joke of Panem, says Haymitch. I feel dread coursing through me now, but I laugh as though Haymitch is saying something completely delightful because nothing is covering my mouth. So, what? Your only defense can be you were so madly in love you weren’ t responsible for your actions.” They pull through the interviews, and

finally board the train back to district 12. On the way back, Peeta asks whether the feelings between them are mutual, or if it was all just a show: “It was all for the Games?” Peeta says. “ How you acted.” “ Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding on to my flowers. ”Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is, what’s going to be left when we get home?” He says. “I don’t know. The closer we get to district twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation, but none is forthcoming. Well, let me know when you work it out, he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable.”

The book ends with their arrival in District 12, where Peeta extends his hand towards her, and asks her to put on a show just once more, for the crowd.

Themes:

The primary themes of this book are, in our opinion, as follows:



Love.



Media.



Tradition.




Surveillance/Opression.



Survival.

The first one is a mainstay in virtually any form of contemporary fiction, especially when it’s marketed to adolescents. It’s not particularly interesting, in my opinion, so I won’t spend too much time discussing it. Many of the conflicts in the book arise as a result of Katniss’ feelings toward the book’s male protagonist,

Peeta, and Gale, who only plays a minor role. Having not read the second or third book in this trilogy, I would wager that a central part of the plot in the next book will be the love triangle involving these three characters. In this book, Katniss is unsure how she feels about Peeta; over the course of the book she obviously comes to like him to some extent, but she’s never really sure if their relationship is romantic or

platonic. The nature of their relationship is further obfuscated by the fact that Katniss learns that she, by feigning romantic interest in Peeta, can manipulate the viewers of the show to sponsor her, which ultimately enables her and Peeta to survive the hunger games. There isn’t much more to the theme in this book; it’s probably used by the author in an attempt to make the reader sympathize and relate to Katniss,

and to some extent it serves to move the plot forward and gives Katniss a slight character arc, but not really. She begins the book unsure whether or not she likes Gale romantically, and ends up having the same ambiguous feelings toward Peeta.

What is probably the most fundamental element of the book, the Hunger Games in itself, is obviously a morbid version of today’s reality television. I’m not sure if it’s intended as social commentary, but it could

be seen as commentary of human nature. This is not, however, necessarily related to reality television. The book reminded me a lot of the short story called “The Lottery”, in that they both dealt with societies in

which traditions that, under different c ircumstances could be considered barbaric and i nhumane, were practiced with acceptance. The stories are not completely analogous, since the twelve districts are suppressed by the Capitol in The Hunger Games, but the parallel is obvious. The message of the book could be perceived as being anti-television; the author shows us how the oppressive regime of Panem util izes reality television to demean and taunt the c itizens of the twelve districts.

The book is obviously dystopic in nature, and takes place in a nation where the citizens of the 12 districts essentially have no rights, and are subject to the whims of the authoritarian Capitol. The book, however, is nowhere near as profound as either H uxley’s “Brave New World” or Orwell’s “1984”, and as such fails to do much more than regurgitate already explored c oncepts within the theme of government oppression. The


author notes the state that the nation of Panem is in and that this is the consequence of the quenching of a rebellion, but ultimately never explores what other events led to these circumstances; all in all, the theme is, in my opinion, only touched upon superficially. Survival, and morality, is also quite central to the book. Katniss, who has spent most of her life hunting, has to justify the killing of innocents in order to preserve her own existence. Or so you might’ve thought;

conveniently, she manages to avoid being put in a situation where she actually has to kill someone who isn’t explicitly written as a “bad guy” by the author. Even the antagonistic Cato is killed by wolves, and only

spared from his agony by Katniss, so this internal debate never really manifests in a situation where Katniss actually has to commit an act that is morally reprehensible.

The structure of the story is interesting; the book is part of a trilogy, and each book ostensibly consists of three acts. Act one is essentially the story’s setup; central characters and locations are established, and the

story of the setting is explained. The act has a pretty major plot point, which is at the reaping where Katniss volunteers to participate in the games in the stead of Primrose. Act 2 is the body of the story, where most of the confrontations take place, and contains another interesting plot point when Katniss learns that the games can have two winners provided that they are from the same district. Act three naturally contains the climax and conclusion of the story, and part of the setup for the sequel.

Hunger Games Summary and Analysis

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