The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, decided to do something different with her main protagonists, Katniss and Peeta. In the book, they seem to have flipped gender roles that society does not see males and females in such a way. For example, women have often been seen as housewives by society, which has set certain occupations and responsibilities they must abide to. Furthermore, women were allowed to handle activities such as cooking, cleaning and caring for children and men. On another note, men have also had been told they are only capable of engaging in masculine activities. This was limited to working and providing for the family, nothing more. According to the book Handbook on Gender Roles: Conflicts, Attitudes and Behaviors by Amato and Booth, these gender roles are classified as traditional. In the book, Collins tends to switch what each societies gender norms; she challenges what each character is meant to do because of their sex. She wants to prove that men are capable of doing a woman’s job and a woman being capable of completing a man’s job. Katniss and Peeta both do not meet the expectations society has set them to do; in fact it is the total opposite.

In the Book The hunger games Katniss Everdeen faces overwhelming adversity when she finds herself found in the clutches of the capital stuck in the hunger games. Katniss is able to overcome this adversity by having strong characteristics like her intelligence, resourcefulness and being courageous, these characteristics will be discussed throughout the essay outlining exactly why these characteristics help katniss in the games.

An unknown person once said, “When we read books, we don’t fall in love with the characters appearances. We fall in love with their thoughts, their words, and their actions. We fall in love with their souls.” In the dystopian novel, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, this is exactly what happens, Katniss moves the readers by having such characteristic and skills to be able to survive. Katniss’s characteristics, of being caring, having a determined personality, and her intelligence in survival skills, all help support the theme of Katniss being able to survive.

In the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the main character and protagonist is 16 year old Katniss Everdeen, a strong and selfless young woman who is far more mature than her age suggests. As the main provider for her family after her father died, Katniss had to become responsible and resourceful at a young age, which forced her to participate in rebellious behavior in order to keep her family alive. She is an unselfish and protective character, putting herself in danger in order to keep the ones she loves safe, especially for her little sister Primrose. Even after the pain and hardships she has had to go through not only in the games, but in her life, Katniss maintains her

In the novel Katniss’ intelligence contributes to her qualities that make her a hero. This is conveyed through her ability to outsmart the other tributes during the course of the games. This is made evident to the reader when she says-“ I position the knife in the groove… the nets bursts open like an egg.”- The use of simile allows the reader to imagine how Katniss’ let the tracker-jacker go. This is further seen during the Games where Katniss is highly aware of her surroundings. - “The bow and arrow is my weapon… Sometimes, if I've wounded an animal with an arrow, it's better to get a knife into it, too, before I approach it.”- This is made evident when Katniss is able to track and hunt down things in a protective and secretive way. The use of an explicit metaphor is used when describing her motives which demonstrate her thought processes. Thus it can be seen that Katniss empowers the qualities of a hero through her intelligence.

The composer Suzanne Collins of ‘The Hunger Games’ demonstrates that Katniss is a good hero through her courageous qualities. This is evident through this quote “how could I leave prim, who is the only person in the world I am certain I love” (chapter 1 page 11). Katniss demonstrates loving and having lots of courage through volunteering pushing her sister and taking her place proving this is seen through these words “who is the only person in the world I am certain I love”. The effect of emotive language and short sentences making us feel the emotion of katniss like we are there and can hear her. We can hear through these effect s that katniss doesn't think about what going to happen next only caring about prims safety. Throughout this book we can see that katniss has a lot of other qualities.

After Katniss steps up as the female representative for district 12, Peeta gets called next. Katniss observes "The shock of the moment is registering on his face, you can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his blue eyes show the alarm I've seen so often in prey," (Collins 25-26). Again Judith Butler insists that gender is an imitation of an ideal, expectations clearly state that males are not suppose to be emotional but Peeta broke down and started crying in front of everybody which made him seem like a punk. Peeta is a complex character because in the beginning Peeta challenges gender roles, but towards the end during the hunger games he starts to uphold them.

It all starts when Katniss’s father dies in a mine explosion leaving Katniss alone with her mother who becomes depressed and young sister, Prim, by themselves. The death of her father force Katniss to become the family provider and her little sisters’ guardian. Thanks to the skills of hunting and foraging that her father had taught her before passing away, Katniss was able to provide food for her family and stay alive during the games. Some of the things she did to provide for her family were “stole eggs from nests, caught fish in nets, sometimes managed to shoot a squirrel or rabbit for stew, and gathered the various plants that sprung up beneath my feet.” (19) In today’s

Katniss Everdeen is not a normal girl, she is a teenager who had to grow up fast within District Twelve. After losing her father to a mine accident, Katniss had to become an adult and be the sole provider for her family. Her mother detached herself from her role as a parent, which meant Katniss not only had to become the provider but also the nurturer of the family. This gives her the role of being the mother and father to her sister

Economics is the study of scarcity within a systems of rules. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins’ can be translated into such, with hunger being scarcity and games being a system of rules. In the Hunger Games, we are introduced to a country called Panem. The country of Panem is divided into twelve different districts and the Capitol, where the government resides. Each district has their own different specializations and they have distinctive economies. The government regulates the trade and each district rely on trade from each other district and the Capitol for the goods they don 't produce. All of the districts and the Capitol is interdependent.

In life there is always some sort of violence and there always seems to be a good and a bad side. The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross is a movie about 24 tributes fighting to the death for the Hunger Games crown. The prize is riches, fame and freedom from ever having to physically fight in the arena again. It is a game of violence, ferocity, and blood, and only one tribute can win. Even though stories often have a Battle between Good and Evil, it is Katniss’s internal conflict confronting her own good and evil that portrays humanity with a longing for destruction, violent inclination, and sense of separation.

The next scene is a heavy contrast to the first. In this scene we see Katniss hunting for food for her family and in doing so, assuming a role more commonly associated with males. In the lead up to the games she poses as a girl madly in love with the male tribute from her district in order to gain sponsors and attention from the Capital. She demonstrates intelligence in doing so because she knows that she is more likely to be accepted by the capital if she adopts a more feminine persona. It is only after the Games begin that Katniss demonstrates her natural talents, those more typically associated with a male character. She uses her hunting skills to her advantage by catching food and killing people when necessary. She also exhibits a wide range of knowledge which helps her to survive during the Games. Towards the end of the film, it has been made clear to the audience that whilst Katniss assumes a traditional female role when with her family or when it benefits her, her true character closely follows the characteristics typically seen in a traditional male gender

Due to this fact, on arrival in the Capitol Katniss is stripped of her masculine characteristics and portrayed as a Love interest of Peeta. This shows how sometimes people change who they are either by choice or forced to do so in Katniss’s sake. As Chuck Palahniuk states “Personal identity seems like it’s just such an American archetype, from Holly Golightly re-inventing herself in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ to Jay Gatsby in ‘The Great Gatsby.’ It seems like the sort of archetypal American issue. If you are given the freedom to be anything, or be anyone, what do you do with it?” this is an interesting concept because without a doubt at least once in people’s lives they dream of being something or someone else. But as can be seen from ‘The Great Gatsby’ in particular that creating a new persona doesn’t always work out in the way in which you may have imagined. In terms of personal identity and trying to fit in its important to remember, don’t change so that people will like you. Be yourself and the people that matter will love