Hunger Games Intro

The Hunger Games

REVIEW

7.2/10

SyNOPSIS

KATNISS

In a dystopian future, the nation of Panem forces its twelve districts to send one boy and one girl as "tributes" to participate in the annual Hunger Games—a televised fight to the death. When Katniss Everdeen's younger sister is chosen, Katniss volunteers in her place. Alongside Peeta Mellark, the male tribute, Katniss must navigate the treacherous arena, facing deadly challenges and battling both opponents and the Capitol's manipulation. As they strategize for survival, Katniss and Peeta form an unexpected bond, challenging the Capitol's control and igniting a rebellion that sparks hope among the oppressed districts.

Katniss is the sixteen-year-old protagonist of The Hunger Games. She is fiercely protective of her family and practical, having learned to care for her mom and little sister, Prim. Katniss is tough, independent, resourceful, fiery, and skilled with a bow and arrow, and yet she also has a compassionate side and deep loyalty to those she loves.

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Rue

Haymitch Abernathy

Cinna

Peeta Mellark

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, the son of a bakery owner, 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 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 repeatedly saves Katniss. 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. Katniss wonders what his real motives are and eventually realizes that Peeta is just 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.

Haymitch Abernathy

As District 12’s only surviving winner of the Hunger Games, Haymitch acts as Katniss’s and Peeta’s mentor 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. 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.

Cinna

Cinna is Katniss’s intelligent, empathetic stylist and the creator of the iconic “Girl on Fire” look. Of all the people in the Capitol that Katniss meets, Cinna is the only one who shows awareness of the inequality and injustices that the outlying districts are subjected to. He treats Katniss with the humanity she deserves, seeing her as a person rather than an object of entertainment. When Katniss first wears the flaming outfit Cinna designs for her and Peeta, she humorously comments that “Cinna’s calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman”– but the joke holds a bit of truth. Cinna may be composed and levelheaded, but the fashion he creates – his art – takes risks. His designs expose his real thoughts and feelings. He has a rebellious fire inside him that seeks to shock people out of their conditioned submission to the Capitol. When Katniss first meets him, she assumes that Cinna, a new designer, was assigned to District 12 as a way to pay his dues before moving on to better districts. But this is not the case; Cinna tells her he asked for District 12. Cinna wants the chance to work with the most disenfranchised districts so that he can give them back a small amount of power through his thought-provoking art.

Rue

Rue, the girl tribute from District 11, is small and reminds Katniss of Prim. Rue is able to hop from tree to tree like a squirrel, a skill that helps her outrun and evade her competition. She tips Katniss off to the tracker jacker nest that saves Katniss' life. She and Katniss ally; Rue knew that she could trust Katniss by the mockingjay pin that she wore, explaining that she loves mockingjays, particularly because of their music. In District 11, Rue worked in the orchards and would climb high in the trees and, when it was quitting time, she would sing a special song to let the others know that it was time to go home. The mockingjays would carry her song through the orchards. Rue is killed by the boy from District 1, and Katniss is there to sing Rue a final song and decorate her body with flowers. Rue, like Prim, makes Katniss promise that she will win, and there are moments when it is her promise to Rue, more so than her promise to Prim, that gives Katniss the strength she needs to fight on. She wants to make sure that Rue's death will not go unremembered. In many ways, Katniss' alliance with Rue is also an alliance with District 11. To thank her for her kindness to Rue, District 11 sends Katniss a loaf of bread, and Thresh, the boy tribute from District 11, lets Katniss go unharmed when he could have easily killed her. Rue, in life and in death, saves Katniss multiple times.

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Need a Refresher?

Take a look at the LitCharts summary of the first Hunger Games novel.

Katniss's Acts Of Courage