Hunger Games

And may the odds be ever in your favor!

I am a bit of a
literature snob. Even though I am unable
to spell to save my life (I’m dyslexic) I can write! When I was not writing, I was reading. I was an English Major in college mostly
because I loved stories. I love reading
books that challenged my mind and my heart.
To be honest, I do not get the Twilight and Harry Potter phenomenon with
adults. Kids and teens yes, adults
no. I tried reading both to see what
they hype was about and gave up after two chapters.

When I started to hear
about the Hunger Games I thought it was just another teen phenomenon. I heard an interview on the radio with
someone whose opinion I value who said they couldn’t put the books down. When I saw that Scholastic had published it I
was sold on reading it (at least the first one).

Needless to say, I am
now obsessed! I read the entire series
in a weekend and hated when I got to the last pages of the books because I didn’t
want it to end. I have talked a number
of adult friends into reading them as well as a couple of my students (who also
thought these books were just another Twilight fade).

After reading the
books I started to research what had inspired the author Suzanne Collins to when
writing the Hunger Games. There was something deeper in the pages of these books.

According to Collins “I
was channel surfing between reality TV programming and actual war coverage when
Katniss’ story came to me. On one
channel there’s a group of young people competing [in reality programming] …
and on the next, there’s a group of young people fighting an actual war. And I
was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way, and I
thought of this story.”

Collins also brought
what she calls “the voyeuristic thrill” to the book. “Watching people being humiliated, or
brought to tears, or suffering physically … that’s what I find very
disturbing. There’s this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when
they see real tragedy playing out on the news, it doesn’t have the impact it
should.”

When asked if she felt her books were too violent for kids, Collins said “There is so much programming, and I worry that we’re all getting a little desensitized to the images on our televisions. If you’re watching a sitcom, that’s fine. But if there’s a real-life tragedy unfolding, you should not be thinking of yourself as an audience member. Because those are real people on the screen, and they’re not going away when the commercials start to roll.”
She said she wants people to question ”What’s your relationship to reality TV versus your relationship to news? Was there anything that disturbed you because it reflected aspects of your own life, and what can you do about it?”

Collins also says that here story was inspired from Greek Mythology. “It’s very much based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I read when I was eight years old. I was a huge fan of Greek and Roman mythology. As punishment for displeasing Crete, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete, where they were thrown into the labyrinth and devoured by the Minotaur, which is a monster that’s half man and half bull. Even when I was a little kid, the story took my breath away, because it was so cruel, and Crete was so ruthless.”

“The message is, mess with us and we’ll do something worse than kill you—we’ll kill your children. And the parents sat by apparently powerless to stop it. The cycle doesn’t end until Theseus volunteers to go, and he kills the Minotaur. In her own way, Katniss [the heroine of The Hunger Games] is a futuristic Theseus. But I didn’t want to do a labyrinth story. So I decided to write basically an updated version of the Roman gladiator games.”

“Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games”

The Hunger Games

“Destroying things is much easier than making them.”
The Hunger Games

“Stupid people are dangerous.”
The Hunger Games

“They’re already taking my future! They can’t have the things that mattered to me in the past!”
The Hunger Games

“Prim!” The strangled cry comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. “Prim!” I don’t need to shove through the crowd. The other kids make way immediately allowing me a straight path to the stage. I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps. With one sweep of my arm, I push her behind me.

“I volunteer!” I gasp. “I volunteer as tribute!”
The Hunger Games

“One more time? For the audience?” he says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.”
The Hunger Games

“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. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.”
The Hunger Games

I knelt down in the water, my fingers digging into the roots. Small, bluish tubers that don’t look like much but boiled or baked are as good as any potato. “Katniss,” I said aloud. It’s the plant I was named for. And I heard my father’s voice joking, “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve.”
Katniss’s name comes from the plant growing beneath the pond. How do Katniss’s father’s words have a double meaning? Why is finding herself so important for Katniss’s survival?
The Hunger Games