The theme in both The Hunger Games and in Ender’s Game is empathy, the ability to be able to understand and connect with others. Katniss has to learn that in order to be the leader she is destined to be, she must be capable of having intimate relationships and gain the ability to trust others. Ender uses empathy to understand his enemy, and uses it to become the commander he is meant to be. However, in his journey to becoming that commander, he has to learn that he is more than just a smarter Peter, that his Valentine side is stronger. Both Katniss and Ender are natural born killers. We see this in Katniss as she is growing up and trying to provide for her family. Her ability to hunt and kill for her family’s food is impeccable. Ender grows …show more content…
up with this idea to win for all time. His encounter with Stilson at the young age of six is an exact example of his natural ability to be violent and to end things for good. Along the way each of them gains a teacher. Someone who is able to push them in the right direction to be able to achieve the attributes they both need in order to be the leader they were destined to be. For Katniss, Rue becomes an unlikely ally, and teacher to her. Rue teaches Katniss how to trust, helps her to understand this idea of having intimate relationships with other people, and the real meaning of sacrifice. In Ender’s Game, Colonel Graff is the one who ensures that Ender makes each of his breakthroughs. Graff knows that through Ender’s encounters with Valentine, such as when he gets her to write a letter to Ender after the Bonzo incident, he will be able to learn and understand his empathetic ability. Through their teachers, Katniss and Ender both are able to learn, to grow, and come away with an important lesson learned. Post Rue’s death, Katniss is now able to balance her feminine side with her killer side, even if it is just pretend. It is possible now for her to repay Peeta and come across as a loving girlfriend figure. After Ender destroys the formic race, and with his connection with the Hive Queen, he understands the he has been given a chance to prove that he is more than just a smarter Peter. He becomes the speaker for the dead, and is able to redeem himself by finding a new home for the Hive Queen. Katniss and Ender do not need anyone to teach them to be a violent, for they were born with the natural instinct to kill.
Since her father’s death, Katniss has been providing for her family. Her hunting skills are so impressive that even Peeta points out her precision: “She hits every squirrel right in the eye” (89). As such an experienced hunter, Katniss is skilled with a bow and arrow, as well as a knife. We see this violence continue when she is on the train headed to the Capital. After Haymitch punches Peeta in the face, Katniss throws her knife at Haymitch’s hand: “I drive my knife into the table between his hand and the bottle, barely missing his fingers” (57). However, that act still was not enough for her; she then takes the knife and throws it across the room landing it in the wall. She knew that in order to get his attention she would have to make an impression. Katniss acts out in violence again when she is in the training room at the Capitol. During her private session after missing a couple shots with her bow and arrow, she takes a few difficult shots to try and impress the Gamemakers. However, she notices that most of them are more focused on a roasted pig than her. She becomes furious, knowing her life is at stake, and out of rage, she fires an arrow straight toward the Gamemakers that spears the apple in the pig’s mouth. The violent part of Katniss hates and does not comprehend the idea of owing people. After Katniss’s father had died, her family was starving and it seemed she had no other options. While sitting outside the bakery in the pouring rain, the young boy Peeta it seemed had purposely burnt the bread so that he could give it to Katniss. Even though in doing that it meant getting punished by his mother. Peeta had saved her life and she always feels like she owes him for this. Peeta is never able to understand this because he himself is not a killer. In Ender’s Game, Ender, even from a young age, has the innate killer instincts. In each of
his battles Ender doesn’t fight to win just that once, but he fights to win for all time. At the age of six we see Ender, after his monitor was removed, come in conflict with another child, Stilson at school. After he had knocked Stilson to the ground, Ender knew that it was wrong to continue to kick an opponent who lay helpless, “only an animal would do that” (7). However, Ender knew that he would have to end this now, or he would have to fight a battle just like this again: “I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse” (7). When he returns home, Colonel Graff is waiting for him, and asks Ender what his motives were for why he kept kicking him when he had already won. Again Ender repeats the same reasoning for his brutal acts, “I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they’d leave me alone” (19). A couple years later, while at Battle School Ender becomes at odds with Bonzo Madrid. Even with everything stacked against him, Ender’s army defeated Bonzo’s army. He realizes that Bonzo, if he didn’t already, hates Ender to his core: “this would surely turn his rage murderous […] Bonzo will be thirsting for blood now” (195). Just before lunch Ender heads to the showers and he finds himself surrounded by seven boys, with Bonzo as the leader. Ender understands that the other boys aren’t the ones who are the threat; it is Bonzo who wants to kill him. Towards the end of the fight it’s clear he has injured Bonzo badly enough and Ender knows it could be over, but he does not want to have to fight him again: “Ender knew he could walk away and end the battle, but the battle would only be fought again” (211). He knocks Bonzo to the ground and kicks him in the crotch leaving him motionless, and unresponsive. Ender had once again succeeded in winning for all time against Bonzo. Each novel provides Katniss and Ender with an improbable person to teach them and push them in the right direction to be able to develop the qualities they both need in order to be the leader they are meant to be. Katniss needed somebody to basically teach her how to become human, something other than just a skilled killer. To function on, at the very least, a basic level of humanity, which up until Rue she had yet to do. Rue, a small, young, and an unlikely ally, seems to be someone who would have nothing good to contribute in her and Katniss’s an alliance. However, Rue begins to create this intimacy that Katniss never really experienced with someone. To heal her tracker jacker stings Rue needs to put chewed up leaves on the wound. Katniss not only allows for Rue to put her saliva on her, but pleads for more, “’Do my neck! Do my cheek!’ I almost beg” (201). She even finds Rue snuggling up against her. We see that Rue has put her trust completely in Katniss, “by the way she bounces up, you can tell she’s up for whatever I propose” (210). Rue risked her own life, leaving her safety amongst the tree tops, by doing what Katniss asked of her. Their alliance meets a violent end when one of the Career tributes fatally spear Rue. From the very beginning in Ender’s Game, Colonel Graff and the powers in charge have all their hopes on Ender. Graff has to ensure that Ender stands out from the others. Ender has to be emotionally and intellectually self-sufficient if they are going to win the war against the buggers. By Graff isolating Ender from his family and then from all his friends and allies he makes throughout the book, it forces Ender to believe that no one is going to step in to help him out: “I told you. His isolation can’t be broken. He can never come to believe that anybody will ever help him out, ever. If he once thinks there’s an easy way out, he’s wrecked” (38). It also ensures that the relationships he builds are only alliances with, the “losers”, the ones that will help him in becoming a better commander. While at battle school, Ender still cannot get past the part of the mind game where he sees his Peter's face, and it causes him to feel only despair. Graff wants to ensure that Ender can make a breakthrough in the mind game. He goes to talk with Valentine because he believes Ender needs her help. Graff wants her to help Ender and convinces her to write him a letter. However, when Ender reads it, he sees through it instantly. He realizes that it is not from her and that its goal was clearly to show him he is not like Peter, “Even if she wrote it in her own blood, it isn’t the real thing because they made her write it” (150). Ender is furious that they took away from him his one precious real thing, his memory of Valentine and how they had now put her on the enemy’s side. He goes back to the mind game, but this time, the snake that he crushed under his feet so many times in the past, after he kisses it, turns into his sister and they walk to the mirror together. Peter does not appear this time and behind the mirror is a stairway that he and Valentine walk down. This has now caused Ender to view Graff and the teachers as the enemy. However, Graff's manipulation worked perfectly, because Ender is once again ready for battle. After his fight with Bonzo, Ender feels terrible about how he hurt him, and begins to cry. Ender does not want to fight, he is sick of the games, and he leaves the Battle School. Graff needs for Ender to make another breakthrough and Valentine again is the way to do it. Back on Earth, he picks Valentine up after school one day and takes her to go see Ender. Ender has been on earth for two months and has no intentions of returning to space. Valentine meets with her brother again and they talk for a long time, and she learns why Ender hates himself and why he is so tired of fighting. Ender expresses great empathy, in which he learns his enemies so well that he loves them, but in that very same moment he destroys them. Ender knows that he cannot win all the battles, “there was Peter, undefeated champion” (242). Valentine thinks Ender means that he will never be able to beat Peter, but she does not understand that he only wants Peter to love him. Valentine convinces Ender, for her sake, to save Earth. Once again, Colonel Graff’s manipulation works for Ender to continue on. Graff had been deceiving Ender throughout all of this time, and after the destruction of the Hive Queen’s home planet we see him confess this to Ender. He knew that it had to be a trick or Ender never would have done it: “We needed a commander with so much empathy that he would think like the buggers, understand them and anticipate them. […] If you were the kind of person who would do it even if you knew, you could never have understood the buggers well enough” (298). Although Graff was deceptive to Ender, he was also the perfect teacher for him. In all of Graff’s ways he made sure Ender learned empathy and uses that empathetic ability as the ultimate weapon to defeat the buggers, making Ender the perfect commander.
Many authors express themselves through their writing using their life experiences as inspiration. Richard Wagamese is no exception; he was born in Minaki, Ontario and comes from Ojibway decent. As a child, he was taken away from his biological family and put into several foster homes, where he faced neglect and abuse. Later on in his life, he began to write books and poetry to cope. He wrote the novel, Medicine Walk, the story of a boy and his displaced father who bond before the father dies of a fatal disease. Empathy is a common reoccurrence throughout the story, as the protagonist, Frank Starlight, and Richard Wagamese have both learned many lessons from childhood stories. Family is another influence in the lives of Frank and Wagamese,
Empathy is one of the greatest powers that a human being can ever hope to achieve; one person being able to understand the inner-workings of another is something truly amazing. However, empathy isn’t something that one is always naturally able to accomplish; in fact, it usually takes a long time for one to develop any empathy at all. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the reader follows Scout Finch as she experiences her youth in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In this story, we experience her empathy for others as it increases or decreases. Though there are many examples of these alterations in Scout’s relationships, there is one that is both prominent and more complex than a few others; her relationship with her aunt, Alexandra. There are three specific instances in which we can track the progression of Scout’s empathy towards her aunt; meeting Aunt Alexandra, Scout wanting to invite Walter Cunningham over, and the assault by Bob Ewell of Scout and Jem.
Katniss and her fellow member of District 12, Peeta, make it to the final two tributes remaining. They are encouraged to kill each other, but refuse to do so out of love. Katniss and Peeta agreed to commit suicide together to disobey the rules of the Capitol. This is the nadir, or low point, of Katniss Everdeen. She has been left no option but to kill herself along with her partner. This is where her powerful resurrection takes place. Just before ending their lives, they are stopped by one of the creators of the Hunger Games arena. It is then announced that under the circumstances, they would allow both Peeta and Katniss to be victors of the Hunger Games. This gives a very large sense of relief, and both Peeta and Katniss emerge
Knowing how tough it would be for herself to lose her sister and how low her survival chances were coming out of a poor district such as her own District 12, she volunteered to participate. In other words, she went against the system to protect her loved one, in exchange she risked her’s. As the reader reads further in the book, he will realize how much Katniss will become more mature and will take more decision with her head. Due to her young rebellious teen mind when the reader discovers her, she takes more decisions with her heart rather than her head such as volunteering for the Hunger Games as a tribute. During the preparations to the Games, she encounters Haymitch
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
When her and her ally and love interest Peeta reach the center of the Arena in which they are fighting for their lives, they not only run into their biggest rival – another boy named Cato who had been set up throughout as a villain – but also the murderous creations of the those who put them there. It is a gruesome fight that results in Cato’s horrifying death, and the survival of Peeta and Katniss, but only one of them can live. This ultimatum drives Katniss to take a calculated risk: if both of them die, the Capitol has no winner, and the games must always provide a glimmer of hope for effective control, thus if they threaten suicide, they can both get out alive. It works, and they are delivered from the belly of the
She often puts others happiness above that of her own, especially when it comes to those who are close to her. For instance, as her sister’s name is announced as tribute Katniss panics and gasps, “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!”(Collins, 2008) offering to take her sister’s place. Katniss would rather risk her own life in a situation where she is sure to fail, than have her sister Prim be endangered, displaying that she values her life more than her own. Later, as she visits with her family for the last time Prim suggests, “maybe you can win” but Katniss doubts herself, “I can’t win… The competition will be far beyond my abilities” (Collins, 2008). She truly believes that there is no chance of her surviving which shows how poorly she thinks of herself. Though she thinks little of herself, she thinks even less of her mentor Haymitch, even going as far as to call him “disgusting”. After having to endure him and his drunken antics on the train ride to the Capital, Katniss declares to herself, “I realize I detest Haymitch” (Collins, 2008). He is a drunk, who no one is overly thrilled to be around and unfortunately or maybe even fortunately, he is all she has to help her with the
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” –Meryl Streep Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This particular skill requires one to walk around in someone else’s shoes. It is a very valuable emotional skill that develops in many characters during the course of the novel. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, empathy is consistently present whether it’s Atticus being empathetic, Atticus teaching the kids to empathize or them empathizing themselves in certain situations.
Afghanistan was a war country where people got attacked by the talibans. In the kite runner a novel by Khaled Hosseini Afghanistan, was a dangerous country. It's the story about a relationship About 2 boys called Hassan and Amir that at this time in the book they were victims and innocents and don't deserve a punishment on the story. People gain empathy when others need the help, when they lose someone, when there's a bond between people and are demonstrating when others have help us we want to help them.
Empathy is a complicated - but significant - trait in society. This characteristic binds people together, resonates within souls, and strengthens bonds. The ability to personally identify with and share others’ emotions, it can make the world a better place in various ways. Shown in the 1960s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, this is an important topic and theme that continues throughout its entirety. It is in her hometown of Maycomb that Scout, the protagonist, faces many biases, slightly atypical neighbors, and unexpected events, and her personality changes preferably. One important character is Boo Radley, believed to be violent and psychopathic, and rumored that he murders, has stabbed his parents, and conducts similar malicious crimes. Scout’s gradual expansion of empathy through her experiences and interactions within Maycomb reveals its importance in understanding people, ultimately suggesting that this
Katniss is a fascinating character because of the gender stereotypes she (and others) both destroy and defend. In the first of what would later become four movie adaptations, we meet Katniss, a sixteen year old fatherless hunter who singlehandedly provides for her family through times of extreme poverty. Routinely breaking the rules and boundaries of her district, she hunts in expansive woods, hiding from the authorities. Though she is as independent a warrior as can be, Katniss also plays a strong domestic role. Katniss is quickly understood to be the polar opposite of her mother, a meek and docile woman who keeps her head down and does as she’s told. With a shellshocked and, at times, useless mother, she assumes both a fatherly and motherly role to her younger sister. A key component of Katniss’ character is her calculating nature. She is not typically one to show her true emotions. Yet, when it comes to Prim, Katniss is an extremely loving and compassionate person, calling her sister pet names like “Little Duck.” One example of this is found the moment the audience meets Katniss,
Since she is the female victor from district 12, she is in the 74th Hunger Games. She sees how painful and scary it is and so she tries to stop the capital which is who is controlling everything. She doesn’t want that to happen to anyone else. She rebels against President Snow in plan of eventually killing him to take over the capital and change the world. Teens can relate to this because a lot of the time we feel controlled. It might be by a parent, teacher, grandparent or someone else but all of us are controlled by someone. A lot of teenagers end up rebelling because they feel as if they have no choices. They go against the rules of who they are rebelling against. That persons rules and values are not necessarily right. Who decides what is right? It seems as if we have entered into a state time where there is no right and wrong. Katniss breaks free of that control and does her own thing. Another way teens can relate to the hunger games is through the love triangle. Some of us might have a similar situation of where we might like two people. In the movie it says, “What I need is not Gales fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can
Empathy is the ‘capacity’ to share and understand another person’s ‘state of mind’ or their emotion. It is an experience of the outlook on emotions of another person being within themselves (Ioannides & Konstantikaki, 2008). There are two different types of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is the capacity in which a person can respond to another person’s emotional state using the right type of emotion. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is a person’s capacity to understand what someone else is feeling. (Rogers, Dziobek, Hassenstab, Wolf & Convit, 2006). This essay will look at explaining how biology and individual differences help us to understand empathy as a complex, multi-dimensional trait.
In The Hunger Games, the main character named Katniss finds her own way around the games. Katniss is not the person who likes to kill, she tried her best to kill as few people as possible, yet not get herself killed. Katniss hated the idea of the hunger games, so she wanted to try to find a way to stop it. Over the course of many books/movies, Katniss was able to go her own way and rebel against the rich people. She was unique, Katniss was able to get many people to respect her and help her fight against the rich. Like any other person, Katniss could have just followed the instructions given to her to be safe. However, this is not who she is, Katniss stuck up for what she believed in. She had a decision to defeat the rich and try to end the games, and she stuck to it. There are many movies and books in the arts that show people not following the crowd. So many show how people can be unique and be there own person. Any body can take there own road, just like
The main character, Katniss, volunteers as tribute for her district to save her sister from having to be tribute. Upon arriving in the Capitol for the games, she sees just how vast the gap between the Capitol and districts are. To fight against this class struggle, she begins to revolt. At first this comes in the form of small things, like shooting an arrow at a pig feast of Capitol higher-ups and refusing to kill her friend in the games, resulting in the first ever co-victors of the Hunger Games. Katniss’ actions soon lead to full blown rebellion in the districts, starting a revolutionary war between them and the Capitol. At one point Katniss remarks: “My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side.” (Catching Fire 90). In true Marxist fashion the working class needed to use a violent revolution to confront the class struggle against the ruling