How Does Katniss Change In The Hunger Games Catching Fire

In the movie The Hunger Games: Catching Fire the characters come together and portray the concepts of deception, nonverbal messages, and the concept of self. The most prevalent concept would be self-concept; Katniss really changes throughout the movie to figure out who she really is and what she is capable of. Deception is very significant as well being that the reason why Katniss and Peeta have to compete in another Hunger Game is due to President Snow’s lies. The aspect of non-verbal messages comes into play when they are in the game, they must decipher many nonverbal messages given to them by the creators of the game.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a thriller/action movie that begins by showing Katniss’ relationship with Gale.

Katniss and Peeta were the victors of the 74th Hunger Games.

They made the decision that they would die together if it came down to it and so the capitol made them both victors and mentors for all 12 districts. Katniss is unsure of her love for Peeta because she thinks that she loves Gale. President Snow intrudes Katniss’ home to tell her that he and the rest of the capitol don’t believe her and Peeta’s love story. He tells her that Peeta and herself must keep up their appearance and threatens that her whole district may be burned to the ground by the peacekeepers if she doesn’t convince them that their love is real. Katniss senses rebellion and knows something bad is coming. Six months after tributes survive the hunger games they must go on a Victory tour to all of the districts to act as a mentor and give speeches. When Katniss starts her victory tour with Peeta she eavesdrops on the peacekeepers through their train cart door and she finds that there are riots and fires breaking out in the streets and Capitol taking over some of the districts. People in districts are left starving, nowhere safe to live, and being beaten, tortured, and executed. After she sees this she goes straight to Gale and tells him what she saw. If Katniss could have her way she would run away into the woods with him but he

stays because he wants to do what he can to protect the families in their District. Distracted by the sound of peacekeepers shuffling into their district along with a gunshot Katniss and Gale run back to the square to find the peacekeepers destroying everything they have left in district 12. President snow announces the 75th Hunger Games and that the tributes for the game will be chosen from previous victors. This makes the victors very angry considering they’re supposed to be able to life a peaceful life if they survive the games. Once the games start Katniss and Peeta find their allies Finnick and Mags so they may take cover for a while. Many times throughout the game Katniss comes close to losing Peeta and this scares her because she realizes she really does love him after all. After Katniss takes down the force field the game is over with no victor because President Snow could no longer monitor the tributes. She wakes up in a hovercraft to Haymitch (previous district 12 victor) and Plutarch (head game maker) when she finds out the capitol has Peeta she loses it because before the game started Haymitch promises Katniss to keep Peeta alive instead of her.
Deception
There is a lot of deception in The Hunger Games.

Katniss, Peeta and all of the other Hunger Game victors are promised wealth and healthy living for the rest of their lives. President Snow and the capitol deceived all of the Hunger Game victors. They are not safe. In fact only one tribute from all of the victors is guaranteed survival and peaceful living. This makes the 75th Hunger Game tributes furious. The female tribute from district 7, Johanna says, “Yes, I’m angry. You know I’m getting totally screwed over here. The deal was that if I won the hunger games I get to live the rest of my life in peace, but now you wanna kill me again” (Lawrence, 2013). Deception can be hard to sense especially when it is spontaneous. The aspects vital to detection of deception are the non-strategic verbal and non-verbal cues. These cues are known as “leakage cues,” which are mostly non-verbal and reveal the speakers’ real intentions and feelings (Hancock, 2010). That’s why it was a problem because President Snow showed none of these cues. If the victors had known President Snow were going to deceive them and make them compete in another game they probably wouldn’t have cooperated with his ridiculous

requests.
Becoming desperate to stop the game from happening Peeta lies and announces that Katniss is pregnant with his child on Caesars talk show. The audience is overcome by this information and demands that they don’t make her compete. But Snow is stubborn; he doesn’t believe their ruse. The whole idea of Hunger Games is deceiving actually. They make this awful game where children must kill each other to keep alive and they glorify it like it’s such a great event. Also the fact that they start the game with the phrase “may the odds be ever in your favour” just seems sarcastic since they put them in that position in the first place.
Nonverbal Messages
“Present research highlights that people are well-equipped to pick up subtle changes” (Furley, 2014). This is true; there are many nonverbal messages that tributes pick up on throughout The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Such as the gun firing indicating the start of the game and the feedback of the cannon firing throughout the game that symbolizing the death of a tribute in the game. Also at a certain point in the game Wiress (female district 3 tribute) figures out that the Quarter Quell arena represents and behaves like a clock. Different challenges appearing at certain times and places on the face of the clock. Example being that at noon and midnight the lightening will strike the tree.
There are also gestures that are made to communicate such as the three-finger salute to Katniss. It was originally used in her district as a symbol of admiration and love. When she started her tour to different districts they would salute her by making the three-finger gesture, kissing it and raising it up in the air. At the very end of the movie Katniss wakes up and Gale is by her bedside. She asks, “Are we home?” (Lawrence, 2013) and Gale answers with just a troubled face and Katniss immediately knows something’s wrong. She looks back at him, frowns and says, “Where’s Prim?” (Lawrence, 2013). Although she was not right with her first guess about something happening to Prim, she read his facial expression correctly. He later responds with “After the games they sent in hovercrafts and they started dropping fire bombs” (Lawrence, 2013).
Self-Concept
At the beginning of the movie, Katniss is unsure about many things such as who she is, whom she loves and what her strengths are. However, throughout the movie, Katniss develops a strong sense of who she is and what she is willing to do. Katniss has strong character because of all she has been through and because of the previous Hunger Games. “People who have been made secure and strong in the earliest years, tend to remain secure and strong thereafter in the face of whatever threatens” (Otway, 2013, as cited in Maslow, 1943, p. 388). Katniss struggles to be herself and wonders if she even has the ability to kill anymore but always finds herself pushing for survival for her sister, Prim. One thing she has always known is her love for her mother and sister. Katniss constantly fights being herself and lies to keep up appearances so that she may please President Snow and win (survive) the games. As Katniss fights through the 75th Hunger Game it becomes clear to her that she really does love Peeta and she is more self-aware. “A person with high self-concept clarity should experience greater relationship satisfaction and commitment, in part, because of inclusion of other in the self“ (Lewandowski, 2010). This explains why Katniss experiences an increasingly better relationship with Peeta, as she becomes more certain of who she is.
President Snow has a misconception of himself that he is all-powerful and that no one can get past him. When he sees all of the 75th hunger game tributes holding hands on TV he actually says, “Look at them. They’re holding hands. I want them dead” (Lawrence, 2013). But what he doesn’t know is that the man he is working with, which is the maker of the game, is working to keep Katniss alive. In the end President snow loses control of the games and the head game maker, Plutarch turns against him.
The three prevailing concepts throughout The Hunger Games: Catching Fire are deception, nonverbal messages and the concept of self. The characters in the movie make these concepts come to life. Self-concept is the main concept because of how many of the characters change throughout the movie. Deception is also an important concept where many of the characters lie and trick others. Nonverbal messages are hard to spot but these messages are very significant to the storyline.