Hunger Games Compare and Contrast

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In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins depicts many instances of the strategy and planning necessary for self-preservation survival during the games. These occurrences span over numerous characters in many situations that all take various approaches to the tasks on hand. The major characters that the situational survival strategies revolve around are Peeta, Katniss, Rue, Cato, and Haymitch and are present throughout Collins’ novel. Gary Ross’ 2012 adaptation is fairly accurate in these scenes, but includes minor alterations from artistic license. In The Hunger Games Collins strongly utilizes the emotional characteristics sympathy and deception while Ross is able to visually represent the ability to communicate beyond words, communicate in silence and secrecy, and utilize clear visuals all to show the strategy that is involved throughout the games and how it is accentuated or understated in the jump from text to film.
Peeta Mellark introduces one of the most important strategies in the storyline by playing the audience to gain sympathy during his interview with Caesar before the games began. Peeta’s actions on stage were all an effort to retain the limelight for he and Katniss. When Caesar asked Peeta about the ladies he was attracted to back home in District 12 Peeta announced that even if he won it wouldn’t be of any help “ because... she came there with him” (Collins 130). Haymitch is aware of the plan and incorporates it because he understands Peeta knows that he does not have what it takes to win alone, but if he strategized and everything went well he could add sympathy and hopefully gain the all so important sponsors for the star-crossed lovers. Ross’ film follows this scene almost exactly. Ross even stays true to the dialogu...

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...ter their survival chances. The story was adapted to film by Gary Ross and altered to his desires. The adaptation is a complement to the original story and most alterations were to compress the film to comply with time restrictions. The focuses on strategy had to be altered as the perception on the story has changed and cannot follow all of Katniss’ thoughts. As such, Ross could not include details like Collins as the novel was told from Katniss’ point of view. The limiting details force Ross to focus more on visual representations of strategy than that of Collins, who had the ability to describe and use emotional character ties in her strategies. In short, the similarities between text and film uphold the strength and value of the work, while the differences in the cinema adaption cause minor lapses in detail that do not effect the overall significance of the work.

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