Looking Through The Mirror
“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”- Joseph Campbell. The film The Hunger Games by Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence and the novel Finders Keepers by Stephen King, feature major characters that share similar qualities. The antagonists in these works sometimes appear to be egoistic, while the protagonists clearly share altruistic qualities. Through the interactions with the supporting cast, the antagonist’s decisions are impacted. With the antagonist’s decisions being affected, this changes the outcome of the novel and film. The main characters of the novel and film, Peter and Katniss are in their early youth, as they both have younger siblings and are suffering through
…show more content…
a tough financial time. The antagonist in the novel, Morris Bellamy is an old man similar to that of Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games. The principal goal for both of the antagonist is to gain some sort of power and use that to benefit themselves. Through the journey, the supporting cast in the novel and film, support the antagonist with many of their interactions whether that be in the past or present. Due to the position that the antagonist has, many of these interactions are not the supporting characters pure thoughts about the topic, it is instead a distorted flawed message that the supporting cast uses. Throughout the journey, in the novel and film, the audience knows that both Peter and Katniss are sixteen years old. The audience as well knows that the two of them are going through a rough financial time. For Peter, his family is suffering from the Great Recession. Furthermore, his parents are close to getting divorced due to how his dad was injured in the Mr. Mercedes killings. The Mr.Mercedes Killings was a event where people were trying to find a job and they waited for interviews. During the event where people waited a mystery driver driving a Mercedes drove into crowds of people. This killed many people and left Tom Sauber, Peter’s dad crippled. This puts the Saubers in a tougher financial position. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12. District 12 is portrayed as a small and poor district. The audience knows that District 12 is smallest and poorest of the thirteen Districts through what Katniss says throughout the film. A good indicator that District 12 is poor is when Katniss says “In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early. You see an elderly person, you want to congratulate them on their longevity, ask the secret of survival. A plump person is envied because they aren't scraping by like the majority of us. But here is different. Wrinkles aren't desirable. A round belly isn't a sign of success.”(The Hunger Games. Directed by Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate, 2012.) The quote is significant due to how the audience gets the knowledge of the setting Katniss lives in.
A good trait of altruism that both protagonists represent is the care for their younger sibling. Peter’s younger sibling is Tina who is 2 years younger than him. Katniss is similar to Peter who also has a younger sister named Primrose. The symbol of someone younger represents someone who needs help and more experience in the world. In the novel and film the protagonist does many things for their younger sibling. The first example that the directors of The Hunger Games, Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence displays to the viewers is when Primrose attends the reaping and is selected for the Hunger Games. The reaping is the event that randomly picks one boy and girl from each district to compete in the Hunger Games, which is a televised battle to the death. When Primrose is picked, Katniss being the older sister volunteered to go in the place of Primrose. In the example it showed the audience that Katniss is altruistic, due to how she thought about what might happen if Primrose goes. Katniss knows the consequences of the Hunger Games, she knows that she could lose her life. Katniss in the beginning of the film is shown hunting wild animals since her family can’t afford the price of food. She explains through her thoughts to the audience that hunting in Panem is illegal and she can get punished. She has to do that so that her family can survive. In the novel Finders Keepers, Peter Sauber grows up during the Great Recession. The Great Recession is a massive decline of economic activity and it is know to be the second biggest decline in history next to the Great Depression. During this period of Peter’s life, he finds a trunk filled with money and notebooks. His first instinct was to think about how to use the money. The thought that attained his attention immediately was the thought of helping his family out. So he immediately mailed money to his family and did it
mysteriously.Another example of Peter being altruistic is in the middle of the novel, during this scene in the novel Peter is trying to sell the notebooks written by a famous fictional author called John Rohnstein who was murdered in his house in small town. Peter in the novel constantly is listening to his sister Tina argue with his parents. Tina argument is about wanting to attending a school called Chapel Ridge. The reason why Tina wants to attend Chapel is due to her friends attending that school. The parents say that they can’t afford to send Tina there. Tina responds by talking about the mystery money and how they receive it every month. The parents then say maybe to Tina, if the mystery money keeps coming in. This puts Peter in a tough situation since he wants his sister to go to a school she would enjoy.And he feels guilty that he is mailing the last of the money currently and doesn’t have more so he tries to find ways to gain more money. Peter knows that if he sells the notebooks he can acquire more money and this could lead to Tina attending Chapel Ridge. Kings then later says “He was still mulling his options a month later, and had almost come to the conclusion that try to sell even one of the notebooks would be too much risk for too little reward. If it went to a private collector-like the ones he had sometimes read about, who bought valuable paintings to hang in secret rooms where they only look at then-it would be okay” (King 122) During this quote from King about what is going on in Peter’s mind, it gives the reader's knowledge that selling the notebooks will be risky and Peter need to find someone who will sells to private collectors. Having said that Peter knows he has to sell the book illegally since the notebooks are not his property.With this in mind he decides to enlist the help of Drew/Andy Halliday. Halliday goes by two names, Drew to people in the 2000’s and Andy to people that are close to him. Halliday is man who owns a bookstore, he sells books to people. Despite him looking like a kind-hearted character, Halliday does illegal business sometimes. During Peters’s and Halliday’s interaction, Halliday blackmails Peter for the notebook. This furthermore showed readers how Peter was altruistic, since he indeed risked his life to try to get money to send his sister to the school that she wanted to go to. The antagonists in the novel and film are extremely egoistic characters. Morris Bellamy is obsessed with knowledge. He was in prison for rape of Cora Ann Hooper, during his stay his roommate would rape him. One day a man called Duck Ducksworth offered to help Bellamy get rid of his problem. In return for Ducksworth helping Bellamy out, Ducksworth needs Bellamy to help him convince his wife to stop the divorce talk through the letter. Once word spread that Bellamy is an excellent writer, all the inmates at the prison offer Bellamy money to help them write letters to girlfriends and wives. He is offering his services for money, this proves he is doing it for himself and does not really care about others. Furthermore if his “clients” did not have money he would ask for favors in return. Using these favors he would commit crimes that benefited him, outside of the prison once he got out. Therefore King portrayed Bellamy as an egoist since he cared about how much money and used favors to help him hide crimes he had committed for himself. Adding on to that and how he was more worried about himself then others. Adding on to that, Bellamy himself told readers through his thoughts that he just changed the words of the inmates letters and did not really care about what happened to the inmate and their relationship. Bellamy acquired a hatred for Peter, once he got word Peter read the notebooks before him. Since he is obsessed with the notebooks he is willing to do anything for them even kill people. A sentence Bellamy thought was “All he has to do is beat the notebook thief to his little sister”(King 362) This was foreshadowing how Bellamy might do something to Peter’s family. Later on King tells the reader that Bellamy shot Linda Saubers, he did it with no remorse for what might happen to the kids since he just shot their mother in the head. He then takes Tina hostage and assaults her. During the ending of the novel he threatens to kill Peter before getting the notebooks. Adding on to that when Peter threatens to burn the notebooks, Bellamy starts to worry that he would not know the information in the notebooks. He still tries to shoot Peter and kill him since he thinks if he loses the notebooks Peter might just die along with them. This little scene showed readers Bellamy did not care who got hurt and who died, this showed readers that Bellamy due to his obsession with the notebooks will do anything to have them.Coriolanus Snow is the president of Panem, and he is depicted as a dictator. He is the one who allows the Hunger Games to happen. He throughout the film constantly terrorizes Katniss, and tries to manipulate her mind by constantly teasing/mocking her from afar. The Hunger Games is a way to show the people of the district that the Capital is always in control which is what Snow wants. Katniss says “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.”(The Hunger Games. Directed by Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate, 2012.) Through this quote, it shows how Snow wants to keep everyone in control so that he can stay in power. Snow stays in power as long as the Capital is in power. This showed how Snow is an egoist since he is doing it for his personal benefit. Also, the Capital is known to hold lavish parties with food, they also waste a lot of food. The rest of Panem is struggling just to get food. Snow knows if he loses his grip on Panem he could suffer many consequences such as starving since he could become a normal civilian lacking food. In another scene Snow is talking about why he lets the winners of the Hunger Games live, as he lets them live to give hope to Panem. He then goes on to talk about how if he contains hope then he controls the people. Furthermore to that in many of the districts there are peacekeepers, they are there to enforce the Capital's wish. Snow throughout the film uses many tactics such as deployment of peacekeepers to keep crowd under control.He does that to impose his wishes on the rest of Panem. An egoist is someone who does something for their own benefit, in this case, Snow and Bellamy are indeed egoists.
Katniss volunteering for the hunger games to take her sister prim's place because prim is just a child in katniss’s eyes. The hunger game arena could Be identified with a maze. Peeta the other tribute for District 12 had fallen in love with Katniss before the reaping. Because of her uniqueness the crowd
A common theme that’s developed in The Giver, by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is that people need their rights and freedoms. In both texts the citizens have no power nor rights. In The Giver, if people make honest mistakes they are released, a nicer term for being killed, not to mention they have no trail, and this is only one right the citizens don’t have. The receiver of memory is the only person in the community that sees what is wrong, because they have the memories of the past. One receiver, Rosemary, kills herself so the memories would go to the citizens, and influence them to rebel. Although she failed because she did not have enough memories to give the people, she influenced the next receiver, Jonas, to give
Science fiction writers create a particular setting not only to entertain readers but to give clues on lessons they believe human beings are struggling to understand. In both books, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are introduced as the main characters to project the criticisms made by the author. Susan Collins creates a Dystopian society ruled by the Capital. Different areas of their country, named Panem, are separated into different districts. Two kids from each of the twelve districts are chosen at random to fight in an arena until 1 tribute is left, this is called The Hunger Games Both Peeta and Katniss fight together during the hunger games as a team from District 12. Between the two books, Collins portrays the idea that humans tend to be disrespectful and insulting, depending on another's wealth and/or authority and power. Both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire connect with readers but also indicated the problem with certain human behaviors that most people don't notice or fail to
The Hunger Games was a good movie when it came out. This movie refers to a dystopia world in which there are 12 districts and a capitol who rules with an iron fist, in which the districts must provide a tribute to fight in an annual Hunger Game as a punishment for a past rebellion. Katniss Everdeen is a hunter from the 12th district, which Gale, her friend gives her tips on hunting. One day her sister, Primrose Everdeen, is chosen for the Hunger Games, and in order to save her, she volunteers instead to serve in the Games along with Peeta Mellark. During a TV interview, Peeta confesses her love for Katniss Everdeen, which causes the enragement of the latter; however, she later forgives him as he explains to her that it was only to gain sponsors. During the Hunger Games, she did not receive a lot of supplies except some medicine to cure a wound, but Districts 1 and 2 almost won the Game due to their training, and amount of supplies which Katniss destroys but cannot recover any of them. The Hunger Games was one of the best movies I ever watched because it has a little bit of everything and it captures the real-life survival game that we live on a daily basis.
During the route to the creation of science fiction action novels, authors commonly create characters with very different backgrounds because of the various themes science fiction action novels can approach such as ; man versus system, man versus man and man versus nature. In the case of the novel Hunger Games, how did Katniss Everdeen, the novel’s protagonist and her actions, affect the main theme of the novel. In a truly exciting and twisted story made by Suzanne Collins, the protagonist’s actions directly affect the main theme of the novel. Having read the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, I have been able to realize that the reasons why the protagonist’s actions directly affect the main theme of the book, man versus system are the
The Hunger Games follows the structure of monomyths closely. Katniss, the byronic heroine, volunteers to take her sister’s place in the annual Hunger Games, where tributes fight to death to entertain the totalitarian Capitol. At the beginning of the Game, Katniss identifies herself a girl from the seam, which provides her with a stoic strength. However, as the hunt progresses, Katniss questions this identity. As she observes the brutality of the Hunger Game, Katniss grows indignant. Ultimately, the heroine appears empathetic and distains causing sufferings as opposed to being a stoic girl.
In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to compete in the Hunger Games, a youth survival competition, ultimately winning the competition with help along the way. Separately, in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield’s decisions in school lead to his expulsion. Upon leaving school, he begins a journey of self-discovery. Both characters face tests and trials which cause them to discover their inner strengths. Katniss and Holden exemplify the Hero’s Quest by answering their calls to adventure, meeting their mentors, and fulfilling their respective quests.
Katniss is the main character in the novel, The Hunger Games. The author of this book is Suzanna Collins. Katniss is a 16 year old who has been chosen with 23 other tributes. In my class we have studied themes and key ideas such as Power of the Capitol, Competition against other tributes and Sacrifice for what Katniss acts and does in the Hunger Games. There are many themes but I have chosen these 3 because they show the most emotions and power.
It has often been said that there is nothing new under the sun. In this vein, authors across all literary genres often borrow themes and plot from the stories of long ago. Many of those authors choose to borrow from the rich mythology of the ancient Greeks. Suzanne Collins has been asked on numerous occasions where the idea for The Hunger Games originated. She readily admits that the characters and plot come from Greek mythology and more specifically, from Theseus and the Minotaur (Margolis 30). One familiar with both both stories can easily recognize the identical framework upon which each of these stories are built. Both Theseus and Katniss Everdeen, Collins’ heroine, volunteer to go into battle for their respective homelands, they both fight beasts of strange origin, and they are both brave in battle and emerge victorious, but it is the uniqueness of the characters that makes each story appropriate for the time period and audience to which it belongs. Collins modernizes the classic hero of Theseus by changing his gender, his motivations and altering his selfish personality, and by doing these things she creates a heroine that better resonates with today's audience of young adults.
The movie The Hunger Games (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins) and The Giver, a novel by Lois Lowry, both display governments that enforce strict rules in order to limit the freedom of their citizens. Both of these novels are centered on dystopian societies in which the government removes the freedom of choice and individuality in order to establish oppressive control over its citizens. Katniss and Jonas are the exception when it comes to the citizens of both “communities” and how they are overly controlled while being unaware of their loss of freedom. Both characters selflessly put themselves in danger in order to save their younger siblings, or adopted sibling in Jonas’s case, from the oppressive government. Katniss takes the place of her younger sister in the fight to the death, while Jonas takes responsibility of a young child by removing him from the corrupt and enclosed community in which they live. Both Katniss and Jonas challenge the oppressive rules in their communities by being brave and selfless.
Throughout time humans have struggled with the unknown, with the fear that once life is over nothing remains, that the only thing awaiting them is oblivion. To combat these fears we create various religions, belief systems, and faiths to reassure ourselves that we are not shouting into the void, that something will come out of our existence. Prime examples of these belief systems are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism which emphasize a spiritual world. In dystopian novels, characters are often placed in situations without faith or religion such as The Giver by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the removal of faith forces characters to rely solely on themselves and helps depict the hopelessness in their world. The erasure of faith leads one to believe that it is a selling point of our society and should be kept intact, which is why Octavia Butler’s use of religion is odd in the genre. In Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower the narrator Lauren Oya Olamina creates a new religion called Earthseed and aims to offer her society hope for the future while they suffer the corruption and disintegration of the only world they know. Parable of the Sower states the function of religion, and specifically Earthseed, is to unite people in a single hope as the world goes to hell.
In our Society when you don't follow the rules, you become an outcast to the rest of the society. Suzanne Collins’ novel series, The Hunger Games criticizes our society and its demands for people of specific genders to act in certain ways and become certain things. Stereotypes concerning gender are prevalent in our society and all over the world. However, The Hunger Games gives a very refreshing tone of “mockery” to these stereotypes. Katniss Everdeen isn’t your typical 16 year old girl, and neither is Peeta Mellark a typical 16 year old boy, especially when they are fighting everyday just to survive. The Hunger Games is a work of social commentary, used to convince us that there can’t and shouldn’t be any defined “roles” based on gender. A mixture of “stereo-typical” gender roles within a person and their actions is what people need just to survive in our world that is changing every day.
While reading the novel, “The Hunger Games”, written by Suzanne Collins, one could see without difficulty that a running theme flows through the writing. This theme being perseverance, the one thing that had allowed Katniss Everdeen, the main character that a reader follows during the events presented in the narrative, to live on and be crowned victor with her teammate, Peeta, a young man who ventures into the Hunger Games with Katniss. The theme of perseverance appears frequently as it is tied to every trait and skill of Katniss which includes the idea that she is persistent, caring, and resourceful when it comes to surviving in severe conditions similar to the Games. Every thought she has and every action that she performs drives her to
The lack of individuality present throughout Matched, Scored, Divergent, and The Hunger Games directly mirror the political topics advanced within each fictional society. The overarching political point made in each novel and film is conformity which encompasses oppressive governing dictators who operate by restriction, rituals, and forms of capitalism. These political points prove to be ever present as each protagonist is awakened to the terrifying world in which they live. Woven together, these aspects demonstrate the suppression of the individual and reflects the political points each author is conveying.
effected. Katniss provides protection for her younger sister, Primrose Everdeen, and her mother, again carrying out the role of the father, or the alpha of the house. She satisfies this role to the degree of volunteering to compete in the annual hunger games in the place of her sister, who was initially chosen. Katniss felt it was her responsibility to protect her sister, as she was the main provider and protector of her family and the household. After volunteering to take Prim 's place, Katniss is taken away where she is isolated in a room and given only 3 minutes to speak with her family and close friend and huntind partner, Gale. When she is talking to her mother about caring for Primrose, she speaks with a firm voice, and very emphatically. The language and tone of her voice changes depending on the person who she is talking to. For example,