Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Hunger Games by . Katniss Everdeen wakes up on the day of the reaping, when the tributes are chosen who will take part in the Hunger Games. Her mother and little sister, Prim, sleep nearby. Her father died in a mine explosion years earlier. She goes hunting in the woods outside her district, District 12, with Gale, her best friend. That night, at the reaping ceremony, the mayor gives a speech describing how the governments of North America collapsed and the country of Panem rose up in their place. A war ensued between the Capitol and the districts. The Capitol won, and as a reminder of their defeat, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games every year. The mayor then introduces Haymitch Abernathy, District 12’s only living Hunger-Games winner, and he’s so drunk he ends up falling in his own vomit. The district’s female tribute is chosen, and to Katniss’s horror, it’s Prim. Katniss volunteers immediately in Prim’s place. Then the male tribute is selected. It’s , and Katniss remembers how years earlier, while searching for food for her family in the garbage bins behind the town shops, Peeta gave her bread from his family’s bakery. Katniss credits him with saving her that day. Katniss and Peeta say goodbye to their friends and families and board a train for the Capitol. During the trip, she and Peeta convince Haymitch, their mentor in the Games and the person responsible for getting them gifts from sponsors, to take his duties seriously. Once there, Katniss meets with her stylist, Cinna, who is designing her dress for the opening ceremony. At the ceremony, Katniss and Peeta wear simple black outfits lit with synthetic flames. The outfits are a huge hit with the audience and make Katniss and Peeta stand out among the tributes. The next day, Katniss and Peeta attend group training, and the tributes from rich districts who have trained for the Games their whole lives, called Career Tributes, show off their skills. Later, the tributes are interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, a television host. In his interview, Peeta reveals that he’s had a crush on Katniss for several years. Finally the time comes. From a small underground room, Katniss is lifted into the arena and the Games officially begin. All the tributes are there, and in front of her is the Cornucopia, which houses an abundance of supplies. Rather than fight, she runs away as Haymitch advised. She hikes all day before making camp. After dark, someone starts a fire nearby, and it isn’t long before a pack of Career Tributes arrives and kills the person. To Katniss’s shock, Peeta is with them. The next day Katniss goes in search of water. She walks for hours and collapses from exhaustion, but ultimately she finds a stream. She’s woken in the night by a wall of fire moving in her direction, and as she runs away one of the numerous fireballs falling around her grazes her leg, injuring it. That night, while she hides in a tree from the pack of Careers below, she notices a young girl named Rue from District 11 in a nearby tree. Rue points out a nest of tracker jackers, wasps engineered by the Capitol to be lethal, over Katniss’s head, and Katniss cuts the branch holding the nest, dropping it onto the Careers. Two of them die from the stings and the rest scatter. Katniss is stung a few times as well, but as she’s running away, she remembers one of the girls who died had a bow and arrows, the weapons she’s become proficient with from hunting. She runs back to retrieve them, and Peeta happens to arrive as she’s grabbing the bow. He yells at Katniss to run just as Cato, a very large and dangerous Career from District 2, shows up. Peeta stops him so Katniss can escape, and she passes out in a ditch shortly after. Katniss encounters Rue again, and the two quickly form a bond. They are able to get food hunting and foraging, and Katniss realizes that the Careers would have difficulty surviving without the supplies at the Cornucopia, so she and Rue devise a plan. While Rue lights decoy fires, Katniss sneaks up to the Cornucopia. The supplies are in a pyramid away from the main camp, and after the Careers leave to investigate the fires, Katniss manages to blow up the supplies by cutting open a bag of apples with her arrows, which sets off the mines set to protect the pyramid. When Katniss doesn’t find Rue at their meeting spot, she goes looking for her and finds her just as another tribute stabs her with a spear. Katniss kills the other tribute, and when Rue dies, she covers her body in flowers. Katniss is depressed all the next day, until an announcement is made that there has been a rule change: Now, two tributes from the same district can be declared winners. Katniss goes looking for Peeta, and it takes her a day but finally she finds him. He’s severely injured from his fight with Cato and can barely walk, but Katniss helps him to a cave where they’ll be hidden. Thinking Peeta may die, Katniss impulsively kisses him. A moment later she hears a noise outside and finds a pot of broth sent from Haymitch. She realizes that Haymitch will reward her for playing up the romance between her and Peeta. The next morning Katniss sees that Peeta’s leg is badly infected and he’ll die without treatment. Another announcement is made, this time saying each tribute will find an item they desperately need at the Cornucopia. Katniss knows that means medicine for Peeta’s leg, but Peeta thinks it’s too dangerous and doesn’t want Katniss to go. Using a sleep syrup sent from Haymitch, Katniss knocks him out. At the Cornucopia, Katniss tries to run and grab the item marked for District 12, but she gets into a fight with a female tribute. The tribute is about to kill her when Thresh, the male tribute from District 11 who came to the Games with Rue, kills the girl instead. He spares Katniss because of the way she treated Rue, and Katniss makes it back to the cave. She injects Peeta with the medicine just before passing out. They stay there for a few days while it rains nonstop outside, and in this time the romance between Katniss and Peeta progresses. When the rain lets up, Peeta and Katniss need to find food. Katniss leaves Peeta in charge of foraging while she goes to hunt. She comes back hours later and finds a small pile of poisonous berries Peeta collected thinking they were safe. They discover the body of a tribute who Katniss nicknamed Foxface, and Katniss realizes she died from eating the berries. By this point Cato, who killed Thresh, is the only tribute left, and Katniss decides to keep some berries in case they can trick Cato the same way. Eventually the streams and ponds dry up, and they know the only source of water left is the lake near the Cornucopia. Without any other choice, they start walking to the lake. By the lake, Cato comes suddenly barreling toward them. Unexpectedly, however, he runs straight by them. Katniss realizes there are strange creatures chasing him, and they all run to the Cornucopia and climb up. The creatures are mutant wolves engineered by the Capitol, and Katniss realizes they are actually the dead tributes, who have been turned into these monsters. Taking advantage of the situation, Cato attacks Peeta, but Katniss and Peeta manage to push him over the edge. The creatures overpower him, but because of the body armor he’s wearing he remains alive for hours, until Katniss shoots him out of pity. Just as Katniss and Peeta think they’ve won, another announcement is made that there can only be one winner again. Neither Katniss nor Peeta will kill the other, so Katniss takes out the poisonous berries. Just as she and Peeta pop them in their mouths, the announcer shouts for them to stop and declares them both winners. They go back to the Training Center and Katniss is kept alone for days while she recuperates. When she is let out, Haymitch warns her that she’s in danger. The Capitol took her stunt with the berries as an act of defiance, so she has to convince everyone that she was desperate at the thought of losing Peeta and not being rebellious, or even her family could be at risk. In their final interview, she’s reunited with Peeta, who lost his leg and now has a prosthetic. After, when Haymitch tells her she did great, Peeta wonders what he means, and Katniss explains everything, including the romance strategy during the Games. Peeta is angry and hurt, but as they arrive back in District 12, they hold hands one more time to greet the crowd and cameras. The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is set in Panem, a dystopia that appears to reflect America after some type of failed revolution by the lower class. Panem is divided into districts, though the opening of the novel gives no real information about the other districts, focusing on District 12. The novel opens with an introduction to Katniss, one of the main characters and protagonists of the novel. She is a 16-year old girl, and she travels stealthily into the woods in order to hunt for food for her family. She is meeting her friend Gale, an older teenager, in the woods. They are hunting companions and best friends. Quickly, the reader learns that it is a day known as the reaping. During the reaping, two teenagers, known as tributes, from each district are chosen to participate in the Hunger Games. the Hunger Games are a televised fight-to-the-death in which children are pitted against one another. All teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18 in a district are potential tributes, but each year a teenager has an additional chance of being chosen in the reaping, so that an 18-year-old is six times more likely to be chosen than a 12-year-old. Katniss’s thoughts are focused on her younger sister, Primrose (Prim), because Prim has turned 12 and is now eligible for the reaping. Katniss is concerned about her younger sister, whom she has largely raised since her father’s death five years prior. However, she consoles herself with the fact that Prim’s odds of being chosen in the reaping are very small. The introduction to the Hunger Games also explains the role that they play in the society of Panem. They are a means of punishing the districts for a rebellion that is never fully explained. There were once 13 districts, but the districts all rebelled against the Capitol. The Capitol eliminated District 13 and continues to punish the other districts by making their children vulnerable each year. This is a way for the Capitol to keep the districts under control. Furthermore, if the districts refuse to comply with the reaping, the threat of total destruction, and. Jacobin. The Hunger Games Prequel, Songbirds , Is a Satire on the Ruling Class. Search Icon Login Icon. Subscribe Back Issues Donate Store Magazine Blog Catalyst About Contact Us Reading Groups Advertise. Film and TV Literature Books. The Hunger Games Prequel, Songbirds , Is a Satire on the Ruling Class. Novelist Suzanne Collins has returned with a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy. This time, she writes about the fictional world of Panem from the perspective of its ruling class, which makes her satire on our own society all the more cutting. The prequel centers on a young Coriolanus Snow, the antagonist in the original trilogy, played by Donald Sutherland in the film adaptations. ( The Hunger Games / Lionsgate) The Politics of a Second Gilded Age. How Bernie Sanders, an Open Socialist, Won Burlington’s Mayoral Election. Ronald Reagan Paved the Way for Donald Trump. Revisiting the Life and Intellectual Legacy of Primo Levi. Review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, 2020). The Hunger Games series was a popular sensation after the release of the first novel in 2008 and the film adaptation that followed four years later. The work of Suzanne Collins rapidly became a touchstone for twenty-first-century dystopian fiction. Much like The Matrix and Mad Max , the title itself has become a kind of shorthand for the dystopian characteristics of our own society. The phrase “Hunger Games” evokes images of poverty, authoritarianism, and the sacrifices demanded of ordinary people to keep the system going. The iconography of The Hunger Games has also become a fixture in real-world political uprisings. Protesters for democracy in Thailand took up the three-finger salute that symbolizes the fictional rebellion in the series. So did demonstrators against the coup government in Myanmar more recently. Collins has now published a prequel to her original trilogy called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snake s. It’s a readable and engaging work that deepens the satirical themes of The Hunger Games with unflinching depictions of war, inequality, and poverty. Few mainstream contemporary novelists have as much to say about class as Collins, and few can grasp the connection between capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism so sharply. Hunger and Hard Luck in the Capitol. Katniss Everdeen, the hero of the original trilogy, faced a nemesis called Coriolanus Snow. Snow, played by Donald Sutherland in the movies, is the elderly president of Panem, a fascist nation that rules a future North America depopulated by climate change. His genteel, patrician manner barely conceals his ruthlessness and cruelty. It might seem surprising that Collins decided to make a teenage Snow the protagonist of this prequel. The events recounted in Songbirds come sixty-four years before those in the first Hunger Games novel, and a decade after the bloody, unsuccessful First Rebellion referred to in the earlier books. Panem’s capital in the Rocky Mountains, modeled on ancient Rome, reigns over twelve provincial districts whose inhabitants are harshly oppressed workers. The plot still revolves around the Hunger Games, a bloody competition in which child tributes from each of the subjugated districts fight to the death as punishment for the rebellion. In Songbirds , the Games are a recent invention and a much less polished affair than they later become. At the novel’s outset, an eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is finishing high school at the elite Academy, which all the children of the Capitol’s ruling class attend. He receives an assignment to mentor a tribute in this early, experimental edition of the Games. Despite his privileged background, Coriolanus has already known hardship in his life. The Snows, once a proud aristocratic family, are now desperately poor, having lost their fortune in the war that also claimed the lives of his parents. Raised by his mentally unstable grandmother and an older cousin, he spent much of his childhood malnourished during the rebel siege of the Capitol. The combination of hard luck and ruling-class entitlement has made Coriolanus a bitter, desperate young man. Without money or influence to rely on, all he can do is engage in frantic social climbing. Participating in the Games is a chance for Coriolanus to win favor in the backstabbing social hierarchy of the Capitol. As the book opens, Coriolanus is making cabbage soup to stave off hunger pangs before school. “The endless dance with hunger had defined his life,” Collins writes, reminding us of the experience of his future nemesis, Katniss. That doesn’t mean Collins is constructing an insipid morality tale where we’re expected to sympathize with both protagonists. The narrative is emphatically on the side of the districts fighting against the injustice of the Capitol. But this focus on Coriolanus does give us an insight into the other side of class struggle — the ruling class. Whenever we might be tempted to identify with “Coryo,” as his cousin affectionately calls him, we get a reminder of his worldview, his contempt for “district scum.” The narrative thrust of Songbirds sometimes resembles that of Starship Troopers , Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 sci-fi movie that satirized fascism from the perspective of the fascists. There are no “good guys,” no sympathetic figure for the viewer to cling to. There’s something both hilarious and suffocating about the adventures of this manipulative, scheming, elitist kid, who remains loyal to a fascist state despite its frequent cruelty to him. At one point, a science instructor subjects Coriolanus and a fellow student to a sadistic experiment, unleashing genetically modified snakes on the terrified kids — an over-the-top plot twist that reminds of cult horror films by the likes of John Carpenter or Sam Raimi. Dehumanization and Desire. If Songbirds has a hero, it’s Lucy Gray Baird, Coriolanus’s mentee. Like Katniss, Lucy Gray is a girl tribute from District 12, the coal-mining district, located in present-day Appalachia. The sixteen-year-old is a country singer who uses her charisma and skill as an entertainer to win sponsorship in the Games. Inevitably, Coriolanus falls in love with her. Brash and colorful where Katniss is gruff and reserved, Lucy Gray hails from a clan of nomadic, vaguely anarchist troubadours. She’s an engaging character and clearly the story’s moral center. But with the narrative unfolding within Coriolanus’s head, we don’t get to spend much time with her. As Lucy Gray fights for her life in the Games, Coriolanus follows the action on a giant-screen TV at the Academy. There are long passages in which Coriolanus watches a live feed of an empty arena, obsesses over the lavish food, or gives smarmy TV interviews to fill airtime, while we have no idea what Lucy Gray is going through. By detaching the reader from the spectacle of the competition, Collins seems to be satirizing her own saga. The comically inept production of the 10th Games, in contrast to the slick entertainment depicted in the original trilogy, magnifies the sense of irony. In these early versions of the Games, the authorities do not treat the child tributes as celebrities. Lucy Gray and the others arrive in the Capitol in a livestock car on a freight train, to be caged in a filthy, decrepit zoo — two images with obvious historical associations to slavery and Nazi genocide. One little girl at the zoo exclaims: “They’re not like me! They’re district. That’s why they belong in a cage!” This dehumanization gives the romantic subplot an intriguing ambiguity when it might have otherwise felt forced and contrived. Coriolanus clearly has a lot of power over his captive mentee and would-be love interest. Collins treads a fine line between horror and comedy throughout the book. In one chilling passage, Coriolanus recalls a time from his childhood during the siege when he saw a neighbor carving up the dead body of a maid who had died of starvation. It’s a ghastly scene, but the author turns it into a running joke. As in the original trilogy, the writing is rich with mythological and Christian symbolism, and literary allusion. The real history, culture, and folklore of Appalachia — not least its proud history of labor struggle — is a strong undercurrent. Lucy Gray and her band perform real-life country standards in passages reminiscent of the Coen brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Panem’s Political Economy. Collins’s fictional world is fascinating in part because of her materialist explanation for social conflict. Panem is not only a totalitarian state — it’s also an economy. Any fan can recite the list of essential goods the Capitol rapaciously extracts from each district, at great cost to the health and happiness of the workers. In Songbirds , Collins emphasizes the relationship between capitalism and the fascist state. Coriolanus’s late father was a weapons manufacturer with factories in District 13. After workers in the area rebelled, the war destroyed the factories and his family’s assets. The burning motivation for Coriolanus is to restore not only his family’s prestige but also its material fortune. Through all the intrigue, we get a sense of how vital capital is to the Capitol. At the same time, Collins demonstrates that exploitation requires violence as well as ideology to keep the wheels turning. She explores the role of the so-called Peacekeepers in repressing Panem’s workers and upholding the social order more fully in the book’s final chapters, which are set in District 12. As the young Coriolanus reflects in a school report on the role of the state: The power that controlled needed to be greater than the people — otherwise, they would challenge it. The only entity capable of this was the Capitol. Decades later, in the future history of this world, Katniss will inspire the workers to unite against their common enemy: the ruling class. This fictional revolution, which continues to inspire real-life revolutionaries, is only a latent potential in the prequel, but the anticipation of what is to come enlivens this compelling story. We know that the Capitol’s end is predestined, and the purpose of Collins’s satire isn’t to foster despair or cynicism but anger. Share this article Facebook Icon. About the Author. Jim Poe is a writer, DJ, and socialist whose work has been published by the Guardian , SBS , Overland Literary Journal , and Junkee . He is also the host of Classic Album Sundays Sydney. Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games” Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is a dystopian novel written from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen. In this futuristic setting, North America as we know it today has been destroyed. The new, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem is run by a powerful dictatorship. In order to control its citizens, the government holds an annual event called the Hunger Games wherein twelve boys and twelve girls from Panem’s various districts are forced to fight to the death in a televised spectacle. According to Collins, The Hunger Games was written to spark discussion about themes such as severe poverty, starvation, oppression, and the effects of war. The characters, mainly children, are put in extremely morally complex situations and constantly forced to choose between death and self-preservation. Over 28 million copies of The Hunger Games have been sold since the book was published in 2008. The novel has been translated into 26 different languages and is sold in over 38 territories. Two additional novels have been published in this series: (2009) and (2010). The novels have been adapted into a popular film series of the same name, starring . The Hunger Games was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, the USA Today Bestseller List, the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List, Publishers Weekly Bestsellers List, and many more. Both the books and the movies have won numerous awards and achieved critical acclaim. Despite its popularity and commercial success, many are frightened by the power this book might have on its readers. For example, in 2014 anti- government protestors in Thailand used a symbol of resistance from the book (a raised hand with three middle fingers pressed together) to express solidarity with people oppressed by government rule. According to news reports, at least seven people were arrested in connection to this event. Critics have also accused The Hunger Games of being anti-ethnic, anti-family, and violent, and of having offensive language, occult/satanic references, and references to overt sexuality. Collins has never directly responded to banning attempts, but has stated that the book raises important themes that should be talked about publicly. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games is a novel by Suzanne Collins which was published in 2008 and has won several awards and titles like New York Times Bestseller, Publishers Weekly Bestseller, USA today Bestseller and has been listed in the top ten best books for young adults selection. The Hunger Games is a trilogy of famous books amongst which this is the first one. The idea of this book is based on the reality shows on television and the unstable war like conditions in different parts of the world. The writer Suzanne Collins said that she was watching television when she got inspired with the thought of writing something for the young adults as this is all what’s happening around them and in the television shows that they watch. The story of Hunger Games is very sensibly carved and the plot is very interestingly built up by making the characters look close to reality. The twists and turns in the story make the reader involved in the tale and the book is able to catch continuous attention of the reader and makes the experience enjoyable. The Hunger Games is a novel based on the story of a young girl named Katniss who lives in a country where the power is centralized and the government has a strong hold over the people and there decisions. The circumstances are such that Katniss is forced to go for a television show in order to save her sister, family and loved ones. The television event is a strange game called “The Hunger Games” in which young girl or a boy is chosen from all districts and they are to fight till only one survives. This game of death is very intelligently portrayed in the book and critics have loved the idea behind the main plot. The important characters of the novel are Katniss Everdeen who is the little girl who is the contestant of The Hunger Games along with Peeta Mellark another contestant and a secret admirer of Katniss. They both are in the game and one is to survive. Who will win? Who will survive? Who will lose his or her life? Will there be changes in the rules of the game? Will their love guide them to the finish line? All these questions will be answered in the entertaining and dramatic novel The Hunger Games. The other two books in the trilogy are Catching Fire (Published in 2009) and Mockingjay (published in 2010). The Hunger Games audio book was released in 2008 which is narrated by Carolyn McCormick. The duration of the Audio book is about 11 hours. Not just this but a movie was also made which was adapted from the novel and was produces by Nina Jacobson’s company. The novel has sold thousands of copies and has been translated into more than 20 different languages. If you are attracted to historical Roman myths, aggression, action, thrill and adventure than this book is surely your type. The Hunger Games has a modern touch as nowadays the popularity of such action and thrill based reality shows are on the top of the television ratings. People take pleasure in the helplessness of the contestants and enjoy the dangerous events.