Hope is What Get's You Over the Mountain of Misery: A Book Response to "The Hunger Games"

Have you ever been stuck in a situation, one you weren’t very fond of, and clearly thought to yourself “why am I doing this? How did I end up in this situation? It would be better if I just gave up and quit, if I just ignored it”, and the next thing you know, you’ve completed the task to the best of your ability, or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle, but you think to yourself, “I can’t just give up now. If I don’t do this, I’ll deeply regret it later”? Maybe it’s a school project, a paper for work, or maybe you’re fighting to the death in the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. In the best-selling novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl from the poorest part of her District volunteers for her sister at the reaping of the 74^th annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games, a nationally televised reality TV show, consists of 24 children between the ages of 12 to 18 fighting each other for the chance to go back home to their un-wealthy District, and shower their family in money and gifts. The minute the Hunger Games start, Katniss desperately wants to give up. She just wants it to end. She doesn’t want her death to be slow and painful. The only problem is, she has a mother, her best friend and his entire family, and most importantly, her sister Prim to feed. She knows if she doesn’t make it home, her family will have to watch her die on live television, and starve. She hopes that her loved ones will get enough to eat for the rest of their lives, and that’s what keeps her going throughout the Games. Hope. Hope is what gets you through the hard times, when you feel like you can’t do it anymore.  By having hope, you have a small thread to grasp on to while you make your way across the mountain of misery. Your hope is your goal, the only thing that keeps you from quitting.

            One of Katniss’s  hopes’ is to return to her family and loved ones so she can keep feeding them. Katniss’s talents with a bow are what feed her family every night, and also what keeps her alive during the Games. Her little sister, Prim, is Katniss’s  favorite, most loved person in her life. That’s why when Prim’s name is drawn for the Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers for her because she knows Prim, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, wouldn’t survive the brutal competition. She was acting on her hopes. Her hope was that Prim would be safe.

            One thing I feel that readers learn from this book is that when you have hope, you can get through the tough times. When Katniss had hope that her family would survive, she powered through the Hunger Games, and survived them. Hope is what get’s you through the times when you feel like giving up.