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Hunger Games Survival Essay

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Frank Herbert once said, “Survival is the ability to swim in strange water” (Herbert). When Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old from one of the poorest districts in a country called Panem is thrown into an arena where she would fight to the death with 23 other tributes. This happens in Panem every year to remind the people that the Capitol is in charge and to prevent another rebellion in the future. It is called the Hunger Games. When she was thrown into the arena, she did everything she could to keep herself alive, which is just like swimming in strange water. Katniss had many reasons why she wanted to survive, and she did, which makes survival a key theme in the book. The theme of the book, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is …show more content…

First, when Rue was killed, she promised that she would win the Games for her. The book states, “‘You have to win,’ she says. ‘I’m going to. Going to win for both of us now,’ I promise” (Collins 233-234). Because Katniss had worked with Rue and they helped each other out. They had formed a friendship, and when it was broken by Rue’s death, she felt even more motivated to win the games for her. Additionally, she also felt the need to survive the rest of the Games after the boy tribute, Thresh, who was from Rue’s district, District 11, killed the girl who was about to murder Katniss. But instead of killing Katniss too, he let her go because she had helped Rue. As the text says, “Clove is dangling a foot off the ground, imprisoned in Thresh’s arm… Conflicting emotions cross Thresh’s face. He lowers the rock and points at me, almost accusingly. ‘Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we’re even then, no more owed’” (Collins 286, 288). Because Thresh let her go, Katniss felt the motivation again to survive for Rue because Thresh would have killed her had it not been for her helping Rue. Because of Rue, she was still alive, so she wanted to do all she could to win for her. To summarize, survival is a key theme of The Hunger Games because Katniss wanted to survive for Rue because they were allies and because Thresh let her go because she had befriended Rue. Lastly, the theme of The Hunger Games

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