Friday, July 8, 2011

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Exposition:
Katniss lives with her mom and sister, Prim, in a dystopian society.  She has a good friend, Gale, who she hunts game with.  They live in a poor district outside the Capitol where survival is tough.

Conflict:
Katniss will go to the Hunger Games and must be the last one standing in order to go home and see her sister again. 

Rising Action:
Prim's name is drawn for the Hunger Games and Katniss will go in her place.  A boy and a girl from each of the twelve districts will go.  They are actually prepared and pampered for the opening ceremonies.  Then they must enter the Games.  The battle starts with a flurry of activity and several deaths right away.  The rest scatter and make constant life and death decisions.  Other lives are lost along the way.

Climax:
Katniss has to kill or be killed, even her male counterpart from her district.  As death and survival in the Game continues, the Capitol decides that they like the "love story" between Katniss and Peeta.  They make an unheard of announcement that if the last two alive are from the same district, they can go home together. 

Falling Action:
It gets down to four, then three, then two...Katniss and Peeta.  But the Capitol makes another announcement retracting the first.  One must kill the other to survive...

Resolution:
Katniss and Peeta decide to eat poison berries to die together.  The Capitol will have no winner!  The Capitol stops them and they both will go home.

Literary Qualities:
    1)  The imagery was phenomenal.  It seemed as though you could see the blood, sweat, and tears.  You could feel their anxiety and emotion.
    2)  The author also used unexpected insights around every corner.  Who would have expected that while Peeta got water, one of the other players would come along and eat the berries he had gathered.  They ended up being poison berries and the other player died.  Peeta got credit for killing someone.

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