Themes Within "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins Essay Example

Suzanne Collins integrated various themes to create an exciting and unforgettable story of "The Hunger Games". These themes come together, giving the book different characteristics and enables entertainment to a wide range of audience. Four themes that considerably influence the story and its characters are strength, power, love and control. Strength displays the qualities and characteristics of a character, allowing us to learn more about them and how they develop throughout the book. Power, such as the one the Capitols possess, is what helps to keep the districts in place while the theme of love is what influences many actions and decisions in the book and lastly, control is what brought the twisted action to life. The theme of strength is quite an important theme in The Hunger Games, for it defines the characters of who they are. Strength is much more than just muscle and a person's build but refers to the power of their inner self. A character's strength can also determine other qualities such as loyalty, honesty, resilience, patience or kindness. Strength is an immense factor to making Katniss the strong, ruthless girl she is. Strength is not only shown by Katniss at certain points in the novel, but is present within everything she does and says. The most evident example of Katniss’s mental strength is when she is able to keep a neutral face whilst reporters are swarming over her as she is being taken from the Justice Building to the train station. Her ability to wipe her face clean of feelings, especially at such an emotional time, displays her inner strength in adversity, formed over years of hard experiences. “I’ve had a lot of practice… that I almost appear bored. (Pg49)” Because her mother became mentally unstable at the loss of her father, Katniss felt as though her mother had also 'abandoned' her and her younger sister, Prim. Being the eldest daughter, Katniss had to take over as head of family. In her new role, it was crucial for her to appear