Life or Death

Author’s note: This essay will shed light on the novel, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The essay will highlight on how Katniss, the main female lead, has to choose between life, and death in many different situations.

Katniss Everdeen is a girl who has had to face death up close and survive its deadly pull. But yet sometimes she would make a decision that could kill her. This character is almost the opposite of the character in one of my least favorite novels, Bella Swan. This character is always relying on other people to help her, while Katniss doesn’t trust anyone except one or two people. These characters are very different. Katniss faces many challenges that have to do with life, or death. While Bella doesn’t have to deal with it, because other people do it for her. The actions Katniss has to take will decide either she dies, or she lives.

Life for the Hunger Games cast of characters is a precious thing. These characters live in a different time period from us. While we have the luxury of knowing that we will at least live until we are 80, these characters are lucky to live until they are 20. But, unbeknownst to most of the Hunger Games characters, there is a way to survive. They need to rebel against the antagonists that are the Capitol. The Capitol can press a button and kill you, even if you aren’t participating in the Hunger Games. This is why life is especially important to the cast of the Hunger Games.

While life may be very important to the Hunger Games cast, the equivalent of life is death, and this also plays into the Hunger Games cast, very extremely.  The main character of this epic novel, Katniss, as you already know has come close to death many many times. In the story, Katniss almost dies from blood lose from a wound another tribute gave her when she was trying to save another characters life, Peeta Mellark. This character saved Katniss, many times. When Katniss was going to die from starvation, he gave her food. The author of this story isn’t afraid to write that characters die, while the author of Twilight, Stephanie Meyers, is almost afraid of writing in deaths of the main characters. Many characters die in the epic novel, the Hunger Games. This takes a toll on the plot, making it more twisted and multilayer-ed.  The decisions that Katniss and Peeta make affect their path of life, or death.

Even though life or death effect the plot, the decisions Katniss and Peeta make can effect if they die, or if they live. When Katniss makes the decision to run instead of stop, it saved her life. When Peeta camouflaged himself into the mud, it saved his life. Katniss and Peeta make the decisions to save themselves, and others, while in other novels like Twilight the main characters rely on other people. Decisions, in Peeta and Katniss’s life, very much mean life, or death.  

In conclusion, When Katniss chooses between life and death, she always has the decision to take the path towards life, or take the one towards death. But, thankfully for the readers of this novel, she always chooses to take the brighter path towards life. Even though she doesn’t do it for herself, she does it for other people, like Peeta. This character has her head on straight, unlike the dim-witted female lead of Twilight, Bella Swan.

HLTC (Hope Love Trust and Courage)

 

Authors note: Reading this essay will shed light on the graphic novel series Fruits Basket, specifically the book Fruits Basket volume 13.

Tohru Honda is a strong willed girl having to go through many troubles throughout Fruits Basket.  She seems to be a happy girl, almost annoying, but under all of that is the real Tohru Honda who is caring, thoughtful, and self-conscious. Hope, Love, Trust, and Courage will keep you moving on like Tohru Honda has, in Fruits Basket Volume 13 By Natsuki Takaya.

Hope comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be in the smallest thing like hope that you will get the present you want for Christmas, or it can be a bigger thing like a person suffering from cancer hoping that they will get better. I hope that I will get straight A’s, because like Tohru, I like to make people happy. Some people have more hope than others. Tohru has a lot of hope that she will finish high school because that is what her deceased mother wanted and she promised. She has hope and love. Love also corresponds with hope, because without hope, you couldn’t hope that your crush likes you.

                                               

Love helps you stay strong. Knowing that someone loves you can give you the will to keep going. In my opinion, the love that Kyo and Yuki give Tohru throughout Fruits Basket helps her stay strong, especially in Fruits Basket Volume 13. In this volume, Yuki confesses to Tohru that he loves her. This helps Tohru keep going towards her goal of breaking the zodiac curse. But unbeknownst to Tohru, Kyo has the same feelings as Yuki in terms of loving Tohru, which sets up a love triangle that poor Tohru has no idea about. I love my friends, like Tohru. I also love my family, also similar to Tohru.  Love and courage go hand and hand because if you didn’t have courage, you wouldn’t be able to confess to the person that you love them.

Courage is another reason to keep moving on. Tohru has a lot of courage, and I can relate to her in that way because we both can be very courageous. Yuki and Kyo are very courageous to. Since Kyo is cursed by the evil cat spirit, he is more of an outcast than Yuki, who doesn’t feel that he is popular. In some ways I feel some of my friends can relate to Yuki, because they can be courageous enough to stand up to the bully’s. There are a lot of similarities in Fruits Basket that happen to me in real life. Especially the courageous aspect. Courage and trust also have a similar meaning, because without trust, you couldn’t trust your friends to keep a secret, and telling a secret is courageous.

Trust is hard to come by in some people. For me, I can only trust certain people, because it takes me a while to warm up to people, similar to Kyo. But for some of the characters in Fruits Basket Volume 13, trust comes like a second nature.

The character Momiji is a very trustworthy person. While he may seem silly, and little, he is very trustworthy. I find him to be a very good person, seeing that he can trust so easily. Tohru has a lot of trust in the form of her guardian, Shigure. He may not seem to trustworthy, like Momiji is, but when it comes down to it, Shigure will always be there for Tohru.  My friends also have trust in me, even though I may come off as a un- trustworthy person. 

Tohru has Love, Trust, Hope, and courage in the things she does, and the people she lives with. She always preservers when she is down, and always has a smile on her face. Tohru is put in a place of trouble since she is involved with the secret zodiac curse the Sohma’s have to deal with. Tohru always has been there for the Sohma’s and the Sohma’s are starting to be there for her. She is my role model, and I think that she always has a smile on her face, which really helps the zodiac members, because some of them are down. Fruits Basket Volume 13 was a book that I very much enjoyed. Fruits Basket is a manga I suggest to all readers, even if you aren’t a big manga reader.