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.