I find it difficult how Suzanne Collins portrays Katniss in the hunger games and i'm stumbling upon if she acts on her motives for the greater good or for her own good.She is the symbol of what the capitol did not attend to make, ,as mention in the book, she is the Mockingjay and her rebellious personality fits the role.But there is some type of duality going on I feel when I read how she acts contrary to what we think heroes are suppose to act and how she as women acts against the capitol. She acts like she is better than everyone else, even people from the capitol. I thought heroes were supposed to have certain virtues like humbleness but it seems like Katniss is deficient of that. Her perception of herself being better than other is highlighted in one specific scene. Three of her stylists come to get her ready for her photo shoot and Katniss comments on their conversation.
“After they’ve exhausted the topic of the Quarter Quell, my prep team launches into a whole lot f stuff about their incomprehensibly silly lives… and a long story from Octavia about what a mistake it was to have everyone wear feathers to her birthday party.” (Collins 37).
There is yet another scene where Cinna tells her to act as if she was above everyone else and she was happy to do it because she feels that she is.
“’…I just want you to look straight ahead, as if the entire audience is beneath your notice.’ ‘Finally something I’ll be good at.’ I say” (207).
Yet again there was another scene where she acted as if she was better than the capitol when she gobbling down food ironically she would have never tasted in her district full of miners and barely ate a decent meal.
" I act delighted, but I have zero interest in these Capitol people. They are only distractions from the food." (78).
She even treats Peeta badly as if he is not going through the same process of ultimately being in this ridiculous hunger games that they have in Panem.
"'What are you so angry about?' Peeta asks... 'Forget it,' I say with a shake of my head. 'It's a lot of things.'" (230).
I think Collins purposely does this to make us not like Katniss not that she is superior but she isn't acting as heroically and acted more like a woman who is being forced yet again to do things she doesn't want to do. In other words, it is much worse for her because she is a women and not a man , like Peeta , who has to participate in the hunger games. Katniss never asked to be the head of a rebellion.When she refused to end the game the way the capitol wanted it to, she was just acting like herself rebelling against the norms or the capitol because she didn't want them to have control over her actions. Collins I think uses this as an example of a women going against what a man tells them to do not because it is something for the greater good but it is for their own good going against something they don't want to do.
I'm not sure of her being a symbol of rebellion , is the reason why she is portrayed the way she is .She goes against the traditional sense of the heroes that defy our own culturally hegemony.When I think of heros I don't think of Katniss rebellious nature to be part of their identity. But i think some of us don't first think of a women to be a hero as well ?.I think Collins wants us to self reflect why we may dislike Katniss in the sense of being an antihero and take into consideration a woman who has to do certain things that she doesn't want to do. Katniss doesn't want a rebellion to happen but she also doesn't want to be in the hunger games. All these could be used as parallels of how our society force women to do certain things they don't want to do and if they go against it, then they are not fitting with the standards we set . The same goes for Katniss's situation of affiliating herself emotionally with Peeta , as something she has to do or else her love ones would die.
Katniss isn't the hero the districts need but a strong rebellious women that the districts can admire and look up to, so they themselves can unit to rebel against the capitol.
Work cited:
Collins, Suzanne, and Elizabeth B. Parisi. Catching Fire. Print.
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