Thursday, March 21, 2013

Week 3, Reflection 1: The Hunger Games




Collins, S. (2008). The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press.


The Hunger Games has become one of the most popular books in recent years and has also been made into a movie.  The author does an amazing job with the details and allows the reader to paint a picture of the world the writer wants to share.  The plot of the books over the entire series is amazing and follows a complex pattern of ups and downs.  The story also includes flashbacks.  These flashbacks are used to explain past events such as what happened to her father.  In the books, the author also creates three different conflicts. The first is man versus nature.  Katniss, the protagonist, is pitted against the arena and its many dangers.  The second is man versus man.  Katniss is in conflict with all of the other tributes in the arena and has to fight to survive.  The third is man versus himself.  Katniss struggles throughout the series to find out what is “real” and what is false.  She also struggles with who she wants to have a relationship with and with trying to help everyone.  All of this is impressive; however, the most impressive is how dynamic the characters are.  Whereas some books do not change the characters as the story progresses with the events (static), characters should be changed by the life altering events that occur (dynamic).  Without spoilers, these books have plenty of these life altering events and the characters justly changed.  Katniss at the end of the books is virtually unrecognizable from the beginning of the books.  She has been changed so much by all of the “conflicts” that her character has evolved.  Not only that, many of the other characters experience similar, drastic changes.  The author does a wonderful job creating her characters and changing them with the story. 

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