The Girl Who Was on Fire by Diana Peterfreund, Carrie Ryan, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Leah Wilson, Terri Clark, Blythe Woolston Read Free Book Online
incapable of caring for them in her depressed state, almost killed her daughters as well. Prim’s death hits her so hard that she can not be there for Katniss in the aftermath.
Love is the greatest strength any of the characters have going for them, but is also their greatest weakness. President Snow was able to coerce Finnick into sexual slavery by threatening to hurt those that Finnick loved if he didn’t comply.
Yet the alternative—to have nobody you love—is infinitely worse than being made vulnerable by love. Johanna Mason explains in Catching Fire that there is nobody left whom she loves, and that this renders the jabberjays in the arena unable to hurt her through mimicking screams, though her meltdown during training in Mockingjay shows that even someone who loves nobody can still be wounded terribly by the Capitol.
When Peeta and Katniss are each wounded, just as deeply as Johanna, they have the other there to help them on the slow and rocky path to recovery. Johanna is no less damaged for her lack of love, but she doesn’t have anyone to help her back afterwards.
Like Johanna, neither Snow nor Coin indicate at any point in the Hunger Games that there is anyone or any thing that they themselves love. But both think that they understand what a powerful force love is, and both do their best to wield this power for their own evil ends.
In each case, however, their efforts backfire: by making Katniss emphasize her love story in Catching Fire , Snow does more to incite the rebellion against his Capitol than Katniss could have achieved on her own. And Coin, in attempting to reinstate the Hunger Games as a method of offering revenge to the districts, seals the death warrant on her regime and her self. The woman who views marriage as a reassignment of living quarters cannot anticipate the steadfast core of Katniss’ compassion. She nor Snow ever really understand love at all.
So what can we take from the stories of Winston and Julia, of Valerie, of Katniss and Peeta? Why does George Orwell end his
love story with the lovers broken and defeated? Why does writer Alan Moore kill off the defiant Valerie? And, with these grim precedents in place, why does Suzanne Collins then decide to give Katniss and Peeta a fragile, scarred, but undeniably happy ending?
The answer may come from the connection Peeta and Katniss share to the land of District 12. The first time Katniss sees Peeta again, he is gardening, and it is the fearlessness Katniss feels in the wild that allowed her to survive her first trip to the Arena. Katniss and Peeta are both linked to the natural world, and in the natural world even the worst of winters is followed by a spring.
The epilogue of Mockingjay shows Katniss watching her children play in the Meadow, now green and lush once again. New life grows, even in graveyards. Rue’s funeral song is able to become a child’s simple tune once more. There are losses to mourn, but also children to love: Prim and her mother have both left Katniss forever, a discarded knitting basket remaining as a reminder, but Greasy Sae’s granddaughter is there to take the wool instead.
Katniss and Peeta are both terribly scarred, physically and psychologically, by their experiences in the arenas and the war. But they are able to go on, and survive the pain. Katniss describes the way she copes with her moments of terror and pain: “I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do.”
Katniss Everdeen can survive her darkness because she understands the same truth that’s expressed in that graffiti in Palestine. Her heart is a weapon, and the way to keep fighting against all the horror and cruelty of the world is to wield that weapon. To keep loving.
MARY BORSELLINO is a writer who lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest books are the acclaimed Wolf House series. Her website is http://www.maryborsellino.com and her email is [email protected]. She likes punk rock, cups of tea, and clever
Love is the greatest strength any of the characters have going for them, but is also their greatest weakness. President Snow was able to coerce Finnick into sexual slavery by threatening to hurt those that Finnick loved if he didn’t comply.
Yet the alternative—to have nobody you love—is infinitely worse than being made vulnerable by love. Johanna Mason explains in Catching Fire that there is nobody left whom she loves, and that this renders the jabberjays in the arena unable to hurt her through mimicking screams, though her meltdown during training in Mockingjay shows that even someone who loves nobody can still be wounded terribly by the Capitol.
When Peeta and Katniss are each wounded, just as deeply as Johanna, they have the other there to help them on the slow and rocky path to recovery. Johanna is no less damaged for her lack of love, but she doesn’t have anyone to help her back afterwards.
Like Johanna, neither Snow nor Coin indicate at any point in the Hunger Games that there is anyone or any thing that they themselves love. But both think that they understand what a powerful force love is, and both do their best to wield this power for their own evil ends.
In each case, however, their efforts backfire: by making Katniss emphasize her love story in Catching Fire , Snow does more to incite the rebellion against his Capitol than Katniss could have achieved on her own. And Coin, in attempting to reinstate the Hunger Games as a method of offering revenge to the districts, seals the death warrant on her regime and her self. The woman who views marriage as a reassignment of living quarters cannot anticipate the steadfast core of Katniss’ compassion. She nor Snow ever really understand love at all.
So what can we take from the stories of Winston and Julia, of Valerie, of Katniss and Peeta? Why does George Orwell end his
love story with the lovers broken and defeated? Why does writer Alan Moore kill off the defiant Valerie? And, with these grim precedents in place, why does Suzanne Collins then decide to give Katniss and Peeta a fragile, scarred, but undeniably happy ending?
The answer may come from the connection Peeta and Katniss share to the land of District 12. The first time Katniss sees Peeta again, he is gardening, and it is the fearlessness Katniss feels in the wild that allowed her to survive her first trip to the Arena. Katniss and Peeta are both linked to the natural world, and in the natural world even the worst of winters is followed by a spring.
The epilogue of Mockingjay shows Katniss watching her children play in the Meadow, now green and lush once again. New life grows, even in graveyards. Rue’s funeral song is able to become a child’s simple tune once more. There are losses to mourn, but also children to love: Prim and her mother have both left Katniss forever, a discarded knitting basket remaining as a reminder, but Greasy Sae’s granddaughter is there to take the wool instead.
Katniss and Peeta are both terribly scarred, physically and psychologically, by their experiences in the arenas and the war. But they are able to go on, and survive the pain. Katniss describes the way she copes with her moments of terror and pain: “I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do.”
Katniss Everdeen can survive her darkness because she understands the same truth that’s expressed in that graffiti in Palestine. Her heart is a weapon, and the way to keep fighting against all the horror and cruelty of the world is to wield that weapon. To keep loving.
MARY BORSELLINO is a writer who lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest books are the acclaimed Wolf House series. Her website is http://www.maryborsellino.com and her email is [email protected]. She likes punk rock, cups of tea, and clever
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