Healing in MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Colllins

SPOILER ALERT

MOCKINGJAY is the third and final book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy.

OVERVIEW

After the Quarter Quell, Katniss finds herself in District 13 with her mother, Prim, Gail, Haymitch, and Finnick. Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria have been captured by the Capitol, but eventually District 13 is able to rescue Peeta and Johanna.

It quickly becomes apparent that Peeta has been hijacked by the Capitol, meaning that his memories of Katniss have been altered and entwined with fear. When Peeta is reunited with Katniss in District 13, he shocks everyone by springing at Katniss and attempting to strangle her. Peeta is treated by the medical team in District 13 and eventually reaches a point where he can begin to separate his real memories from the memories altered by the Capitol.

The rebel districts succeed in overthrowing the Capitol, but not without great loss of life on both sides. Prim and Finnick are among the dead. Alma Coin, the President of District 13, becomes President of Panem, but Katniss kills her because Coin's way of staying in power is too similar to that of the cold and calculating President Snow, who was President of Panem for decades.

Katniss finally returns to District 12, where she marries Peeta. Katniss and Peeta eventually have two children in the new and more gentle world that has emerged from the overthrow of the Capitol.

A STEP TOWARD HEALING--ASKING

When one has been out of touch with reality, it is helpful to ask a trusted person for help. Peeta does this as he tries to sort out which of his memories are real and which have been hijacked. He states what his memory is telling him, and then asks, "Real or not real?" The trusted person's answer helps him reconnect with reality.

Peeta's reconnection with reality reminds me that there are different ways to frame what happens to us. The way we frame what happens to us creates our reality. People we trust can suggest different frames. For example, two frames through which illness has been viewed are (1) that illness is a punishment from God and (2) that illness comes from natural physical causes, such as germs or aged-related degeneration.

FURTHER STEPS TOWARD HEALING

Healing of trauma is possible, but it isn't always complete. Perhaps it is never complete. But life can go on and can bring joy.

Katniss and Peeta marry and have two children. Twenty years after the defeat of the Capitol and the end of the Hunger Games, Peeta still sometimes has flashbacks, and Katniss still sometimes has nightmares. But Peeta and Katniss also take joy in each other, in their children, in their friends, in their memory book, and in nature. They know that the flashbacks and nightmares won't ever completely go away. But that's okay.

On some days, Katniss says that "it feels impossible to  take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away" (page 390). When Katniss feels this way, she says, "I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do" (page 390).

A catalog of goodness, a catalog of gratitude--this is a wonderful healing idea. I think Katniss is saying: I will anchor myself in the reality of goodness as this temporary wave of despair washes over me.

OVERALL

Here are the ways that Katniss and Peeta find healing:

• Asking trusted people for reality checks
• Mentally cataloguing goodness and gratitude
• Recognizing feelings of despair, including flashbacks and nightmares, as the temporary waves that they are--waves of despair in an ocean of goodness
• Anchoring in the reality of goodness when a temporary wave of despair arises
• Taking delight in each other, their children, their friends
• Keeping the memory book of the beloved dead: Prim, Katniss' father, Peeta's father, Cinna, Finnick, Boggs, and so many others
• Spending time outdoors in nature

Courage in CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

SPOILER ALERT

Courage is a prominent theme in CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins. Here are some of the ways that we see courage in this second book of the Hunger Games Trilogy.

CHOOSING THE COMMON GOOD

What does one choose when one's individual good and the common good are in conflict? An extremely individualistic culture like that of the United States would say to choose one's own good, but a more community-oriented culture would say to choose the common good.

Choosing the common good springs from the idea that no one is free unless everyone is free, and no one is safe unless everyone is safe. By safe, I mean safe from violence, such as harassment, attack, and robbery. The decision to keep oneself safe produces anxiety -- one must be always on alert to safeguard one's well-being. The decision to work for the safety of all produces more peace -- one is not alone but benefits from the support of others. 

In CATCHING FIRE, Katniss and the other tributes make decisions based on the common good.

• DECISION TO STAY. Katniss is faced with the decision to run away from District 12 and save herself and her loved ones OR to stay and be part of the revolution against the Capitol. She chooses to stay.
• PLEDGE TO DIE. Tributes from other districts, specifically Districts 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11, have pledged to die in the arena if necessary to save Katniss, the symbol and igniting spark of the revolution. To save Katniss, Peeta must be saved, too. The elderly Mags of District 4 voluntarily walks to her death in the poisonous fog so that Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick can save themselves without having to carry her. The woman morphling addict from District 6 throws herself in front of Peeta to absorb the vicious monkey's deadly attack, saving Peeta but dying herself. These tributes are willing to die to support the districts' revolution and the common good it will bring.

As a caveat, I will add that choosing the common good can be overdone. Women have traditionally been subject to this with the idea that a woman's entire life must be sacrificed in servitude to her family. This is quite different from standing one's ground as a contributing member of society in situations when doing so calls for sacrifice.

FEELING TERROR AND CHOOSING COURAGE

Courage is most vibrant in the face of terror. Katniss' courage involves acting bravely while feeling terror, particularly when faced with the poisonous fog. The terror is there, but Katniss does not act on it. She feels the terror but chooses courage. Here is how Katniss' feelings and decision are described:

 A terrible impulse to flee, to abandon Peeta and save myself, shoots through me. It would be so simple, to run full out, perhaps to even climb a tree above the fog line, which seems to top out at about forty feet. I remember how I did just this when the muttations appeared in the last Games. Took off and only thought of Peeta when I'd reached the Cornucopia. But this time, I trap my terror, push it down, and stay by his side. (pages 298-299)

HAYMITCH'S KINDNESS IN THE SECOND QUARTER QUELL

Haymitch was the victor of the second Quarter Quell (the fiftieth Hunger Games), in which there were twice as many tributes as usual. Katniss and Peeta, in preparation for the third Quarter Quell, watch videos of previous Hunger Games, including the one with Haymitch.

Haymitch forms an alliance with a girl tribute from District 12 named Maysilee Donner. When Maysilee is fatally injured by attacking birds, Haymitch stays with her and comforts her as she dies.

It takes courage to show compassion in the arena. It is so important to be thinking every moment of one's own safety. After all, there will be only one victor -- everyone else must die. How could it possibly help Haymitch to spend time comforting a dying tribute? Yet Haymitch chooses kindness and courage. He stays to ease Maysilee's passage out of this world.

OVERALL THOUGHT: Carefully consider the common good.

Overview of CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

SPOILER ALERT

CATCHING FIRE is the second book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy. CATCHING FIRE focuses on the third Quarter Quell, an especially intense version of the Hunger Games that occurs every twenty-five years. The seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games is thus the third Quarter Quell.

CATCHING FIRE opens with Katniss and Peeta, victors of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, going on their victory tour. Half-way between each Hunger Games, the previous year's victor is required to participate in a victory tour, visiting each district and the Capitol. This keeps the Hunger Games in the forefront of the districts' minds and forces the districts to celebrate the victor of the Games in which their own children were killed. The victory tour of Katniss and Peeta reveals that several of the districts are on the verge of rebelling against the Capitol.

Most of CATCHING FIRE is devoted to the seventy-fifth Hunger Games, or the third Quarter Quell. In the first Quarter Quell (the twenty-fifth Hunger Games), the districts were required to vote on the boy and girl tribute rather than have them chosen by lot. In the second Quarter Quell (the fiftieth Hunger games), each district was required to send twice as many tributes, so that there were two boy and two girl tributes from each of the twelve districts. This was the year that Katniss and Peeta's mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, became victor.

For the third Quarter Quell, the tributes are reaped, not from the pool of all 12- to 18-year-old boys and girls in each district, but from the pool of existing victors in each district. In District 12, Katniss is the only living female tribute, and Peeta and Haymitch are the only living male tributes. Katniss inevitably becomes the female tribute from District 12, and when Haymitch's name is drawn in the Reaping, Peeta volunteers to take his place. So Katniss and Peeta are forced to participate in the Hunger Games two years in a row.

The arena for the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games is perfectly round. Upon being raised into the arena, the tributes find themselves standing on metal plates surrounded by water. They must swim to an island in the middle of the arena.

It becomes apparent that the arena is a clock. A different horror is triggered, hour by hour, in each succeeding wedge of the clock, beginning with an electric storm at midnight and at noon. Other hours trigger a poisonous fog, attacks by vicious monkeys, jabberjays screaming torturously in the voices of the tributes' loved ones, a bloody wave, clicking insects, and some sort of beast that tears its prey to pieces.

Katniss and Peeta form an alliance with Beetee of District 3, Finnick Odair of District 4, and Johanna Mason of District 7. Two other members of the alliance, Wiress of District 3 and Mags of District 4, are killed. Unexpectedly, a hovercraft appears on Day 3 and rescues Katniss, Beetee, and Finnick. Peeta and Johanna are captured by the Capitol, along with the one other surviving tribute, Enobaria of District 2.

Upon being rescued, Katniss, Beetee, and Finnick are taken to District 13, which really does exist, after all. Katniss learns that District 12 has been destroyed by the Capitol. Those who survived from District 12, including Gale, are now living in District 13.

Reflections on THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

SPOILER ALERT

My previous post gives an overview of THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. This post will give my reponse to this novel.

PAGE TURNER. This book is a real page turner. I found that I could hardly put it down. Many of the chapters end with an unexpected twist that compels one to keep reading.

ACTION AND RELATIONSHIPS. While the action in THE HUNGER GAMES is of great interest, the personal relationships are highly interesting, too. The other tributes are not just targets to be killed, but persons with lives and families and interests. Katniss and Rue, the slight twelve-year-old girl tribute from District 11 (the agricultural district), develop a brief but intense relationship that leaves Katniss grief-stricken when Rue is killed. Katniss also admires Thresh, the burly boy tribute from District 11, who spares her life because of her kindness to Rue and who plays the Hunger Games on his own terms -- by disengaging from the fray, hiding in the tall meadow grasses, and using his survival skills. Katniss is truly sad when Thresh is killed by Cato, the vicious boy tribute from District 2.

TECHNOLOGY. The technology of the Capitol is fascinating in itself, even though we often see it aimed against the districts. One area that the Capitol has developed extensively is genetic breeding of animals. Such animals are called muttations.

The jabberjay, for example, is a bird bred to spy on people in the districts. Jabberjays are exclusively male and have the ability to repeat entire human conversations. They would be sent out to the districts, would listen to what was being said, and would fly back to the Capitol and repeat the overheard conversations verbatim. The people in the districts soon caught on and began feeding back all sorts of nonsense to the Capitol through the jabberjays. The Capitol then realized that the jabberjays had become useless and released them into the wild, where it was believed that they would simply die off.

But here's the very cool thing. The jabberjays didn't die off as they were expected to do, being exclusively male. The Capitol hadn't counted on the jabberjays' drive toward life and reproduction. The jabberjays simply courted female mockingbirds, many of whom were happy to mate with them. The offspring of the male jabberjays and the female mockingbirds are called mockingjays. They do not have the ability to reproduce human speech, but they do have the ability to reproduce human melodies, even complex ones. When a human sings a lovely song, a mockingjay will often light on a nearby branch, cock its head, and listen intently. It reproduces the entire melody, which is often picked up by other mockingjays, so that the melody cascades through the trees. This is an absolutely gorgeous (and completely unintended) effect of the Capitol's abandonment of the jabberjays.

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE LIVES OF OTHERS. We often imagine that we know what others' lives are like. The reality, though, may be very different from what we imagine.

Katniss, for example, imagines that the people of District 11, the agricultural district, have enough to eat since they grow and harvest the food. But then she meets Rue in the Hunger Games and learns differently. Rue has rarely had enough to eat. The people of District 11 are severely punished for taking any of the harvest for themselves. Their Peacekeepers, as the law enforcers of Panem are called, are very strict and brutal, far more so than the Peacekeepers of District 12, who turn a blind eye to Katniss' hunting outside the boundaries of the district. The news that people in the agriculatural district are as hungry as the people in District 12 is an eye-opener for Katniss.

Katniss also assumes that Peeta, as the son of a baker, has enjoyed good bread and delicious pastry throughout his life, but she learns that this is not so. Delicious bakery items are luxuries reserved for rich customers. Peeta's family eats only stale bread, the bread that cannot be sold.

SILVER PARACHUTE. I love the silver parachute. During the Hunger Games, tributes sometimes receive gifts from their sponsors to help them survive. These arrive in a silver parachute. Katniss receives medicine for her burned leg, broth for Peeta when he is ill, and a loaf of bread from District 11 after she cares for little Rue -- each in a silver parachute. This is a lovely image of giving and receiving unexpected help.

DANDELION. When Katniss is eleven years old and nearly starving after her father's death in a mine explosion, Peeta throws her the lifeline of a simple loaf of bread. The next day, when she sees Peeta in the school yard, their eyes meet and then Katniss looks down -- and sees a dandelion. Free from hunger and thus able to think more clearly, Katniss' mind makes important connections. The dandelions are now out. So are other edible plants. Katniss, her little sister, and her depressed mother won't starve. Katniss can gather edible plants to keep them alive. She can revive her hunting skills in the forest just beyond the boundary of District 12. And in a few more weeks she will turn twelve years old and be eligible to sign up for rations of tessera.

OVERALL THOUGHTS. For me, these two thoughts stand out from Suzanne Collins' THE HUNGER GAMES.

• Notice the dandelions.
• Send silver parachutes.

Overview of THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

SPOILER ALERT 

I love THE HUNGER GAMES, the first novel in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. Once I began reading it, I couldn't put it down, and once I finished, I immediately delved into the second book and then the third book of the trilogy: CATCHING FIRE and MOCKINGJAY, respectively. This post will give an overview of THE HUNGER GAMES. My next post will describe my response to this book.

THE HUNGER GAMES is what's called a futuristic dystopia. Although the exact year of the story is not specified, I would place it somewhere between 2500 and 3000 C.E. The location is Panem, a country that has emerged from the former North America after the environmental catastrophes that we in the 20th and 21st Centuries have set in motion have run their course. This means that the land has endured extreme weather, famine, epidemics, and war. The sea level has also risen creating a reduced land mass. Now things have settled down, resulting in the country of Panem.

Panem consists of a Capitol with twelve surrounding districts. The people in the Capitol live in abundance: delicious and plentiful food, constant entertainment, lots of leisure, and great attention to body art. They are the haves. The people in the districts live at subsistence level, struggling to put together enough food, water, clothing, and shelter to support life. They are the have-nots.

Several generations ago (74 years ago, to be exact), the districts rose up in rebellion against the Capitol. The Capitol promptly crushed this rebellion and enacted measures to ensure that such a rebellion would never happen again. The chief of those measures is the annual Hunger Games.

Every year, each district is required to send two tributes, a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18, chosen by lot at a Reaping, to the Capitol to participate in the Hunger Games. The twenty-four tributes from the twelve districts are wined, dined, and feted, and are then sent into a large outdoor arena to fight to the death until one victor emerges. The arena, created by the Gamemakers, is acres large, usually with both forested and open spaces. The victor becomes wealthy for life, and the victor's district receives an abundance of food for a year.

In THE HUNGER GAMES, we experience the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, the girl tribute from District 12. Actually, it is the name of Katniss' twelve-year-old sister, Prim, that is drawn at the Reaping, but Katniss volunteers to take Prim's place. The boy tribute from District 12 is Peeta Mellarck.

Katniss comes from the Seam, the area of District 12 where the coal miners live. (Each district specializes in a product or service for the Capitol. District 12's specialty is coal mining.) District 12 is the poorest of the twelve districts, and the Seam is the poorest area of District 12.

Katniss' father was killed in a mining accident when Katniss was eleven years old. This sent Katniss' mother into a deep depression, leaving eleven-year-old Katniss and seven-year-old Prim to fend for themselves. Katniss somehow managed to take care of herself, Prim, and their mother through those dark months, although they sometimes went for days without anything to eat. As soon as Katniss turned twelve years old and was eligible to do so, she signed up for a tessera ration for herself, her sister, and her mother in exchange for entering her name three extra times in the Reaping. Tessera is an annual ration of grain and oil, distributed monthly. Katniss also remembered the time spent with her father in the forest and revived her ability to shoot with a bow and arrow and to hunt. By hunting and gathering in the forest with her male friend Gale, age eighteen, and by judicious trading on District 12's black market, Katniss is able to feed her family adequately.

Peeta comes from the business area of District 12. His father is a baker. Since Peeta comes from a family with a business, his life has not been as difficult as that of Katniss.

Peeta and Katniss share an important connection. After the death of Katniss' father and before she was old enough to sign up for tessera, she received unexpected help from Peeta. One evening, weak from hunger, she was hunting through the just-emptied trash bins behind the businesses of District 12 in the hope of finding some thrown-away food when Peeta threw her a loaf of bread with a burned crust. This was a turning point for Katniss. It gave her and her family hope, and this hope helped turn her thoughts toward wild plants she could gather until her approaching twelfth birthday and the tessera.

Peeta and Katniss both remember this incident, although neither has ever spoken of it. In fact, it turns out that Peeta has been in love with Katniss ever since he first set eyes on her in kindergarten.

So -- off go Katniss and Peeta to the Hunger Games. In my next post, I will write about my response to this book.