The Hunger Games

Chapter #1 summary

     Katniss Everdeen. The area where she and her family live is called the Seam, and it’s part of District 12. They are at the edge of the district, which is enclosed by a high fence, and Katniss often crawls under the fence and enters the woods outside, where she forages and hunts. Though trespassing in the woods and poaching are illegal, nobody pays attention, and Katniss even sells meat to the Peacekeepers who are supposed to enforce the laws. Most people in the district, she explains, don’t have enough food.

    Katniss returns homeone day, and after she gets ready, goes with her mother and Prim to the town square. That’s where the reaping, which is televised and treated like a festive event, takes place in their district.

    In the square, the mayor gives a speech that provides the history of the Hunger Games. Struck by droughts, storms, rising seas, and other natural problems, North America essentially dissolved, and the country of Panem rose up in its place. Panem was formed of a Capitol and thirteen districts, but the districts eventually rebelled. The Capitol defeated the districts, with the thirteenth being so badly destroyed that it ceased to exist. To punish the districts and remind them of their powerlessness, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games, in which a male and female “tribute” between twelve and eighteen from each district must fight to the death in a large outdoor arena. The tribute that survives wins, and that tribute’s district receives extra food. Haymitch Abernathy, one of only two people from District 12 to win the Hunger Games and the only one still living, comes out on stage. He is drunk and tries to hug Effie Trinket, a public figure who acts as an escort to District 12’s tributes. Effie Trinket then draws the name of the first tribute: Primrose Everdeen.

    In my opinion the first chapter is too tragic, but I love it. I think that the author want to show the condition of the day by day life in any district, before she shows the place where the protagonist go. She use cause/effect organization.