One key feature of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins that differentiates the book from other popular young adult novels is the female main character: Katniss. Unlike series such as Percy Jackson or Harry Potter, this novel highlights the female experience. While The Hunger Games is a novel for people of all genders, Collins creates a unique and inspiring experience for young girls by centering the story on such a powerful female character.
Collins reverses gender roles in her novel through Peeta and Katniss, offering an uncommon depiction of femininity. She creates Katniss to be the opposite of fragile. “At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, [Katniss takes] over as head of the family” (27). She hunts and provides for her family, risking her life to bring home necessities while her mother is mentally absent. She wields a bow and arrow like no other. She doesn’t trust anyone, not even Peeta. The idea that he does things out of his own good will and not to deceive her “pulls [her] up short” (49). Katniss plays the role in her family that a man would usually play, filling in for her father. Peeta, on the other hand, is very gentle and caring. He takes on what would usually be stereotypically female traits. He bakes bread, decorates cakes, and loves gently. Collins also reverses the gendered stereotypes of these characters by having the boy be smitten with the girl instead of the other way around. By switching up the gendered traits of these characters, Collins gives young female readers a different interpretation of femininity. To be feminine is to be powerful and dominating. One does not need to be a man to wield a weapon skillfully. This reversal of gender roles is particularly significant to girls as it has been common throughout history to limit women and discourage them from having a fighting spirit. Thus in reading the novel, girls are able to see themselves in Katniss and feel strong in their femininity.
Collins draws this idea of strong femininity out further by highlighting the motherly characteristics of Katniss. Katniss views Primrose and Rue almost like her own children. She provides for them and cares for them lovingly, but when they are in danger, she defends them like a bear does her cubs. Katniss admits that Primrose might be the only person she can truly say she loves. “The anguish [Katniss] always [feels] when [Primrose is] in pain wells up in [her] chest and threatens to register on [her] face” (15) even despite Katniss’s ability to hide her emotions. When Primrose is selected as tribute, Katniss volunteers herself without hesitation as soon as she recovers from the shock. This differs from when Peeta, the youngest out of his siblings, is selected, and none of his brothers volunteer. Katniss is willing to give up her life to save Primrose. Additionally, when Katniss finds Rue caught by the boy from District 1, he “dies before he can pull out the spear” (233). Katniss shoots him in the neck and immediately looks around for others to fight. The boy is her first human kill, but it isn’t until later that she realizes. She has no hesitation to kill another when it comes to defending Rue. Collins highlights Katniss’s motherlike tendencies when it comes to protecting those she cares for, emphasizing that there is nothing more fierce than a mother’s love.
Katniss embodies all that is strong about femininity. She’s clever, relentless, caring, and passionate. Through the novel, Collins gives girls an uplifting experience by putting forth a message of female empowerment, showing that girls can not only put up a fight, but win.
I agree with you in that Collins makes her story unique from other novels in the same genre by creating a dominating female heroine. Most young adult fiction books of this sort primarily focus on a male main character. There are far more stories with men as main characters, than there are women, which can be giving off a misleading message to both young men and women. It gives off the message to women that men are the "all-powerful" ones, and gives a message to men that women are inferior to them. The Hunger Games serves as an example to young readers that females can be leaders too, and that just because an individual is a female, does not mean that they do not possess the tough and strong qualities that readers so often associate with men. The novel is inspiring, and shows that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can do anything you set your mind to. By having Katniss take on the patriarchal role in her family, Collins also shows that women are just as capable of providing and being the breadwinners of their own family's, despite the stereotype that the providers are always men.
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