The Hunger Games

           This week I learned about Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. For my assignment, I had to choose a book and explain all of these parts within the book. I chose The Hunger Games, and of course, I will start with exposition, or the beginning and introduction.

          The beginning of The Hunger Games begins with a little bit about the main character’s sister, Prim, and her mother. The main character’s name is Katniss Everdeen. The book explains that Katniss is a good hunter and it also introduces Gale, her best friend. There is a brief introduction of District Twelve, the district in which Katniss and her family and friends live, and how the country is divided into districts. It explains why the Hunger Games were started. There continue to be portions of the story that discuss Katniss’ past and her family throughout the book.

          The rising action takes up the majority of The Hunger Games. It begins with the Reaping, which is when Prim is chosen as a tribute to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are an annual sacrifice from each of the districts as a punishment for a revolution against the capital in the past. When Prim is chosen, Katniss volunteers to take her place. Peeta Melark, and his backstory, are then introduced into the story as he is chosen as the male tribute. Both Katniss and Peeta get on the train headed for the capital.

          On the train, and upon their arrival to the capital, some important characters are introduced. These include the stylists, Cinna and Portia; the master of ceremony, Caesar Flickerman; Effie Trinket, who the reader has already met during the Reaping; and Haymitch, who has been assigned to Katniss and Peeta as a mentor. Other secondary characters are introduced throughout their time in the capital. These include the Avox girl and some of the other tributes, such as Glimmer, Cato, Clove, Foxface, Thresh, and Rue.

           Next, the capital holds the opening ceremony, which is a type of chariot show. Then the tributes begin training on fighting and standard survival skills to help them during the games. Each tribute is rated, and Caesar Flickerman interviews them so the people watching the games can get to know the characters. During the interview is when the romance starts and Peeta says he has a crush on Katniss.

          Finally, the games begin. Thirteen children die in the beginning and Katniss learns that Peeta has teamed up with the careers (kids from districts 1 and 2 who train at a special academy until they are 18, then they volunteer, and they usually win). The story is very exciting as Katniss struggles to survive…there is a fire, Katniss drops a Tracker Jacker (very poisonous wasp) nest on the careers, she blows up the career’s food, and she finds Peeta and helps him. The powerful people in the capital that control the Hunger Games decide the games aren’t as exciting as they wanted, so they hold a feast in the middle of the arena to draw all the remaining tributes in so they can fight each other. Throughout this time Glimmer, Rue, the boy from district 3, the boy from district 1, the boy from district 10, Clove, Foxface, and Thresh all die. Now there is only Peeta, Katniss, and Cato still alive. There is also an announcement saying that there may be two winners if they come from the same district.

           Next is the climax, or the “big part” in the book. It begins with Katniss and Peeta going after Cato, who is the most dangerous of all the tributes. As they are searching for him, they see Cato running out of the woods. Katniss and Peeta prepare to fight, and Katniss shoots at him, but the arrow just bounces back. He has some kind of bodyshield or something protecting him. To their surprise, Cato runs right past them. Running out of the woods after him are doglike creatures called mutts. Katniss and Peeta obviously start running too, and climb up the giant cornucopia that held all the weapons at the beginning of the games.

           At this point, there is one mutt trying to climb the cornucopia, and there is something strange about it. It has bright green eyes and orangish colored fur. There is something about the eyes that reminds Katniss of Foxface. She looks around and notices that all of the mutts were the tributes of the games. The powerful people from the capital had engineered the mutts from the tributes that had been killed.

           Katniss turns around and sees Cato choking Peeta. She knows that if she shoots her arrow, it will kill both of them. While Cato is threatening Katniss, Peeta scratches an x on Cato’s hand. Cato realizes what it means a second after Katniss does. She shoots the arrow straight into Cato’s hand. He lets go of Peeta and falls off the horn, becoming dinner to the mutts, but there is no cannon that signifies a tribute’s death. Katniss shoots another arrow into the group of mutts. Finally, the cannon booms, and Cato is dead.

           Now is the falling action, bringing everything back down to the beginning. Another announcement is made, saying that the previous announcement that there may be two winners if from the same district, has been canceled, and there can only be one winner. Peeta draws his knife and starts walking toward Katniss. She pulls out her bow and aims it at his heart. He drops the knife and tells her to kill him, but she refuses.

           Then Katniss pulls out the poisonous berries that they used to kill Foxface and puts some in each of their hands. The capital didn’t need to have their winner. As soon as they are about to pop the berries into their mouths, there is the echoing “STOP!!!’’. “Ladies and gentleman, I present the winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games!” Katniss and Peeta had forced the game makers to declare them both winners!

           After they leave the hunger games arena, they go back to their apartment. While they are there, Hamitch tells Katniss to look as innocent as possible, because the capital is very angry with her standing up against them.

            Now is the resolution, or the ending of the book. Usually the ending is short, and sometimes you cannot tell the difference between the falling action and the resolution. For The Hunger Games, the resolution is Katniss and Peeta getting crowned as victors and going home to District Twelve.

            The Hunger Games is a great book. I think it contains these five parts of a book very well. In the exposition, it tells about Katniss and her family. The rising action is building up to the climax, which in this case is telling about her adventures in the Hunger Games arena. The Climax is the “big part” in the book, or the part in the book to which the story has been building. In this book, the climax happens when Katniss and Peeta kill Cato and both become winners. Then there is the falling action which brings everything back down to almost the beginning. This is when they are getting ready to go home. Finally, is the resolution, or the ending of the book, which in this case, is them going back home.

            I cannot wait to learn more about the plot of books, so maybe I will be able to understand them better and become a better writer myself.