Comparing Prim and Rue

Suzanne Collins compares Rue and Prim throughout The Hunger Games. Both have meaningful relationships with Katniss, the main character of the novel, and the two little girls impact her performance in the Hunger Games. While in the arena of the games, Rue gives Katniss a sense of security because she reminds her of Prim. However, the differences between the two are also highlighted.

Prim is Katniss’s little sister. She means a great deal to Katniss, considering she says that Prim “is the only person in the world I’m certain I love” (10). She does her best to protect Prim by providing food for her through hunting and tesserae withdrawals. Katniss believes that the only thing she cannot defend Prim against is the reaping, which forces a boy and a girl from a district to compete in the Hunger Games. However, she disproves this belief when she volunteers to go in Prim’s place. Katniss would rather be killed than know she let Prim die without trying to save her. In the games, Katniss receives motivation from thinking about Prim back at home and her promise to try to win the Hunger Games for her.

In the games, Katniss forms an alliance with Rue, who is a twelve-year-old from another district. When they meet, Katniss immediately thinks of Prim. The two are similar in their demeanor, and she notes that “Rue is a small yellow flower that grows in the Meadow. Rue. Primrose. Neither of them could tip the scale at seventy pounds soaking wet” (99). She interacts playfully with her new alliance member, similar to the way she does with Prim. Katniss also remembers how unlike Prim, Rue had no one to volunteer for her in the reaping and take her place. The greatest difference between Rue and Prim is Rue’s fighting spirit. When Katniss discusses a plan in the games with Rue, “You can see the glint of excitement in her eyes. In this way, she’s exactly the opposite of Prim, for whom adventures are an ordeal” (210). Unlike Prim, Katniss is unable to save Rue. This is why she has such a difficult time dealing with Rue’s death. She wishes she could do something to save Rue, as she does with Prim. In her grief, Katniss mixes the two when she says, “but if this is Prim’s, I mean, Rue’s last request, I have to at least try,” proving she thinks of Prim and Rue similarly (234).

Katniss’s love for Prim translates into her love for Rue. Like her promise with Prim, Katniss makes a promise to win the games for Rue. She remembers “I told Rue I’d be there…And somehow that seems even more important than the vow I gave Prim” (242). Katniss’s vow motivates herself to win the Hunger Games. Without her internal motivation from Prim, and her desire to avenge Rue’s death, it is unlikely she would have survived the games. This emphasizes the importance of Rue and Prim in the novel.