The theme of identity, and how identity is colored by perception, come up often over the course of the novel. In chapter 10, after Peeta confessed to loving Katniss in his interview, Haymitch tells Katniss that “It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived” (Collins, 164). For the people of the capital, the games are a form of entertainment. Because they feel separated from the contestants’ humanity, the games cause the tributes’ identities to be changed and warped.
Later in chapter 10, Peeta voices his worry of losing his personhood, losing control over who he is, saying, "I don't know how to say it exactly. Only…I want to die as myself. … I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not…. I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games” (Collins, 172).
Peeta’s ruminations touch on the theme of identity, and how the way other people see you often change how you see yourself, going as far as to change the way you act. While in the Games, every tribute is acutely aware of how they are being watched, from the manipulation of the environment to the appearance of gifts from sponsors. This knowledge of how they are actively being dehumanized, how their identities are being seen from the Capitol, puts them at risk of losing those identities.
Katniss does not understand Peeta at this point in the novel, but after her encounter with Rue and Rue’s death, she comes to the same conclusion, while echoing Peeta’s words, “I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do that there is a part of every tribute they can't own. That Rue was more than a piece in their Games. And so am I” (Collins, 286).
Katniss goes on to surround Rue’s body in flowers in a kind of funeral. This is an act of grief, a distinctly human emotion. This act works to remind the audience of the hunger games that the tributes are human, that they have identities all their own that cannot be taken, even in death.
I agree that identity is a major part of this novel, and that Katniss and Peeta taking back their own identities was the greatest act of defience they could acheive. Earlier in the novel, as the tributes are introduced to the capital via Caesar Flickerman's show, they each present distinct personas, and the reason that their traits will help them win, such as "the monstrous boy from District 2" who is "a ruthless killing machine" or "the fox-faced girl from District 5" who is "sly and elusive" (125). However, these are simply characters that they have made up to play into the capital's drama, a bare minimum glance at their true personalities, and easily made to be expendible; it boils them down to just one thing, and makes them less like people and more like fictional characters.
ReplyDeleteBy showing Rue's death in a new light, showing her surrounded by flowers and amplifying her youth and humanity, Katniss rewrites her character, she is a child, innocent, and her death is not just a point towards the end of the games, it is seen as it should be seen, as a tragedy.