Hunger was Katniss Everdeen’s worst nightmare, creeping up behind her and pouncing, instantly shattering her peaceful life and challenging her abilities to support her family by herself. Discover how she overcomes hunger and her personal arsenal of character strengths which allows her to survive even in the most treacherous of situations. ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins depicts Katniss Everdeen’s fight and her triumph over the Capital, Panem. We all know her as the myth the legend, the girl who won the Hunger Games, the girl on fire, Katniss Everdeen, but little do we know about her agonizing struggles in poverty.
Entirely unwitnessed, the perseverance of Katniss Everdeen’s phenomenal skills of poverty in District 12. She was completely pushed to the very edge of starvation, basically a dead man walking and her remarkable fight to get food on the table, all for the sake of her family. Her skills of survival are unbelievable but is Katniss Everdeen’s knowledge of survival in poverty all she has, or does she have more skills up her sleeves?
The truth in fact is actually through her fabulous character strengths, perseverance, and bravery, allowing her to defeat her worst enemy, starvation. 3 months after her father’s death, Katniss Everdeen was at her all time low, crying relentlessly. “Where are you? Where have you gone?” (pg. 32). Clouding her head, nonstop thoughts about her father’s death from a mining accident. Was all hope lost or could Katniss somehow persevere through?
Katniss Everdeen had not only lost her father but also a mother as well to the dark slithers of sadness and grieving. With no food left or money, Katniss utilized her marvelous character strengths by not accepting defeat to poverty but instead, persevering and not allowing herself or Prim to end up in the community home. The sight of the dandelion (pg. 38) reminded her of the times she had gone hunting with her father in the woods, giving her enough courage and bravery to illegally poach and survive (pg. 39). Poaching and ownership of a bow came with the most severe of punishments, including public executions, however Katniss did not back down to the rules or punishments. She showed her bravery as she persevered after her father’s death and found a way to get food on the table no matter what.
To overcome starvation, Katniss had to poach illegally from the woods every-day to supply enough food for her family. Unfortunately, poaching wasn’t enough to keep her family well fed. Katniss ignored her fear of being forced into a 24-person deathmatch and counted her days before she could legally get tesserae (pg. 15) and risked her life all for the sake of her family. By the age of 16 she had her name entered into the reaping twenty times, severely increasing her chances of getting forced into the Hunger Games.
“Starvation’s not an uncommon fate in district 12” (pg. 33) as poverty is the main issue. Katniss’s struggles faced through poverty is like what many people suffer from to, starving to death as they ravage for food desperately like Katniss as she desperately tried to find food in the baker’s bin (pg. 35). About 9 million people die from starvation every year, therefore depicting how common poverty and starvation is. However, Katniss managed to use her life saving character strengths perseverance and bravery to overcome the struggles of living in poverty.