Wednesday 5 February 2014

District Twelve.

District Twelve is one of the most important districts in The Hunger Games. It's where our protagonists Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark live. It is also the poorest district in the nation of Panem, with a population of around 8000 people. 


Katniss lives in the poorest part of the district; the Seem. It's were all the coal miners live and it is incredibly hard to find food here. It's the most impoverished area, where there is much death as a result of starvation.
Children from 12 are also more likely to sign up for tessera. After you sign up, you receive tokens for a years supply of oil and grain, and you can sign for every member of your family. However, every time you sign up for tesserae, your name is added additional times to the reaping; and its cumulative. Katniss has taken out tesserae for every member of her family since she was 12, which means that by the 74th Games, there are 20 slips of paper with her name on them. This happens a lot with kids from the seem, for every 1 person that takes out terresa from District 1, there are 800 kids from 12.
Katniss's father taught her how to hunt before he died and she is incredibly skilled with a bow and arrow, she is able to catch squirrels, pheasants, and sometimes even larger game that she is able to bring home for her family, or to sell in 12's black market - The Hob. Katniss's father was the breadwinner in the family, and after he died in a coal mining accident when she was just 11 years old, Katniss had to step into the role of sole provider for her family. 
Knowing the dangers of his job and the fact that many children in the Seem die of starvation, Mr Everdeen tries to equip Katniss with the knowledge she would need in order to survive. Both Katniss and her sister Primrose were given their names for a specific reason. Both are edible plants, that are easily recognised and enough to sustain them.
I knelt down in the water, my fingers digging into the roots. Small, bluish tubers that don’t look like much but boiled or baked are as good as any potato. “Katniss,” I said aloud. It’s the plant I was named for. And I heard my father’s voice joking, “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve.” (4.22)

 Peeta is from the Merchant Village, his family own a bakery and so he has never had to struggle for food the way other people in this district have. He and Katniss are in completely different classes in society; while the Mellarks are far from wealthy they have never been on the brink of starvation the way Katniss and her family have been. 
Katniss’ ability to hunt is essential to her survival. If she did not have these skills, there is a high probability that she may have starved to death, like many other children do in 12.  Hunting is forbidden, and is an offence that Katniss could be shot for. However, it is also her only chance of survival due to the lack of food and complete poverty in 12.

Works Cited:
Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2010. Print.

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