Who Are You Betting On?

Author's Note- This is my District Writing Assessment essay, which I wrote on how the poverty Katniss grew up in ended up helping her win the Hunger Games, and how she used it to her advantage.  Please comment!

 

In the bloody, televised battle to the death between 24 teenagers, also commonly known as the Hunger Games, only one can survive.  Only one can win.  So who, out of all of them, would you bet your money on?  Would you choose the violent to the core, iron-muscled, sword-wielding Career from District One, who's been training for this battle since he could walk?  Or the scrawny, misfit girl from dirt-poor District 12, the helpless victim, who hasn't an ounce of meat on her body?  Well, it doesn't really take a rocket-scientist to figure this one out…or does it?  True, the Careers have been training for this their entire life--but technically, haven't the tributes of District 12 been training, too?

Take, for example, Katniss Everdeen, the female District 12 tribute of the 74th Annual Hunger Games.  Her father died in a terrible mining explosion when she was 11 years old, thrusting her family down a cold and lonely path, leaving them practically empty-handed and slowly starving them to death.  Hmm…practically empty handed and starving to death…sounds a whole lot like the Hunger Games to me, don't you think?  Katniss had to pull herself out of her despair so that she could save her family from the imminent death they were heading towards.  She had to be the strong one of the family, be the one who finds the food, who goes to the market and does the bargaining.  She had to take the place of her father, with absolutely no help from her mom.  Alongside Gale, she learned to hunt.  She learned how to make a snare, she learned how to shoot a bow and arrow.  She learned which plants can be eaten and which can kill with but a single bite.  She, more than anyone in the entire arena, knows how to survive.  She's had experience. 

But surprisingly, that's not the only way poverty has aided her.  Although she doesn't have much fat on her body to sustain her should she go hungry, she knows firsthand how to handle hunger pains.  She's not going to be that tribute that starves to death because after a day or two, she can't take the agony and gorges on all her food, then can't find any more.  The ones who grow up with little food know how to make a pack of crackers last a lot longer than the children who drink an elixir that causes them to vomit just so they can eat more.

And her unprepossessing background gives her more advantages still.  It puts her in the position of the underdog. Sometimes, not being one of the Careers is a good thing.  Being a Career makes you the top competitor, the one to beat.  And although all the Careers all have their alliance in the beginning, as they progress further into the competition, they start to turn on each other.  There's always someone trying to beat them.  As the underdog, the farther-out districts have the advantage because they don't pose as a threat, so no one's really hunting for them specifically in the beginning, unless they did something to tick off a Career.  They have the element of surprise--no one really pays attention to them, because they're labeled as a spare, who can be easily taken care of, and then all of a sudden, they've snuck into the top five, and then the top three.  The tributes of the outer districts are simply underestimated.

Although it's a horrible part of our world, even poverty has its silver lining, especially when it comes to the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  It gives even the ruffians of District 12 something to hope for--and if they play their cards right and think on their feet, like Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch did, it can reward them with survival in the deadliest battle they've ever fought.  If they know how to use their survival skills and underdog ranking to their abilities, even the weak can emerge victorious.