Valerie Estelle Frankel - Katniss the Cattail: An Unauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss

the

Cattail

An Unauthorized Guide toNames and Symbols in Suzanne Collins TheHunger Games

Valerie EstelleFrankel

COPYRIGHT

Katniss the Cattail: AnUnauthorized Guide to Names and Symbols in Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

2012 Valerie EstelleFrankel

SmashwordsEdition

Katniss the Cattail is an unauthorized guide to The Hunger Games series by SuzanneCollins. None of the individuals or companies associated with thisseries or any merchandise based on this series has in any waysponsored, approved, endorsed, or authorized this book.

First Edition2012

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As with series like Harry Potter , names havegreat significance in Suzanne Collinss books, temptinglyreferencing characters out of Shakespeare, myth, andAmerican life. The entries offered here provide a deeperunderstanding of the characters, along with their namesakes andliterary origins. There are Roman names and flower names, set asopposites in a world poised on revolution. There aremilitary names, echoing battles in our own history and theirlink to the battles of Panemhistory will never stop cycling. Someof the symbolism is simplistic on the surface but more deeplycomplex. Bread is a sacred food used to save lives and evenmake a marriage in District Twelve. It is also the meaning ofPanem, as Collins named her world after the spoiled Romans gluttedwith Bread and Circuses. Katniss becomes the Girl Who Was on Fire,but she is Cinnas creation, dressed like a doll in the earlybooks. Only with her flame arrows of Mockingjay does she truly embracethat role.

Districts 11 and 12offer nature names: The cat Buttercup; Galesmother Hazelle Hawthorne and her children Posy andGale; Rue, Thresh, Chaff, and Seeder from District 11; and ofcourse, Prim and Katniss. All these link the heroes to thesimplicity and bounty of the country, filled with the wholesomebeauty of nature. Some of the flower names, especiallyRue and Primrose, appear in Shakespeare with heavysymbolism.

By contrast, theCapitol is full of Roman names, echoing their obsessionwith heedless luxury: Claudius Templesmith, Cressida, Portia,Messalla, Fulvia, Romulus, Lavinia, Purnia, Titus, PlutarchHeavensbee, Coriolanus Snow. Theres Katnisss Prep Team:Flavius, Octavia, and Venia, headed by Cinna. And there are theCareer Tributes with Roman names to honor the Capitol:Cato, Brutus, and Enobaria, while names like Glimmer andMarvel show how valued and spoiled the Careers are.Shakespeares JuliusCaesar offers nine characters whoappear in the HungerGames series (Brutus, Cinna, Portia,Purnia, Flavius, Messala, Cato the Younger, Claudius, andCaesar himself). Shakespeares other Roman plays have at leastseven more, covering nearly all the Roman character names. TheRoman biographer Plutarch, too, wrote on many of the namedcharacters. Thus Collins casts the traitors from Shakespeareand history against Roman emperors and their allies, building aworld that echoes ancient Rome and those who defied it.

Its also important toremember the series is told from Katnisss point of view.Characters have prophetic or appropriate names, but they also havenames based on how Katniss perceivesthem. To Katniss, Gale is a strongwind of revolution, willing to blow down all in his path. ButPrim is a delicate flower needing protection. Peetas parentsand Katnisss parents, while major characters, never have theirfirst names revealed. Their function in the story is simply toexist and be left behind as their children grow into heroes.Ultimately, Katnisss own perceptions fuel the deeper meanings ofcharacters names within the series, even as they reflectcharacters from our own history.

Katniss is of course thecattail root, as she tells us. But it is a heavily nourishingplant, important to Katniss who sees herself as the provider forher family. Her entire life is devoted to nourishing, first as ahunter/gatherer, and then as the wealthy Victor of thegames.

Katniss describes her specialplant as tall with white blossoms and leaves like arrowheads( HG 52). Ofall the nourishing plants in the world, Katniss is probably themost arrowlikea perfect match for our heroine. She adds that theroots dont look like much, but are as nourishing as a potato( HG 52).Katniss, from District Twelve, likewise doesnt look like much, butshes just as good, it turns out, as any of the children fromthe wealthier districts.

The plants of the forest arepart of Katniss, so much so that the katniss roots give her hername. As long as you can find yourself, youll never starve, herfather teases ( HG 52). While this is literally true, Katniss survives bykeeping herself groundedremembering who she is and what she caresfor. Indeed, if she can find herself under so many costumes andidentities like the Mockingjay, she will survive. Though theCapitol trains its Tributes in brutality, encouragingthem to turn on each other, Katniss follows her instinctivecompassion and bonds with Rue and Peeta in the Games.This saves her in the end.

Elizabeth Baird Hardy,author of Milton, Spenser, and theChronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. LewisNovels has an interesting observation onthe katniss plant:

It is known as duck-potato,appropriate for someone whose sister always has a ducktailbut also as swan potato, wapatoo, tule potato, and, mostcommonly, as arrowhead, a name reflected in itsLatin monikerSagittaria (or belonging to an arrow; theconstellation Sagittarius, of course, is an archer).

Katniss name comes fromthe Zodiac sign of the archer (the sign for those born November 22 throughDecember 21) . Sagittarius, according toGreek myth, may have been the centaur Chiron, a kind and gentlefigure known for forest lore and for training young heroes.More scholarly sources link Sagittarius with Crotus, the satyr orhalf-goat man who dwelt deep in the forest. He was a greatmusician and tracker, inventor of thehunting bow (Crotus). Centaurs and satyrs are creaturesof nature and the forest, a link between man and animal,hunter and hunted. For both of these mythic figures,theres a clear link with Katniss.

Suzanne Collins notesthat Katniss Everdeen owes her last name to BathshebaEverdene, the lead character in Far fromthe Madding Crowd . The two are verydifferent, but both struggle with knowing their hearts (Jordan).In this classic novel by Thomas Hardy, Bathsheba Everdene iscourted by a rich landowner and by a poor shepherd whoproposes marriage when theyre equals but then ends up working forher. Katniss, too grows up equal to Gale, her hunting partner,but then becomes as rich as Peeta, leaving Gale and his romanticplans far behind. Bathsheba, like Katniss, struggles between twosuch different men, one gentle and chaste (Peeta comments that hesnever cared for a girl besides Katniss) and one more violent,temperamental, and experienced in romance. After betrayal andabandonment by the more violent man, Bathsheba finally weds thehumble shepherd. The romantic pattern indeed seems to echoKatnisss struggle between her equal in warfare, Gale, and thehumble baker, Peeta.