Inner Struggle and Narration

First-person narration. The way into the mind of the main character.

In Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins uses it as a tool for getting at the heart of the emotional roller-coaster of a teen-aged girl named Katniss; to feel her struggle to know her own mind.

This is the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy. The story world is set in a dystopian future; the characters are caught up in a gladiator-style Game where the contestants must hunt each other down. There can only be one winner.

During the course of the first novel, Collins set up two potential suitors for Katniss: Gale and Peeta. But Katniss is determined she wants to avoid marriage (at least at the outset). She just isn't interested. But as the story unfolds, her confusion over this topic only deepens.

In the following selection, we see how Collins captures that internal conflict within Katniss:

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says.

My family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta's intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I'll marry him. So Peeta's giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn't ever have doubts about it. Everything. That's what Peeta wants me to take from him.

I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn't. And that's how I know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he feels.

"No one really needs me," he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.

[Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire (2009), pp. 351-2.]