The Selfless Hero

After reading Catching Fire, I have noticed something that is talked about on the show Criminal Minds when they talk about a team of two suspects. There’s usually a dominant suspect and a submissive suspect. The dominant one is the one that takes charge of every action and the submissive one just follows along, occasionally taking charge in their “mission.” They are usually more vulnerable.

After hearing this description of a submissive person a bunch of times, I noticed that Peeta kind of fits that description. This description mainly reminded me of Peeta when he was in the games with Katniss. It seems like now he’s a lot more confident and ready to take charge than he was in the games. Obviously this isn’t Criminal Minds and Katniss and Peeta aren’t trying to play out some sort of murderous crime (the killings in the games don’t count here), but they kind of fit the description of that type of team.

Peeta is a character that is definitely underrated. His strengths weren’t as showcased as Katniss’ were. She has strengths that you can physically see, while Peeta has ones that he controls. When I say “ones that he controls” I mean that he needs to be the one to show us these strengths. If he doesn’t open up and show these strengths, then you’ll never see them unless you have an eye for seeing the little things in people. In this situation it would be hard to see them because you’re so focused on what Katniss is showing that Peeta gets pushed aside.

Peeta is extremely selfless, unlike Katniss. Yeah, that was kind of a harsh statement, but it’s true. Katniss only pretended to love Peeta so she could win the games and now she’s doing it again so her family and Gale don’t get killed by President Snow. Although she does start to sort of fall in love with Peeta, the whole relationship started as an act. All of Peeta’s actions, to our knowledge, thus far have been selfless. For example, he announces that he wants “the tributes’ families from District Eleven to receive one month of [their] winning every year for the duration of [their] lives” (Collins 59)

Another example of his selflessness is how he wants to save Katniss’ life when they go back to the games. He literally gives Katniss a locket with a mockingjay on it and with the pictures of her mom, Prim, and Gale in it. He’s basically telling Katniss that he wants her to have a future with Gale when he’s gone.

Peeta also has another trait to him that we really didn’t see the first time he was in the games. He is a great public speaker. When him and Katniss get to District 11 during the Victory Tour, he is able to say what he wants to say without intensely planning ahead and without using notecards. He knows how to thread sentences together in a special way that “can move a crowd – no, a country – to his side with the simple turn of a sentence” (Collins 338).

Along with his speaking, Peeta knows how to put on a show. When he goes for his interview at the Capitol before the games, he tells everyone that him and Katniss are married at heart and that she’s pregnant, which is obviously not true. He has that little bit of charm that convinces everyone that him and Katniss are extremely in love.

After reading this book and the first Hunger Games book, you can definitely see a growth in Peeta’s character. He has gone from this quiet baker boy that threw bread to Katniss to a man that has won the games and is able to speak and put on a show in front of people, like President Snow, who want him and Katniss to fail.

I think that Suzanne Collins wants us readers to think of Peeta as a selfless hero. He really doesn’t do much to save himself in this book. He really tries to save Katniss because he realizes that she has a future to live for. I think the moment that Peeta gives Katniss the locket is the moment when a lot of people, even Katniss, realizes that Peeta has given up, per say, on fighting to win the games. He would much rather have Katniss have a life rather than himself. In my opinion, I would say that Peeta is the most selfless character in this book.

-Emily C. Prompt 6

Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc, 2009. Print.