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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hunger Games, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Division and Control
Love, Loyalty, and Compassion
Societal Inequality
Appearances
Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
Katniss sleeps fitfully, with nightmares, and when she drags herself into the shower in the morning, she fumbles with the automatic buttons, spraying herself in alternately hot and cold jets of water. She dresses herself in a practical outfit that’s been laid out for her and ties her hair in a single braid, before heading down to see if there’s food in the dining room.
In a comic scene with the shower buttons, Katniss again demonstrates one of the results of social inequality—she doesn’t know how to use all of the automated technology in the Capitol.
Themes
Katniss serves herself breakfast and eats while thinking about what Prim and her mother might be doing back home. She wonders whether the opening ceremony gave them any comfort. Haymitch and Peeta arrive to breakfast soon afterwards as well, and Katniss sees that Peeta is once again wearing clothes that match her own. Katniss feels annoyed by the twin act, but she decides to trust Cinna because she respects him. Katniss feels nervous about their first training day, during which she’ll meet the other tributes face-to-face. After finishing his breakfast, Haymitch asks whether she and Peeta would like to be trained together or separately. They decide that neither one of them has any secret skills, so they agree to be trained together.
Katniss’s thoughts of Prim and her mother make her homesick, but they also motivate her. She wants to give them comfort by performing well. Katniss also finds it annoying that she and Peeta are being forced to look and act like a team, since they’ll be trying to kill each other in the arena. She finds this hypocritical.
Themes
Haymitch asks them for an assessment of their skills, and Peeta says that he has none. Katniss says that she’s okay with a bow and arrow, but Peeta immediately talks her up, saying that she’s much better than okay. This annoys Katniss for some reason, and she comments that she’s seen Peeta lift hundred-pound bags of flour. They begin to argue, and Peeta reveals that on the day of the reaping, his mother commented that District 12 might finally have a winner—and then he realized that his mother had meant Katniss, not him. Katniss suddenly remembers the day that Peeta threw her the bakery bread, and she realizes that he remembers as well. Peeta says that sponsors will be tripping over each other to help her in the arena, but Katniss is skeptical.
When Peeta says that Katniss is amazing with a bow and arrow and tells her that she shouldn’t underestimate her own skills, she becomes annoyed because she feels that Peeta is doing the same. He’s underestimating his own strength and ability to wrestle, which makes his comments about her archery skills seem hypocritical.
Themes
Haymitch advises Peeta and Katniss to save their special skills for their private sessions with the Gamemakers. While they’re practicing with the other tributes, Haymitch advises them to learn new skills. He also orders them to stay together throughout, even though they both begin to protest. He orders them to meet Effie at the elevator for training at ten.
Haymitch doesn’t want Peeta and Katniss to appear too strong when practicing with the other tributes. He would rather they appear weaker so that they aren’t targeted at the start of the Games.
Themes
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Katniss marches off to her room, angry that she and Peeta are being forced to act amiably towards each other when they’ll just have to kill each other in the arena. Katniss is also confused by how much attention Peeta has seemingly paid her over the years, to comment on her hunting skills. When it’s ten, Katniss goes to meet Effie and Peeta at the elevator, and together they go to the training rooms, where all the other tributes have already gathered.
One of the things that angers Katniss most is hypocrisy, and she finds it hypocritical that she and Peeta are presenting themselves as a team when they’ll be trying to kill each other in the arena.
Themes
The head trainer explains the rules. There will be experts in different skills located around the room, and tributes will be free to wander among the stations. There will be no combative exercise between tributes, but there will be assistants on hand if they care to practice with a partner. As the trainer talks, Katniss observes the other tributes and notes that most of them are larger than her. However, many of them are undernourished, so she has the advantage of a healthy body. The exceptions are the Career Tributes—the ones who have been training their entire lives to fight in the Hunger Games. These tributes come from Districts 1, 2, and 4.
Katniss notices that it’s possible to tell which of the tributes came from wealthier districts based on how nourished their bodies look. This is just one more advantage that the Career tributes have when going into the arena—they’re also trained to be deadly and often have many sponsors helping them once the Games begin.
Themes
When practice begins, the Career Tributes immediately head to show off their skills, handling deadly weapons. Peeta and Katniss decide to go to the knot-tying station, followed by a camouflage station that Peeta seems to enjoy especially. He admits that he decorates the cakes in the bakery in District 12. The Gamemakers arrive early in the day as well, and observe the tributes as they move from station to station. Each day, the tributes eat lunch together in the same room, and Peeta and Katniss sit together, just like Haymitch ordered.
Peeta’s affinity for camouflage isn’t just limited to paint— he’s great at adapting to situations with different people as well. He’s able to appear tougher when he needs to—like he does with Haymitch—and he’s able to appear likable and funny in front of the Capitol audience.
Themes
On the second day of training, Peeta notices that they’re being shadowed by Rue, the twelve-year-old girl tribute from District 11. She follows them from station to station, and she reminds Katniss of Prim. On the District 12 floor, Effie and Haymitch have teamed up to tell Katniss and Peeta what to do, and the result is exhausting Peeta and Katniss. When Peeta jokes that someone ought to get Haymitch a drink, Katniss responds that they shouldn’t pretend to be friends when no one’s around. Peeta wearily agrees.
Katniss is unnerved by how much Rue reminds her of Prim, and she’s afraid that being sentimental and making this connection will hurt her in the arena. Meanwhile, in her relationship with Peeta, Katniss is afraid that she’ll confuse what’s real with what’s for show, so she decides that they shouldn’t have anything to do with each other outside of training.
Themes
On the third training day, the Gamemakers start to call the tributes out of lunch for their private sessions. District 12 goes last, and by the time it’s Katniss’s turn, she realizes that the Gamemakers are bored already and no longer paying attention. She performs a series of excellent shooting, but when she turns around, she sees that the Gamemakers are more preoccupied with a roast pig that has just arrived at their banquet table. Furious, Katniss shoots an arrow straight at the table, through the apple in the pig’s mouth, pinning it to the wall.
Katniss is angry that the Gamemakers aren’t paying attention and act like the tributes are beneath them. In their callousness, they definitely don’t seem morally superior to people from the districts. They’re more focused on food and luxury—signified by the roast pig—than on the lives of the people before them. That Katniss shoots at the Gamemakers is an indication of the danger she poses to the Capitol: while other tributes seem to be focused on winning the Games and killing each other, Katniss's anger results in her often directing her efforts not just against the other tributes but, in fact, directly at the Capitol.
Themes
