"Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present. The look on Haymitch's face. 'Katniss, when you're in the arena...' The scowl, the misgiving. 'What?' I hear my own voice tighten as I bristle at some unspoken accusation. 'You just remember who the enemy is,' Haymitch says. 'That's all'" (Collins 378).
In the previous book of the trilogy The Hunger Games, Haymitch seemed like a drunk... in fact he is a drunk, but he is very clever when it comes to playing these games. He knows what makes the audience tick, and what makes sponsors want each tribute more. He also seems to know how the government runs and in that way, he is almost a liaison. All along, Katniss has been fighting the other tributes, but Haymitch's advice had never come to mind from the first book, but now after all this time, she realizes that Haymitch was right, the common enemy, is and has always been, The Capitol. This goes back to the issue of government in the future, and how the government has made the people of Panem live in such a dehumanized state that the government is becoming public enemy number 1. It reminds me of totalitarian governments where the citizens become so fed up with the way that they are living, that they decide to overthrow the government leader so that they can instill change.
The purpose of the passage is mainly what the tributes have been neglecting to notice throughout all the years of the Hunger Games. They are so infatuated with surviving the games and coming out with the glory and victory and the perks that are involved with winning the games that they forget that the common enemy is the people that are putting them through all the pain, agony, and death. I feel like the purpose of the quote is to portray that Katniss has been underestimating Haymitch from the very beginning. He is actually a Hunger Games genius if you think about it. Though, Collins seems to make Haymitch's character the way he is on purpose so that he becomes a character that is a bit complex and hard to figure out. She does so by making his character seem unstable with his drinking and constant instabilily. But when it comes to the games, he gets down to business and gets her to do things in a very strategic and smart way.
Connecting back to one of the essential questions, Haymitch is exemplary to the fact that people use language and image to manipulate people's minds. Haymitch initially presented himself as a drunk, but when it came to private matters with his tributes from District 12, his demeanor was different. In addition, Katniss with this realization can begin to manipulate other tributes to have the same common enemy. Although I wouldn't say that she is manipulating them because they are all working together towards a common goal. The words that appear in Katniss's mind from Haymitch are enough to manipulate her into the realization that the enemy is no longer the other tributes.
This quote reminds me of the "Go Back!" post that I had previously discussed. The image of this god-like figure could be enough to manipulate people's ways of life in the present, to perhaps change the future that they live in. In addition, like I mentioned before, the idea of overthrowing totalitarian governments seems to be a recurring theme throughout all of history. Maybe, the Hunger Games are just a repeat of history when a totalitarian government existed.
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