Love in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Nonetheless, among all this brutality, there are more uplifting themes in the Hunger Games. There is devotion, courage, ingenuity, strength, camaraderie and love. Love is an undercurrent in the Hunger Games. It is not a primary focus. However, it is the reason behind nearly everything that happens to the novel's protagonist-Katniss Everdeen.

Before the start of the novel, Katniss' father is killed in a coalmine fire. Katniss' love for her father and his love for her led to her being able to hunt and care for herself and her family, despite great adversity. Love also put Katniss in the position of having to care for herself and her mother and sister. After her father's death, her mother changed. She had loved her husband so much that she sank into a deep depression. This love is barely mentioned, but it is strongly suggested in the actions of the characters. 

The two main loves in Katniss' life at the start of the novel are a boy named Gale and her sister, Primrose. Katniss' love for Primrose drives her to hunt in the forest, despite the fact that it is forbidden and she could be killed for doing it. When Katniss begins hunting in the forest to feed her family, she meets Gale, with whom she slowly becomes friends. They love each other in a way that two people who completely understand each other would. It is not a romantic love, as far as the reader can tell. However, there are hints that it may become one. Katniss does love her mother, but she resents her for emotionally abandoning Prim and herself. 

Katniss Everdeen's love for her 12-year-old sister is what leads to the main plot action in The Hunger Games. In Catniss' country, the land is split into districts, which are ruled by officials in Capitol City. These officials have a grudge against the ordinary working class because of a rebellion that occurred before Cat was born. To punish the people, they created a reality show called the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a brutal, vicious game where tributes are thrown into an unknown wilderness to fight each other to the death. Tributes must find food and shelter, while fighting off or hunting the others. Two teenage tributes are randomly chosen from each district every year, one male, one female. Prim is chosen the year The Hunger Games novel takes place. Katniss loves her sister so much that she volunteers to go in her stead. 

Katniss is joined in the Hunger Games by a 16-year-old boy from District 12 who once saved her from starvation with a loaf of bread. Peeta Mellark is the son of a baker whose mother is described as abusive. He risks a beating from his mother to feed Katniss. However, the pair never fully develops a friendship of any kind until the Hunger Games. Nonetheless, the reader gets the idea that Peeta is in love with Katniss early on. Katniss is oblivious and does not reciprocate. It is rather sad because Peeta risks his life during the Hunger Games to save Katniss. Katniss does the same for Peeta. However, Peeta does it out of love while Katniss apparently does it out of a sense of duty and honor. 

The Hunger Games has just enough love to balance out all of the brutal murder going on in the novel. It is refreshing to read brief glimpses of Katniss' thoughts of her sister or to see the level of love and devotion Peeta is developing for Katniss. Without this, The Hunger Games would be a much lesser novel. As it is, it is a wonderful novel with all of the aspects of humanity that we love and love to hate.