Sunday 20 April 2014

What is a summary of Chapter 1 in "The Hunger Games"?

The first chapter of The Hunger Games begins with Katniss Everdeen waking up on the morning of the Reaping. Her little sister, Prim (short for Primrose), had left her some goat cheese for breakfast. Katniss takes the cheese and heads out to the woods just outside the fence that served as the border of District 12. It is illegal for her to do this, but she does it anyway; she had started doing so with her father before he was killed, and he taught her how to hunt. She meets up with Gale, her hunting partner, in the woods, and after a bit of hunting, they sit down and eat some bread and cheese. As they do this, they talk about how they could run away and live in the woods because they are both so good at hunting, but because they both have family who is dependent upon them, they cannot.

After a bit more hunting, they head back into town with what they caught and go to the Hob, which is the black market where they can sell their goods. They return home after that and Katniss gets ready for the Reaping: she takes a bath, puts on one of her mother's nice dresses, and then her mother does her hair. By 2pm, all of the citizens of the district are in the square, with all the children between the ages of 12 and 18 arranged oldest to youngest with boys on one side and girls on the other; everyone else stands around them.


When the Reaping starts, the mayor of the town tells about the history of Panem, which was once North America, how the Capitol and the thirteen districts used to be before the Dark Days, when the districts rose against the Capitol and were subsequently defeated, with District 13 being destroyed entirely. From the Dark Days came the Treaty of Treason, which was meant to keep the Dark Days from happening again, and it also set up the Hunger Games, which was what the Reaping is for. Two tributes from each district are chosen by lottery to compete in the Games, the sole purpose of which is to survive; the lone survivor, called the Victor, is allowed to return home (though they have to serve as a mentor for the following tributes from their district), and their district is showered with gifts (most of which are food of various sorts).


Once Haymitch Abernathy (the only living Victor from District 12) stumbles drunk onto the stage, Effie Trinket (the Capitol escort for District 12) chooses the name of the female tribute from the glass bowl in front of her. Katniss had assured her little sister that her name would not be chosen because she was only in the lottery once (unlike Katniss, who was in the lottery 20 times), but the odds are not in her favor because the name Effie calls is Primrose Everdeen.

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