Wearing the Pin

SPOILER ALERT:  This essay discusses all three novels in The Hunger Games series.

Revolutions are born of a moment. In 1955, Rosa Parks, tired from a long day at work, refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus. This one act of defiance became the symbol for the Civil Rights movement, the catalyst that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and future boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom marches. Whether she intended it or not, Rosa Parks had become the face of the revolution.

Similarly, in the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss Everdeen comes to symbolize revolution for the districts of Panem. What was her one act? What set her apart from the other tributes? Much like the quiet refusal to change seats on a bus, Katniss's act was subtle -- so subtle that she was unaware of the machine she was setting into motion. What was this act, this catalyst? The simple wearing of a mockingjay pin.

Given to her by Madge, the mayor's daughter, the mockingjay pin takes on no immediate importance. "They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena" (38), Madge had explained as she handed over the pin. Yet no other tribute appears to have a token from their district. And how to explain Madge's behavior? She is "not weepy or evasive, instead there's an urgency about her tone." There is no need for this urgency; simply wearing or not wearing a pin will not save Katniss's life in the Games. Yet, Madge "doesn't wait for an answer, she just leans in and fixes the bird to my dress. 'Promise you'll wear it into the arena, Katniss?'" (38). Katniss has no time to question Madge's intentions; she is too focused on the upcoming Games and too shell-shocked at the day's events to think clearly.  However, as readers, we have the luxury of hindsight to see the importance of this moment.

Madge may be the mayor's daughter, but she is no innocent when it comes to the Games. As we realize in the second novel, Catching Fire, Madge had an aunt, "Maysilee Donner, a tribute who was murdered in the arena" (197). Katniss watches the film of Maysilee saying goodbye to her twin sister, the girl who would become Madge's mother, and thinks to herself how this woman now "spends half her life in bed immobilized with terrible pain, shutting out the world." Of course she is shutting out the world; this is the government that effectively murdered her sister. As Katniss realizes this and remembers Madge's demeanor when she received the mockingjay pin, she thinks of how the pin "means something completely different now" (197). Finally, Katniss is catching on to the truth: the mockingjay has been the symbol of a revolution long before Katniss volunteered as a tribute.

Now it makes sense that, in Catching Fire, the two fugitives from District 8 had crackers imprinted with a mockingjay on them.  At the time Katniss was questioning, "Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance?" (150). No, Katniss, you didn't create that symbol by wearing the pin; rather, the mockingjay was already the symbol of resistance long before you wore it. As the fugitives pointed out, the footage of District 13 has been recycled for 75 years, the same mockingjay flying "across the upper right-hand corner" (162) of the screen. Anyone who has noticed this has already begun to surmise that District 13 is not a devastated ruin as once thought...and that would be enough of a spark to ignite a revolution.

Katniss becomes that spark needed, something televised that all the other District's citizens would see. By wearing the mockingjay pin on camera, she would have immediately caught the attention of rebels in all the districts. Whether she survived the Games or not, the message would have been sent: Start the fire. Start the revolt. Start the revolution.

Helping to light the fire required the help of an insider, of course...and that is Cinna, Katniss's stylist for the Games. Not only does he transform her into "The Girl Who Was on Fire," but he persistently finds ways to get his message out to the districts. In Catching Fire, he purposely alters Katniss's white wedding gown so that it metamorphoses into a black dress when she twirls. Katniss realizes that her new dress is "the color of coal and made of tiny feathers...Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay" (252). Cinna cannot get away with this final insult; he is beaten and taken away by the Peacekeepers as Katniss enters the ring: "...they drag Cinna's limp body from the room. All that's left are the smears of blood on the floor" (263). Poor Cinna...and yet he probably knew what awaited him.

Cinna was in on it from the beginning, even before Katniss knew she was about to have a starring role in the upcoming revolution. On the day they first met, a nervous Katniss strikes up a conversation with Cinna as he examines her for his styling. Upon learning that this is Cinna's first year as a stylist for the Games, Katnissis disheartened:

     "So they gave you District 12," I say. Newcomers generally end up with us, the least desirable district.
     "I asked for District 12," he says without further explanation (64).

By wearing Madge's pin, Katniss became the message, and Cinna heard it loud and clear. He volunteered to style District 12, knowing that no one would fight him for it and knowing that he needed to fan the flames of the revolution. And all this time, Katniss was left completely in the dark about her true purpose in the Games and beyond.

It certainly wasn't fair to Katniss to change her life like this. Yet she set it into motion by volunteering to take Prim's place in the Games. That action caught the attention of the underground rebels; Madge was sent to her with the pin; Cinna stepped into his role.  The cogs of the machine turned, and Katniss had no choice but to turn with it. Did she suffer? Yes. All revolutionaries do. Rosa Parks herself lost her job and had to move out of Alabama. Yet, she would probably tell you that it was worth it in the end. Katniss, too, as she watches her children play in the Meadow at the end of the third novel, Mockingjay, would agree; it was worth it. "But," as she says, "one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares...I'll tell them how I survive it" (390). The nightmares are the sacrifice, just one of the many she needed to make by being the mockingjay.