Catching Fire

The most important symbol in Catching Fire is the mockingjay. (The third volume of The Hunger Games is actually called Mockingjay.) Katniss Everdeen first receives a mockingjay pin from her mother, and then wears it during her Victory Tour of the twelve districts. During the tour, Katniss’s pin inspires many in the Capitol to wear mockingjay pins of their own. To these people, Katniss is a model contestant in the Hunger Games, and a “fashion icon” to be enthusiastically imitated. Yet Katniss’s pin also inspires rebels who defy the government’s authority. To them, Katniss is a defiant Hunger Games contestant, one who openly disobeys the government’s rules. The mockingjay thus points to the problem with symbols themselves: because their meaning is, by definition, not explicit, symbols can be said to “mean” any number of things, some of them contradictory. One of Katniss’s principle challenges in Catching Fire is to interpret ambiguous symbols of this kind, like President Snow’s expressions, Haymitch’s ambiguous advice, and the parachutes she’s sent during the Hunger Games. Only with care, intelligence, and, in many cases, trial and error, does Katniss get these symbols’ meanings “right.” In another sense, the mockingjay is a symbol of Katniss. Mockingjays are the descendants of jabberjays—genetically engineered birds that the government sends to act as spies. The Mockingjays, then, represent the tendency for the government’s efforts to maintain control to have unintended consequences. Much like a mockingjay, Katniss has grown strong by taking care of herself, despite (or because of) the fact that society has largely ignored her, since she’s a young woman and from a poor family. Even more importantly, Katniss appears to be an agent of the Capitol—participating in the Hunger Games and later the Victory Tour—when in reality, she is whole-heartedly against the government. Katniss’s fame was created by the government, but that fame gives her power, too.