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Brooke Johnson

Professor Sutton

Engl Composition 1

11 September 2022

Personal Essay #1

The film The hunger games is centered around Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12,

which is known as the least populated, most poor district. The hunger games occur every year

and is the way that the Capital of Panem reminds the districts and punishes them by choosing

two tributes, a boy and a girl from each district, to compete on national television, where all the

tributes must kill each other until only one remains. I aspire to be like Katniss Everdeen because

of her bravery and ability to be selfless and treat everyone, no matter who it is, with kindness. I

also aspire to be like her because she can knowingly put herself into an uncomfortable situation

in hopes of achieving the outcome she wants, which in her case, is protecting her family.

When Katniss is faced with Prim, her younger sister, being chosen as tribute for District

12, Katniss has to make the choice of letting her younger sister be a tribute or choosing to step up

and take her place. Katniss decides to take her place as a tribute knowing that she has the

possibility of being killed and that this decision will affect her for the rest of her life. Making this

decision is not an easy decision and most definitely an uncomfortable decision. Still, she makes

it to protect her family because she knows she has a better chance of surviving and that her

mother could not lose Prim. I feel like I struggle with making uncomfortable decisions or taking
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risks in my life because If I'm not positive, I will get the results that I want or that the outcome of

my risk will affect me positively. I typically won't make the uncomfortable decision or take the

risk.

I also aspire to be selfless like Katniss and treat everyone with kindness. I feel like I

notice myself acting selfishly sometimes, and I can be a selfish person sometimes. I see this

mostly in my friendships, and I don't mean to, but sometimes I get caught up in wanting to do

what's important to me without even stopping to make sure that everyone else also wants to do

the same thing. There are many times in the movie where it is clear that Katniss has no problem

being selfless. The first time that this is shown is when she decides to take Prim's Place. Still, we

can also see this when she befriends her opponent, Rue, a girl younger than her, and instead of

focusing on winning and only winning, she helps Rue because of her age and gentleness, which

reminds her of her sister.

When Rue is killed Katniss risks other tributes seeing her and potentially getting killed

and buries Rue because she respects human life and cares about Rue. This scene really spoke to

me because I feel like even though that is the right thing to do, If I were in Katniss's position, I

probably wouldn't bury Rue and risk being seen and possibly killed, and this just showed me that

even though Katniss wasn't positive that she wouldn't have been found she still did the right

thing and acted selflessly and because of that I feel like this is why she wasn't discovered.

Another reason that I Aspire to be like Katniss is that she is someone who treats everyone

with kindness no matter who they are or what things have been said about them, and I think this

is another reason as to why Katniss is so well-liked. Not only is she a leader and someone that

people can look up to, but Katniss doesn't form opinions on people based on others and the

things she has heard about them. She is someone who forms opinions about others herself and
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doesn't care what others think about the people she chooses to be friends with. Katniss treats

everyone who respects her with respect and kindness and doesn't care about what others think or

have to say about her. I believe that I am someone who sometimes forms opinions on others

based on what I have heard about them or from the way they have presented themselves on

social media and superficial things like that. Even though I try to keep an open mind, it's easy as

a human to judge and compare, and I really like that Katniss doesn't make assumptions about

people. This can be seen when Katniss picks Mags, an 80-year-old woman, and Beetee and

Wiress to be her allies. Everyone calls her crazy for picking them because they assume that they

can't be useful. Still, Katniss doesn't judge them and instead sees ways that they can be helpful

that other people couldn't see because they were too busy thinking superficial things.

In the end, Katniss kills President Coin, who is the "villian" in this story, and she is

viewed as a hero by the public. Katniss faces a lot of Up's and Down's throughout this series and

is faced with many challenges, but she always keeps a positive mindset and prevails in the end.

Katniss proves that being uncomfortable is vital in life, and this is when growth occurs. I aspire

to be like Katniss Everdeen because of her bravery and ability to be selfless and treat everyone,

no matter who it is, with kindness. I also aspire to be like her because she can knowingly put

herself into an uncomfortable situation in hopes of achieving the outcome she wants.