Without the Volunteer

Authors Note: In LA we had to analyze a story of our choice and choose an event and explain the conflicts leading up to it and how it would change the story if it didn't happen.

Hope.  Luck to, but mostly hope. That's how life was in Panem when Effie arrived with the bowl of names.

Katniss promised Primrose that she wouldn't be picked, it was impossible. When the picking of the tributes came the words "Primrose Everdeen" escaped Effie's lips too naturally. A thousand eyes found their way to Primrose slowly walking through the crowd.  "I volunteer!" Shouted a girl from somewhere beyond the stage.  Primrose turned and with one look saw that Katniss had just volunteered to meet with death face to face.

Why risk her life?  What was the rising action that led her to have to be entered into the Hunger Games?  That cold morning, she shoved her nervous feeling down deep inside her and told Prim that she wouldn't get picked, that it wasn't possible.  So when Effie announced her name, guilt set in and caused her to want to take her place.  Also, with Katniss' mother already depressed with the killing of her father she knew she couldn't let Prim die too.  Katniss knew she at least had a chance to win, so she took the chance.

If this didn't happen, if Katniss didn't volunteer, no one would have.  Primrose would have been sent to the capitol and  she would have been targeted as a small and weak child.  Surely someone whom they would want to kill first.  When the Hunger Games started, without the hunting skills Katniss had developed, she would be killed very early in the games.  So, by Katniss volunteering it resolved a problem AND saved a life.

This reminds me of Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451.  Guy didn't volunteer for anyone but he did represent someone. He might of not realized it until the end, but the whole time he was representing not only Clarisse, but all the poor souls trapped in plastic people.  Much like Montag, Katniss didn't realize that she wasn't only representing her district: she was representing those who think the capitol is horrible, but can't rebel for fear of standing as a lone soldier.