Hunger Games & Safe and Sound

Everyone has felt they needed someone to tell them that everything is going to be okay. That they will survive and will feel safe again. Suzanne Collins and Taylor Swift use this universal human feeling in the book “The Hunger Games’ and the song “Safe and Sound”. In “The Hunger Games”, Katniss is lonely in the arena and doesn't feel safe, like she won't ever see daylight again. In the song “Safe and Sound”, it’s trying to teach us all a message that even if nobody comes up to you and says that everything is okay, you can reassure yourself that it’ll be alright. You have the power inside you. In both “The Hunger Games” and “Safe and Sound’” we learn that everyone has felt scared in their lives, but sometimes we need to know that everything is going to be alright, even if nobody tells us.

A common theme between both texts is the feeling of doubt and not being safe. The feeling of, if no one says something, anything, it’s wrong. In “The Hunger Games”, Katniss is continuously doubting herself. She doesn’t think she is good enough to win the battle against the other tributes, but mainly the fight between herself. ‘I can’t win. I know it in my heart’. She tells herself no because no one said yes. Yes, that she was strong and capable of winning for her family, for her district, but mainly for herself. And in the song “Safe and Sound’ the speaker says ‘The war outside our door keeps raging on. Hold onto this lullaby.’ These two lines suggest that someone is scared about the war which has started. Either physical or mentally. The speaker knows something big is going to happen but says it’s going to be all right. Even if someone doesn’t mean it when they say yes, it still has an impact on the person receiving the message as they believe that it’s possible.

Although both texts show us that we can tell ourselves things are going to be okay, there are differences between how the theme occurs in the two texts. In ‘The Hunger Games,” Collins shows us that the tributes in the arena, especially Katniss were scared because no one said yes but it was just for the public. A country tradition that gave the public a good show to talk about until the next annual Hunger Games. ‘It’s just for fun.’ In contrast to ‘The Hunger Games,” and the song “Safe and Sound” made it seem like from the speaker's perspective that people were doubting themselves still because of the people in charge but it’s not a joke. ‘The war outside’. From the context of the song, it seems like this person who the song is talking about has been fighting a battle either physically or mentally for a long time and need reassurance that everything will be alright.

In both the book “The Hunger Games” and the song “Safe and Sound,” I can surely say that the theme can mean the same thing as it’s trying to teach their readers or listeners the same message, the outcome of the messages on the characters himself in the text, are different. Whether it’s just for fun, or something that could potentially be life threatening. I think that the message Suzanne Collins and Taylor Swift are trying to teach their readers is a very important message but the way the readers read or listen to the text, can interpret the message in different ways. Some of those ways could include if you don’t say yes, it could be life-threatening or something that they would take in their stride and potentially make them stronger.