Lucy McElroy - The Boy with the Bread - The Symbol of Security

Throughout The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen struggled with finding happiness and forming positive relationships with her peers. Her life at home before the Games involved nothing but hunting and providing for her mother and sister, Prim, which left no time for her to enjoy her life. After her father died, her mother became reclusive and did not foster a developmental environment in which Katniss could form an understanding of cultural and societal morals. 

There are many symbols throughout the book, the most prominent in my opinion is “the boy with the bread.” When Katniss was young and beginning to learn to provide food for her family, Peeta Mellark tossed her two loaves of bread that he had intentionally burnt in his family’s bakery. This became an event that replayed in Katniss’s head daily because someone went out of their way to help her. Not only did he forfeit profit for his own struggling family to help feed Katniss, but was also physically punished by his parents for wasting bread. This is the first time that Katniss received an act of kindness from a stranger, despite the consequences. It was the first time she felt anything close to a friendship and she questioned it:

 “It didn’t occur to me until the next morning that the boy might have burned the bread on purpose. Might have dropped the loaves into the flames, knowing it meant being punished, and then delivered them to me. But I dismissed this. It must have been an accident. Why would he have done it? He didn’t even know me… I couldn’t explain his actions” (31-32).

Even though Katniss hardly came to understand Peeta’s motive for the act of kindness, the bread symbolizes Katniss’s sense of security throughout the novel. After Rue was killed and Katniss adorned her body in flowers, the extremely impoverished District 11 sent her a gift—bread. Katniss again felt more secure with this gift, as she did with Peeta’s gift. She knew where the bread was from because remembered what Peeta told her:

“I flashed back to Peeta’s lesson on the various district breads in the Training Center. This came from District 11…What must it have cost the people of District 11 who can’t even feed themselves?” (238-239).

Bread symbolized security and safety for Katniss, and Peeta was tied to that symbol. This makes me wonder if Peeta made Katniss feel at home while she was in the Games. It seemed to me that the times she had really begun to miss her family were when she was in Peeta’s presence. Of course, I’m sure she missed her family the entire time. But Suzanne Collins did not write much about Katniss thinking about her mother and sister, and especially her father, until she was in Peeta’s company. Katniss's father reminded her of a time when she didn't have to constantly provide for her family, a time when she felt safe. At one point while Peeta and Katniss were camping out in the cave, she remembers her father:

“No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else’s arms have made me feel this safe” (299).

Photo from: www.thehungergames.wikia.com

Infographic from: www.panempropaganda.com