Daily Dialogue — July 14, 2015

GALE HAWTHORNE: Listen to me.
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Yeah.
GALE HAWTHORNE: You’re stronger than they are. You are. Get to a bow.
KATNISS EVERDEEN: They may not have one…
GALE HAWTHORNE: They will if you show ’em how good you are. They just want a good show. That’s all they want. If they don’t have a bow, then you make one, okay? You know how to hunt.
KATNISS EVERDEEN: Animals.
GALE HAWTHORNE: It’s no different, Katniss.

— The Hunger Games (2012), screenplay by Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray, novel by Suzanne Collins

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Survival. Today’s suggestion by Katie Cobb.

Trivia: Donald Sutherland saw the script by accident and, when he read it, lobbied for the role of President Snow because the script reminded him of Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). He succeeded in getting the role after he wrote a letter of plea to Gary Ross explaining why he should be cast.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Katie: “In this scene, the protagonist, Katniss, has just volunteered to take the place of her little sister in the fight-to-the-death Hunger Games tournament. Her friend, Gale says goodbye, offering her advice on how to survive the games.
This scene introduces two key themes. The Capitol just wants a good show. The suffering and deaths of children is all for their entertainment. Katniss will go on to use this against them later, learning to give them the show they want to see.

There is also the theme of killing to survive. Katniss has always been a survivor, hunting illegally to feed her family. Gale says that killing humans to survive is no different, but it is, and it has a profound, lasting effect on her, eventually leading her to become the symbol of a revolution.”