Mockingjay
Mockingjay is a 2010 science fiction novel by American author Suzanne Collins. It is chronologically the last installment of The Hunger Games series, following 2008’s The Hunger Games and 2009’s Catching Fire. The book continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, who agrees to unify the districts of Panem in a rebellion against the tyrannical Capitol.
The hardcover and audiobook editions of Mockingjay were published by Scholastic on August 24, 2010, six days after the ebook edition went on sale. The book sold 450,000 copies in the first week of release, exceeding the publisher’s expectations. It received a generally positive reaction from critics. The book has been adapted into a two-part movie, with the first part released on November 21, 2014 and the second part released on November 20, 2015.
Collins has said that the main inspiration for The Hunger Games series came from the classical account of Theseus and the Minotaur. In Greek mythology, as a punishment for the killing of King Minos’s son Androgeos, Athens was forced to sacrifice seven youths and seven maidens to Crete, who were then put in the Labyrinth and killed by the Minotaur.[2] After a while, Theseus, the son of the Athenian king, decided to put an end to the Minotaur and Minos’s terror, so he volunteered to join the third group of victims, ultimately killing the Minotaur and leading his companions out of the monster’s Labyrinth.[3]
Collins has said that there are also many parallels between the Roman Empire and the fictional nation of Panem. She describes the Hunger Games as “an updated version of the Roman gladiator games, which entails a ruthless government forcing people to fight to the death as popular entertainment.” Collins also explains that the name “Panem” came from the Latin phrase “Panem et Circenses”, which means “Bread and Circuses”[4] and refers to the strategy used by Roman emperors to appease the masses by providing them with food and entertainment (Juvenal, Satires, 10.81).[2]
As with the previous books in the trilogy, Mockingjay contains 27 chapters, with nine chapters in each of the three parts. This structure, which Collins had previously used in her series The Underland Chronicles, came from Collins’s playwriting background.[5] This “three-act” structure is also apparent in the trilogy as a whole; Collins stated that she “knew from the beginning” that she was going to write a trilogy.[6]
The cover and title information was revealed by Scholastic on February 11, 2010. The cover continues the previous books’ theme on the symbol of peace. The novel’s title comes from the hybrid birds of the same name that feature in the novels’ storyline.[7] As Publishers Weekly has stated, “the hybrid birds that are an important symbol—of hope and rebellion—throughout the books”.[8] Collins likens Katniss to a Mockingjay because both “should never have existed”.[9]
