Haymitch lives with his Ma and his ten-year-old brother Sid. His Ma takes in laundry to make ends meet. His pa is buried in the Abernathy family plot in the miner's graveyard. He died in a fire in the mines that some say was an act of resistance.
Haymitch visits Hattie Meeney whom he helps with her illegal distillery business. She gives him a bottle of white liquor as a birthday gift. He doesn't drink, but Haymitch knows he can trade this off for something else. He then meets up with his girlfriend, Lenore Dove who is one of the Covey, in the meadow. Lenore has been raised by her uncles, Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber, after her mother died during childbirth. Lenore gives Haymitch a flint striker shaped like a "C" with two animals, a snake and a long-necked bird facing one another.
Just prior to the reaping ceremony, Haymitch's mother gives him a year's supply of flour sack underwear and a new pocketknife while Sid gives him a piece of flint rock.
The reaping ceremony takes place at the square in front of the Justice Building. There are posters as well as many Peacekeepers who are checking in the young reaping candidates - those children aged twelve to eighteen. Attendance is mandatory for everyone. Haymitch has twenty slips of paper in the reaping. The additional slips are due to his getting extra food for his family, so the odds are not in his favour. After the Panem anthem, Mayor Allister readers the Treaty of Treason. Then Drusilla Sickle, the escort for the District 12 tribunes each year, does the draw. Thirteen-year-old Louella McCoy and Maysilee Donner are chosen for the girls, while Woodbine Chance and eighteen-year-old Wyatt Callow are chosen for the boys. Each makes their way up to the dias, when suddenly Woodbine, known for his ability to run fast, sprints down an alley, only to be shot in the head by a sniper.
This causes chaos and the feed on the TV screens goes dark as there is a five minute broadcast delay so that the rest of the country isn't able to witness what's happening. Everyone is ordered on the ground while the Peacekeepers remove anyone with gore on them from the square. When Haymitch gets up to protect Lenore as she's trying to help Woodbine's distraught mother, he gets hit with the butt of a rifle. Furious, Drusilla orders him as the replacement for Woodbine and attempts to have Lenore shot. However, Plutarch Heavensbee, responsible for doing promo for the Games, intervenes, telling Drusilla he wants to keep Lenore to publicize the tearful goodbyes.
The broadcast resumes with the naming of Wyatt and Haymitch. He is relieved to see Lenore spared due to bribes from Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber. Maysilee's father unsuccessfully attempts to bribe anyone to save his daughter. Haymitch's ma is distraught as is his little brother Sid. Drusilla refuses to allow the families to say goodbye to their reaped children as is usually done. Again Plutarch intevenes, telling her he needs more shots for his recap.This gives Haymitch the chance to hug his Ma and Sid and say goodbye. As the train pulls out of the District 12 station, he sees Lenore Dove, screaming in rage into the wind.
On the train Haymitch, Louella, Wyatt and Maysilee watch a recap of the reaping from all the districts. There is no evidence of what really transpired in District 12. Plutarch tells them that he's attempting to help them out, by selling them to potential sponsors. When they see the well fed, well trained, "Careers", children from Districts 1 to 4 who have been trained to win the Hunger Games, Haymitch feels intimidated. However, Plutarch tells him that brains, skills, strategy and luck all factor in to who wins. Haymitch believes Plutarch is simply manipulating them for the Capitol's gain.
At the Tribute center, each tribute is "prepped". Haymitch's team is comprised of Proserpina and Vitus who are university students. District 12's stylist is Magno Stift who has a terrible reputation for doing nothing and provides them with smelly black miner overalls and plastic miner hats. They are taken to the stables where each district's tributes are loaded into twelve chariots. Haymitch and his fellow District 12 tributes are placed into "a rickety chariot drawn by a quarter of skittish gray nags." With Maysilee and Louella at the front and Haymitch and Wyatt at the back their chariot enters the arena last. A firework explodes in front of their chariot, causing the horses to break into a run, colliding with the spiked wheels of District 6. Hamitch and Louella are thrown out, killing Louella instantly. Wyatt and Maysilee are also thrown out but uninjured.
Furious at Louella's death, Haymitch takes her body dodging Peacekeepers and tributes, runs towards the president's mansion at the end of the arena. He hijacks District 1's golden chariot and races it to just underneath the mansion's balcony where he lays Louella's body. In an act of defiance, Haymitch claps, demonstrating to President Snow that her death is on him. This challenge to President Snow will not go unpunished, as Haymitch is soon to learn and will have devastating consequences for everyone he loves.
Discussion
Sunrise on the Reaping is the second prequel to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. It tells the story of Haymitch Abernathy during the fiftieth Hunger Games and the Second Quarter Quell. Haymitch seeks to resist the ongoing yearly murder of young people from the districts but in doing so, he sets himself up as the target of President Snow's revenge with devastating consequences.
This novel explores the role of propaganda and lies, and the use of terror to control and subjugate a population to prevent it from rebelling against oppression and tyranny. It also asks readers to consider what motivates a population to finally decide to rebel under such total control?
One method of propaganda is the use of posters, a theme that carries throughout the novel by Haymitch Abernathy. The first description of propaganda are the posters that Haymitch describes in the square where the reaping ceremony is held. The Capitol has plastered the square in District 12 and likely in the other districts, with posters with the theme of "No Peace". They read, "NO PEACE, NO BREAD!" or "NO PEACE, NO SECURITY!", "NO CAPITOL, NO PEACE!" A huge banner with the face of President Snow promotes him as "PANEM'S #1 PEACEKEEPER." Haymitch sees similar posters at the train station in the Capitol but this time geared to the residents there. as though the Capitol has to convince it's own citizens that this how things must be. The message is that without the Capitol there will be no peace, no security and no bread. Even more important, "NO HUNGER GAMES, NO PEACE!" It is an ongoing attempt to maintain the status quo - that is - the annual reaping of young boys and girls from the districts as reparation for the rebellion against the Capitol years ago. But Haymitch is determined to paint his own poster and not allow the Capitol to use him as a "poster boy".
In an attempt to make it seem that the Capitol has total control over the districts and that they willingly comply, broadcasts of the reaping and the Hunger Games are manipulated and sanitized. When Woodbine Chance is murdered at the reaping, Haymitch realizes for the first time that the broadcast is not live, but that there is a five minute delay so they can whitewash any dissent or rebellion. Instead of showing the murder of Woodbine, the unrest in the square, the intervention of Haymitch to protect Lenore, and Drusilla's order to shoot Lenore, the broadcast is halted and evidence quickly removed. Haymitch is ordered to be the replacement for Woodbine and once the gore is cleaned up, the broadcast resumes, complete with canned applause. Later on the train Haymitch admits to being sickened by the false narrative that Plutarch has created. "I watch, both fascinated and sickened by the flawless transition from Maysilee's drawing to Wyatt's and mine. Not even a hint of Woodbine's shooting or the turmoil that followed. And there's my name, and there's me, and there's Ma gasping, Sid crying. Lenore Dove with her hand clasped over her mouth." He tells Plutarch, "That's not what happened." but Plutarch merely states that he changed things around to help them get sponsors. However, the reality is that people in the Capitol and the other districts do not know that a young boy was murdered trying to flee the reaping. Likewise Haymitch and everyone else in Panem do not know if there have been other similar situations in other districts. This serves President Snow's desire for power and control. If others witness acts of rebellion, they might be encouraged to resist too.
The tributes themselves are also used as propaganda. Plutarch arranges for a beautiful birthday cake to be presented to Haymitch, but Haymitch knows what Plutarch is doing. "Clearly, Plutarch wants to capture my delight so he can broadcast it all over Panem. Look how well the Capitol treats the tributes. How forgiving they are to their enemies. How superior they are to those district piglets in their stinkholes." Haymitch refuses to cooperate and be a part of that propaganda and turns his back. He won't be a poster boy for how thoughtful the Capitol is towards the tributes whom they are sending to their death.
Haymitch has no doubt about his part in the Hunger Games. "I'm entirely the Capitol's plaything. They will use me for their entertainment and then kill me, and the truth will have no say in it. Plutarch acts friendly, but his indulgences -- my family's goodbyes, his fancy sandwiches -- are just a method to manage me..." He remembers what his Ma reminded him about his Pa's message to a girl reaped, "Don't let them use you, Sarshee. Don't let them paint their posters with your blood..."
When chaos occurs during the chariot parade resulting in the death of Louella, Haymitch decides he wants to show the Capitol citizens what really is happening and who is to blame. He sees the Peacekeepers rushing to take away Louella's body and decides to act. " They want to take Louella away, to hide her tidily in a wooden box along with their crimes, and ship her home to District 12. They don't want to feature this death on the Capitol's watch, unplanned and highlighting their incompetence. This is not the blood they want to paint their posters with."
And so Haymitch takes Louella's body and lays it below the balcony where President Snow can see her, in front of all at the parade. He then applauds, placing the blame for Louella's death on Snwo. While the people in the area see what's happened, Haymitch has no idea if what's happened is actually being broadcast because on one screen all he can see is himself from the waist up clapping. Later, in an attempt to thwart Haymitch's actions, President Snow has a replacement, a body double of "Louella McCoy" brought in so that people will believe Louella survived. However, this young girl is likely the child of traitors. She's been physically altered, drugged and programmed but who seems to still know that the Capitol is murdering children.
The recap broadcast during Haymitch's Victor Ceremony is also grossly distorted and leaves Haymitch stunned and disillusioned. The recap deviates from Day 2. "Timelines are twisted. Connections misleading. It's less flat-out lying than lying by omission." This manipulation of what actually happened distorts Haymitch's actions. "What they showed during the Games, I don't know, but in the recap, I'm not even attempting to protect any of my allies." Haymitch along with Ampert is involved in a plot to break the arena, however the damage they inflict is not shown. The distortion around Maysilee and Maritte's deaths make Haymitch wonder, "Does no one remember? Do they just not care? Or during the Games, did they show the audience a different sky? Or none at all?...The Gamemakers must have been scrambling like crazy to control the narratives by this point. Whatever the case, the audience here in the auditorium has embraced this version, cheering and jeering on cue. Their lack of discernment transforms the recap, validating it as truth. I hope those in the districts can still see it as the piece of propaganda it is, but no telling what they've been fed." The recap doesn't paint Haymitch as a rebel, but possibly as a cheater or a rascal.
The novel's title Sunrise on the Reaping is a reference to Lenore Dove's question to Haymitch as to why they should accept the current situation; that every year the sun will rise on yet another reaping. She asks why is this acceptable? Like most people in the districts, Haymitch is resigned to the fact that every year there is a reaping and this year there is the second Quarter Quell which means twice as many kids. "No point in worrying, I tell myself, there's nothing you can do about it...No way to control the outcome of the reaping or what follows it...They've taken enough already." Lenore Dove challenges Haymitch when he says everything is going to be fine. "...Because the reaping's going to happen no matter what I believe. Sure as the sun will rise tomorrow." However, Lenore tells Haymitch, "Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible." is part of their trouble. She asks him, "Can you imagine it rising on a world without a reaping?" It is a request she will reiterate later in the novel.
Collins uses the character of Plutarch to question why people accept tyranny and what pushes them to rebel. During the training session, Haymitch realizes that the tributes outnumber the Peacekeepers and could easily attack them. He is dismayed when he thinks about how " Every year we let them herd us into their killing machine. Every year they pay no price for the slaughter." Plutarch, overhearing Haymitch and Ringina asks them why they didn't act. Haymitch realizes he's not just questioning them not acting in the training gym but also why they don't resist in the districts. It is a challenge similar to that posed by Lenore Dove. Ringina states that it's because of the guns, but Plutarch presses further since the districts outnumber the Capitol. When Haymitch and Ringina state that it is the Capitol's firepower that forces them to submit, Plutarch counters, "I see the hangings and the shootings and the starvation and the Hunger Games...And yet, I still don't think the fear they inspire justifies the arrangement we've all entered into. Do you?...Why do you agree to it? Why do I? For that matter, why have people always agreed to it?" Haymitch and Ringina have no answer.
However, as the events in the novel demonstrate, the districts do not fight back because Snow and the Capitol have absolute control and create absolute terror. Any act of defiance or resistance is brutally punished as evidenced by what happens to Incitatus Loomy, Haymitch, Beetee and Ampert, as well as Mags and Wiress. At the presidential mansion, Snow reveals that he plans for Haymitch to die in the Hunger Games for what he did during the chariot parade, indicating that Haymitch's death will mean that "...Lenore Dove and your family should be free to enjoy long and happy lives." When Haymitch survives to win the Fiftieth Hunger Games, he knows all who he loves will suffer and all who helped him will also be punished. "I don't dare think about my loved ones back home. Everything I did, every choice I made, was based on the knowledge that my death protected them from harm.,,,This I know: I have been publicly challenging Snow and his Quarter Quell since I landed in the Capitol." If Snow poisoned his own parade master for botching the chariot parade, Haymitch wonders just "what feast must he have in store for me and mine?"
Prior to returning home, Haymitch sees that even those who helped him do not escape unscathed. At the Victor's Ceremony, Haymitch's sees that his mentors, Mags and Wiress have been tortured "...Finally, Mags arrives in a wheelchair while a still-mobile but distressed Wiress twitches her head about in a birdlike fashion, a steady stream of words spouting from her lips. Very bad things have been done to them."
He quickly experiences the violence of Snow's revenge upon his arrival in District 12: his mother and brother Sid die in a fire. After the Hunger Games, Haymitch has been able to learn that, Snow, who seemed to know about the Covey, knew and loved the Covey girl from District 12 who won the Tenth Hunger Games. Her apparent betrayal makes Haymitch fear for Lenore. "Oh , Lenore Dove, what have I done to you? How will you pay for my surviving the Hunger Games?"
Lenore Dove, as she is dying from poison, begs Haymitch to not let the sun rise on another reaping. But Haymitch is so devastated by her death that he begins drinking heavily. The depth of his loss is portrayed by his remembrance of a song ( Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven) he learned on her last birthday. No one can help or heal Haymitch, not even Plutarch who hopes to recruit him to help grow the rebellion. Haymitch refuses Plutarch's request to help them change things, because he believes he is "...living proof that the Capitol always wins. I tried to keep that sun from rising on another reaping day, I tried to change things, and now everybody's dead." Haymitch doesn't trust Plutarch because he creates the propaganda that sustains the Capitol. At this time, Snow's brutal suppression of any hint of rebellion is still working to maintain power and control.
This prequel is another well written novel in the Hunger Games series, with believable characters, many of them endearing, some of them very memorable: sweet Ampert, bold Maysilee, kindly Mags, vicious Drusilla, intelligent Wiress and of course, the cruel Coriolanus Snow. There is a mention of a relationship between two men, kept hidden for fear of reprisals by the Capitol. The wealth of characters in the series opens the possibility for many more novels detailing the world of Panem.
Sunrise on the Reaping is a tale of tragedy and loss, how challenging evil often exacts a heavy price. The novel ends on a somewhat hopeful note: eventually Haymitch was able to fulfill his promise to Lenore Dove, by lending a hand in the destruction of Snow, and the defeat of the Capitol. Unlike Coriolanus Snow, Haymitch was able to love again, his heart not poisoned by betrayal and wanton cruelty. Katniss and Peeta offer Haymitch a chance to mourn his losses, something he was reluctant to do. "I didn't want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person's heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love."
Book Details:
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
New York: Scholastic Press 2025
382 pp.
