The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay

A love ballad, an anthem, a poem of remembrance, and a hit from a twenty-first-century movie; it does not sound like I am describing the same poem, but the poem/song “Hanging Tree” matches all of these descriptions. The song “Hanging Tree” is incredibly well known, has multiple interpretations, and an unlikely origin. The song is most well-known because of the 2014 movie, The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay – Part 1. Songs can be considered poems due to their structure and rhyme scheme, I will identify both of these later in the paper. Understanding the conflict of the poem can be beneficial to understanding the underlying context. No matter the interpretation, the overall conflict of the “Hanging Tree” is that the speaker of the poem feels that

One part of structure is rhyme scheme which can help with memorization or emphasis. This poem has a rhyme scheme of ABBCBB. While the rhyme scheme may not have much of an effect on this particular poem, the constant rhyme and repetition of the lines allow for easy memorization and a catchy tune. There are only four different stanzas but three of them are repeated twice which makes for a total of seven stanzas. Collins and Howard took inspiration from the ballad “Hangman”, which helped them to craft “Hanging Tree” as a lyrical poem. In the book, The Hunger Games, “Hanging Tree” is only a poem that connects Katniss to her late father. However, in the movie, The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay – Part 1, the poem is turned into a song with one change, “necklace of rope”, becomes “necklace of hope” (Line 21). This alteration manipulates the message of the song and takes it from one of despair and defeat to one of hope and victory. These structure changes can influence our interpretation of the poem, but the conflict remains the

After each of these lines, the next lines are, “Strange things did happen here/No stranger would it be/If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree” (4-6). The speaker is encouraging his beloved to commit a crime that is punishable by death so that together they can be free from the prejudiced world. The speaker is saying how being the world is so unfair it would not be strange for them to be executed together, and if it means escaping the injustice then they might as well. While the love ballad speaks of escaping the discrimination by giving into the culture, reading this as an anthem allows a beacon of hope through the suggestion of a rebellion. By changing the “necklace of rope” to “necklace of hope” the speaker is no longer encouraging his love to find an escape, but to find a passion to fight the inequality and change it (21). In the version used in the movie, a man was wrongfully executed, and he wants his significant other to flee the persecution but fighting for what is right can change what is happening and can allow for one to flee. If his love continues to fight then they can be free, side by side. He is dead but he is free in the sense that he ignited a revolution, and his partner gains her freedom through the fight. In this battle, they are walking