The Hunger Games: Analyzing “Safe & Sound” by Taylor Swift

The Hunger Games provides many opportunities for classroom discussion and analysis. Taylor Swift’s haunting “Safe & Sound” gives students yet another opportunity to study her clever use of figurative language, symbolism and rhyme.

“Safe & Sound” is a perfect theme song for The Hunger Games. Message boards are full of posts by fans arguing over which story situation the song fits best. I believe the answer is that Taylor Swift penned the song to apply to many, many characters and situations in The Hunger Games. To avoid spoilers, I have listed the characters but not situations. Fans will know!

> Primrose & Katniss
> Katniss & Rue
> Gale & Katniss
> Katniss & Peeta
> Mrs. Everdeen & Katniss

The song is heavy on symbolism and imagery, but actually lighter on rhyme than most of Taylor Swift’s songs.  (No constant internal rhyme like in “Hey, Stephen“.)  Taylor uses a subtle rhyme scheme to create a song that is haunting, not sing-song and catchy.  You might say that she “tailors” her message to her intended audience and purpose.

I hope you enjoy the pdf download of my literary analysis of the song “Safe & Sound” by Taylor Swift from the soundtrack to The Hunger Games.  Click here for two Behind the Scenes videos from TaylorSwift.com.

This is Part 7 of my series about Fun with Literacy: Taylor Swift.

  1. You Belong with Me
  2. Love Story
  3. Hey Stephen
  4. Mean
  5. Speak Now
  6. Our Song
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Posted in Fun With Literacy by Corey Green @ Apr 5, 2012

 

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