Mockingjay Chapter 2 Quotes
Mockingjay Chapter 2 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
Yes, other people had plans, I think. Has Peeta guessed, then, how the rebels used us as pawns? How my rescue was arranged from the beginning? And finally, how our mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, betrayed us both for a cause he pretended to have no interest in? (2.25)
From a statement like this, we can tell how hard it has become for characters like Katniss and Peeta to trust anybody. The current regime that governs the Capitol and organized the Games obviously can't be trusted. But the revolutionaries also cannot really be trusted. And even Katniss and Peeta's "mentor," Haymitch, the one person they could try to rely on to get them through the games, lied to them all along.
Quote 2
'I want everyone watching – whether you're on the Capitol or the rebel side – to stop for just a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Our conditions more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that – what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?' (2.56)
In this speech, Peeta asks for the fighting to stop. Other context in this chapter reveals that these aren't Peeta's ideas, but President Snow's – Peeta is being forced to speak for the Capitol. If the fighting stopped, the rebels would be destroyed. However, Katniss seems to realize that Peeta might mean the opposite of what he's saying here, that the rebels should fight, and that she should step forward to lead them.
Quote 3
"That giant clock ticking away your life. Every hour promising some new horror. You have to imagine that in the past two days, sixteen people have died – some of them defending you. At the rate things are going, the last eight will be dead by morning. Save one. The victor. And your plan is that it won't be you." (2.28)
Peeta tries to conjure up the kind of courage it had taken to be a tribute during the Quarter Quell, revealing the terrible circumstances that he and Katniss were in. Even though he says this during a conversation engineered by the Capitol against the rebels, there's no denying that the feelings he expresses here are very real.