Mockingjay Chapter 24 Quotes

Mockingjay Chapter 24 Quotes

How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)

The little girl who was watching me kneels beside a motionless woman, screeching and trying to rouse her. Another wave of bullets slices across the chest of her yellow coat, staining it with red, knocking the girl onto her back. For a moment, looking at her tiny crumpled form, I lose my ability to form words. (24.51)

This is a taste of the awfulness of the battle that's about to come. Innocent people are dying. Children are dying. And Katniss can't do anything to stop it. To make matters worse, there's no one side of the fight that's good and one side that's evil. Both sides are acting without compassion and are using inhumane tactics in their attempts to win the war.

Quote 2

A hovercraft marked with the Capitol's seal materializes directly over the barricaded children. Scores of silver parachutes rain down on them. Even in this chaos, the children know what silver parachutes contain. Food. Medicine. Gifts. They eagerly scoop them up, frozen fingers struggling with the strings. The hovercraft vanishes, five seconds pass, and then about twenty parachutes simultaneously explode. (24.74)

Help and aid turn into injury and death. This is one of the cruelest twists of fate presented throughout the war as more innocent people die yet again. This time, the children are tricked into accepting aid that turns out to be lethal. The incident seems to suggest that, no matter what, no one is ever safe.

"I'm not sure exactly. The one thing that I might still be useful at is causing a diversion. You saw what happened to that man who looked like me," he says. (24.26)

Yet again, Peeta steps bravely forward. He's still not fully recovered from being hijacked and yet he's determined to "be useful" doing the "one thing" that he still <em>can</em> do to help. That's giving himself up so the other rebels, including Katniss, can get through and get closer to Snow.