I have a tag #Katniss dreams decoded because her dreams are a prevalent, and fascinating, thread through the series. After @shesasurvivor was kind enough to decode the one in CF chapter 6 I started using her approach: what is the surrounding text telling us? I was looking forward to this one because I haven't come across fully fleshed out meta for it (yet). I almost forgot to do it until I happened to run across an attempt to answer in an ask sent to @everlarkedalways many moons ago.
“I have only one dream I remember. A long and weary thing in which I’m trying to get to District 12. The home I'm seeking is intact, the people alive. Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit, travels with me. I keep trying to ditch her in places, but she inexplicably reappears at my side, insisting that as my escort she’s responsible for my staying on schedule. Only the schedule is constantly shifting, derailed by our lack of a stamp from an official or delayed when Effie breaks one of her high heels. We camp for days on a bench in a gray station of district 7 awaiting a train that never comes. When I wake, somehow I feel even more drained by this than the usual nighttime forays into blood and terror.”
Katniss Everdeen, Mockingjay pg 322 Ch 23
I actually think this one is fairly easy comparatively but I’m gonna pull it apart sentence by sentence because each one conveys a very specific idea.
A long and weary thing in which I'm trying to get to District 12. The home I'm seeking is intact, the people alive.
This is straightforward. Katniss wants to be home, that's all she has been trying to do through the whole trilogy. She never wanted any of this; she never wanted to be in a war but it happened anyway. Ever since she was Reaped her journey has been about getting home and being safe. She wants the people of her district to never have been bombed as well as ones she loves intact (Peeta, Finnick, Gale, and I would venture even Boggs) and alive. Although Peeta never stays dead, he is figuratively disfigured due to the hijacking, plus the loss of his leg. At this moment Gale has a pretty serious neck wound.
Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit, travels with me. I keep trying to ditch her in places, but she inexplicably reappears at my side.
The reason Effie is conspicuous is because she represents a problem that Katniss can not simply ignore the way she typically would. Effie represents her journey since the Reaping as well as the Capitol and District 13. Why? Because even in 13 it wasn't much different, Katniss is still on the same journey, doing the same song and dance. She can't seem to get rid of this problem. Originally she thought “if I just do this or this or this, then the Games will be over, I'll be free to live my life.” But the way in which she won the Games put her under a microscope, not only with Snow, but with the Capitol citizens and the rebels. Over and over again she does things to appease Snow and the Capitol, thinking it will satiate them but it never does. Then in 13 it's the same game of putting on a show trying to appease, just under a different leader.
“Only the schedule is constantly shifting…”
This is about how Katniss's role in the war, figuratively and literally, is constantly changing; this includes internally as well. Her current "schedule" is to kill Snow but she is starting to lose sight, or perhaps a better word is belief, in the mission.
“Derailed by our lack of a stamp…”
This is an easy bit, this mission is not sanctioned and flying off the grid has hurt them in many ways.
“...or delayed when Effie breaks one of her high heels.”
Effie's broken heel stumped me a lot but then I backtracked to what Effie represents: her guidance of Katniss and more specifically guiding her on a journey she didn't want to be on. Now that Effie's heel is broken she can no longer guide Katniss. This represents Katniss breaking free from any outside interference. She is 100% free to call her own shots but the choices she's made have led to a lot of death which is something she never wants. She's beginning to realize she's made no actual progress even now that she's broken free of anyone overseeing her.
“We camp for days on a bench in a gray station of district 7 awaiting a train that never comes.”
What is Katniss's self appointed mission?
Kill Snow.
Who did she promise she would kill Snow? Johanna.
Where is Johanna from?
District 7.
So why is the station gray?
Because Johanna is stuck in 13.
The gray station in 7 is the looming promise Katniss made to Johanna that she would kill Snow. Except Katniss is having second thoughts because now several people have died on a mission she was not authorized for. That they camp for days is a metaphor for the indecision she now feels as well as reinforcing her lack of actual accomplishment of anything. She can't move on, to kill Snow nor home to 12, trapped between her guilt over the many deaths that have occurred in the last 24 hours and her promise to Johanna.
"When I wake, somehow I feel even more drained by this than my usual nighttime forays into blood and terror"
This is guilt, not fear which is why it feels like a different drain, guilt weighs heavily. After Katniss wakes from the dream she eats, drinks, and runs through all the deaths that have happened and comes clean to the others confirming guilt is at the root.
"I eat a can of beef stew and wash it down with a lot of water. Then I lean against the cellar wall, retracing the events of the last day. Moving death by death...To believe them dead is to accept I killed them...But the others lost their lives defending me on a mission I fabricated. My plot to assassinate Snow seems so stupid now...I think it's time to give myself up. When everyone finally awakens, I confess."
