“Do they suppose, I wonder, that I have Peeta with me? I doubt Foxface and Thresh even know he was wounded. All the better if they think he’s covering me when I go in for the backpack.” (282) – “No doubt Cato is somewhere nearby, guarding her, waiting for Thresh and possibly Peeta.”
“’Where’s your boyfriend, District Twelve? Still hanging on?’ she asks. Well, as long as we’re talking I’m alive. ‘He’s out there now. Hunting Cato,’ I snarl at her.”
“Then I scream at the top of my lungs. ‘Peeta!’” – “Clove sees the stone […] and loses it. ‘Cato!’ she screeches. ‘Cato!’”
“Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns back to me.” – ‘Clove!’ I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good.”
[[ “’Liar,’ she says with a grin. ‘He’s nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. […]’” – “It’s not bleeding, but I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she’s a goner. There’s still life in her now though, in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the low moan escaping her lips.”
“You’ve probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. […]” – ”Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved.” ]]
“Tears spring in my eyes. The tension, the fight goes out of me at the memory. And I’m overwhelmed by Rue, and the pain in my head, and my fear of Thresh, and the moaning of the dying girl a few feet away.” – “There will never be anything but cold and fear and the agonized sounds of the boy dying in the horn.” (339)
“I’m too stunned at first, too unable to process what’s happened. Has Peeta come to my rescue?” – “Clove is scrambling backward on all fours, like a frantic insect, too shocked even to call for Cato.”
“’I promised Cato if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show.’” – “’I won’t die. I promise. If you promise not to go,’ he says.” (275)
“Where’s your boyfriend, District Twelve?” — “I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or bad he been lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?”
“Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved.” — “Want to blow Lover Boy one last kiss?”
And now my personal favorite parallel:
‘I can follow you. At least partway. I may not make it to the Cornucopia, but if I’m yelling your name, I bet someone can find me. And then I’ll be dead for sure,’ [Peeta] says.” (274) –“‘Clove!’ I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good.”
And a very powerful extra parallel:
“It’s like being home again, when they bring in the hopelessly mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in her third day of labor, or the famished child struggling against pneumonia, and my mother and Prim, they wear that same look on their faces. Now is the time to run away to the woods, to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in another part of the Seam the hammers make the coffin. But I’m held here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that holds the loved ones of the dying. How often I’ve seen them, ringed around our kitchen table and I thought, Why don’t they leave? Why do they stay to watch? And now I know. It’s because you have no choice.” (347-348) – “Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved. […] After a few minutes, I hear the cannon and I know that Clove has died, that Cato will be on one of our trails.”
And an extra extra, on the importance of “stay with me” in THG:
· “She collapses into my arms. I kneel back on the ground, her body across mine. ‘Lenore Dove…’ I plead. ‘Don’t. Don’t.’ […] Oh, no. Don’t leave me with that. Don’t leave me at all. ‘Lenore Dove? Please try and hold on, darling. Lenore Dove?’ ‘Promise.’ Her eyelids flutter shut. ‘Okay, okay, I promise. But you can’t go. You can’t leave me. Because I love you like all-fire.’ ‘You, too.’ I think that’s what her lips said. ‘Lenore Dove?’ I press mine against hers. Willing her to stay with me. Refusing to say good-bye. But when I pull back, I taste the poison and know she is gone.” (SotR, 364-365)
· “Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved. […] After a few minutes, I hear the cannon and I know that Clove has died […]” (THG, 289)
· “I clench his hands to the point of pain. ‘Stay with me.’ His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. ‘Always,’ he murmurs.” (MJ, 314)
