Catching Fire Setting Analysis

Time Period : The novel takes place almost a year after Katniss and Peeta had won the 74th Hunger Games.

Main Places : District 12 : District 12 remains the same, there's The Hob for traders, The Meadow for illegal hunters, and everythings else is the same, until the new Head Peacekeeper arrives. Following Katniss' rebellious action at the 74th Hunger Games,Head Peacekeeper Cray is replaced by a new peacekeeper named Thread, who's a lot more vicious, dangerous and ruthless. He burns down the Hob and changes the District completely. As Katniss explains (pages 128 129 131 132) : " Nothing much will happen during the blizzard. That's what Peeta and I had agreed. But we couldn't have been more wrong. The square has been transformed. A huge banner with the seal of Panem hangs off the roof of the Justice Building. Peacekeepers, in pristine white uniforms, march on the cleanly swept cobblestones. Along the rooftops, more of them occupy nests of machine guns. Most unnerving is a line of new constructions, an official whipping post, several stockades, and a gallows, set up in the center of the square. "Thread's a quick worker," says Haymitch. Some streets away, from the square, I see a blaze flare up. None of us has to say it. That can only be the Hob going up in smoke. ... The streets are almost deserted, which would not be so unusal at this time of day if people were at the mines, kids at school. But they're not. I see faces peeking at us out of doorways, through cracks in shutters. ... No one mentions the ugly tools of torture just yards from the front door. The last thing I notice as we leave the square is that I do not recognize even one of the peacekeepers' faces. As the days pass, things go from bad to worse. The mines stay shut for two weeks and by that time half of the district is starving. The number of kids signing up for tessarae soars, but they often don't receive their grain. Food shortages begin, and even those with the money come away from stores empty handed. When the mines reoprn, wages are cut, hours extended, miners sent into blatantly dangerous work sites. The eagerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents. The installations in the square see plenty of action as people are dragged in and punished for offenses so long overlooked we've forgotten they are illegal." 

The Quarter Quell Arena : The Arena, is the shape of a clock. Each hour, the tributes face another danger. Monkey attacks, poisonous sandstorms, jabberjays that make the tributes face(rather hear) their greatest fears, etc... There's one thing that hasn't changed : the Cornucopia, where there are weapons and backpacks that have supplies in them; yet the tributes need to swim there to reach it or anywhere(each tribute is supplied with a belt that protected them from drowning though). At the end of Chapter 22, Katniss figures out the way the Arena works with Wiress' help(Pages 324 325 326 327): " " Tick, tock"  I agree softly." It's time for bed.Tick, tock. Go to sleep." The sun rises in the sky until it's directly over us. It must be noon, I think absently.Not that it matters.Across the water, off to the right, I see the enormous flash as the lightning bolt hits the tree and the electrical storm begins again. Right in the same area, it did last night. Someone must have moved into its range, triggered the attack. I sit for a while watching the lightning, keeping Wiress calm, lulled into a sort of peacefulness by the lapping of the water. I think of last night, how the lightning began just after the bell tolled. Twelve bongs. " Tick, tock," Wiress says, surfacing to consciensciousness for a moment and then going back under. Twelve bongs last night. Like it was midnight. Then lightning. The sun overhead now. Like it's noon. And lightning. Slowly I rise up and survey the arena. The lightning there. In the next pie wedge over came the blood rain, where Johanna, Wiress, and Beetee were caught.We would have been in third section, right next to that, when the fog appeared.And as soon as it was sucked away, the monkeys began to gather in the fourth. Tick tock. My head snaps to the other side.A couple of hours ago,at around ten, that wave came out of the second section to the left of where the lightning strikes now. At noon. At midnight. At noon. " Tick tock," Wiress says in her sleep. As the lightning ceases and the blood rain begins just to the right of it, her words suddenly make sense. " Oh" I say under my breath " Tick tock" My eyes sweep around the full circle of the arena and I know she's right." Tick tock. This is a clock" /(Chapter 23) A clock. I can almost see the hands ticking around the twelve sectioned face of the arena. Each hour begins a new horror, a new Gamemaker weapon, and ends the previous. Lightning, blood rain, fog, monkeys; those are the first four hours on the clock. And at ten, the wave. I don't know what happens in the other seven, but I know Wiress is right. At present, the blood rain's falling and we're on the beach below the monkey segment, far too close to the fog for my liking. Do the various attacks stay within the confines of the jungle? Not necessarily. The wave didn't. If that fog leaches out of the jungle, or the monkeys return..." Get up" I order, shaking Peeta and Finnick and Johanna awake. " Get up, we have to move." There's enough time, though, to explain the clock theory to them. About Wiress's tick tocking and how the movements of the invisible hands trigger a deadly force in each section. I think I've convinced everyone who's conscious except Johanna, who's naturally opposed to liking anything I suggest. But even she agrees it's better to be safe than sorry. While the others collect our few possessions and get Beetee back into his jumpsuit, I rouse Wiress. She awakes with a panicked " tick,tock!" " Yes, tick tock, the arena's a clock.It's a clock, Wiress, you were right" I say." You were right." Relief floods her face, I guess because somebody has finally understood what she's known probably from the girst tolling of the bells." Midnight" " It starts at midnight," I confirm. A memor struggles to surface in my brain. I see a clock. No, it's a watch, resting in Plutarch Heavensbee's palm." It starts at midnight," Plutarch said. And then my mockingjay lit up briefly and vanished. In retrospect, it's like he was giving me a clue about the arena. But why would he? At the time, I was no more a tribute in these Games than he was. Maybe he thought it would help me as a mentor. Or maybe this had been the plan all along. Wiress nods at the blood rain. " One thirty," she says." Exactly. One thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," I say pointing at the nearby jungle.