Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Propaganda, Spectacle, and Morality
Children
Government and Power
Human Nature
Trust and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Bobbin slices into Coriolanus’s arm, throwing Coriolanus back into a pile of rubble. Coriolanus grabs a two-by-four and clubs Bobbin again and again. Sejanus shouts for Coriolanus to leave Marcus and run—they can hear more tributes coming for them. The boys race around the barricade as Coral, Mizzen, and Tanner run after them. Coriolanus runs right into a concrete slab, and he feels concussed. Sejanus leads Coriolanus to the turnstiles. The Peacekeepers don’t protect Sejanus and Coriolanus as the tributes throw bricks and weapons at the boys. But a Peacekeeper opens the barbed wire, and the boys slide through just as Tanner slices Sejanus’s leg.
In this situation, Coriolanus steps into the role of another tribute. When faced with possibly losing his life, he feels he has no choice but to turn to violence—and kill another person to defend himself. This shows him that he’s truly on his own as he tries to survive in his world. And when the Peacekeepers don’t try to protect him and Sejanus, it makes that even clearer. Coriolanus has grown up believing that, as a Capitol kid, he’ll be protected—but clearly, he was wrong.
Themes
Coriolanus spits angrily at the Peacekeepers and almost falls over. The Peacekeepers march him outside and deposit him near the news van. Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom ignore Coriolanus and Sejanus; finally, an ambulance appears to take the boys to the Citadel. Coriolanus is terrified, but it turns out that there’s a small medical clinic inside the lab. Medics stitch up his cuts and give him an IV with fluids and drugs. Coriolanus feels trapped, especially when Peacekeepers take Sejanus away. Finally, Dr. Gaul enters Coriolanus’s cubicle and takes his pulse. She explains she started as an obstetrician, but the job wasn’t for her. Coriolanus can see why.
Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom’s non-reaction to the boys coming out of the arena further shows that they don’t care about Coriolanus and Sejanus’s lives. They care about putting on the best show they can—one that doesn’t show that Capitol kids are in danger, just like the tributes. Being taken to the Citadel only increases Coriolanus’s fear, as he’s in a vulnerable state and then finds himself in Dr. Gaul’s lab. While it makes sense why Dr. Gaul would be a terrible obstetrician (she clearly doesn’t care about other people’s lives at all), the shift to running the muttation program makes sense. She wants to create new life, but on her twisted, cruel terms.
Themes
Dr. Gaul explains that she hated parents wanting assurances about their children’s future. She couldn’t know what kids would experience—she’d never have predicted Crassus Snow’s son would end up in the Capitol Arena. She asks what the arena was like, and Coriolanus says it was terrifying. Then she asks what he thought of the tributes and points out they had nothing to gain by killing him. Coriolanus admits he underestimated how much the tributes hate the Capitol—and now, he wants them dead. Dr. Gaul confirms that Coriolanus killed Bobbin and deems it a “transformative experience” for Coriolanus. Coriolanus tells himself he didn’t murder Bobbin; it was self-defense.
Dr. Gaul might play fast and loose with Coriolanus’s life, but the way she speaks to him here suggests that she doesn’t actually want him to die. She wants him to learn things—such as that, to her, the tributes deserve to die because they’re so violent and hateful. It is, of course, ironic that Coriolanus doesn’t grasp why the tributes want him dead: he, as a Capitol kid, has everything while they have nothing. So this experience just shows Coriolanus that he has to go out of his way to hold onto power, as that’s the only way the districts will stay under control.
Themes
Dr. Gaul admits she wanted Coriolanus to get a taste of what it’s like to fear death. She says that in the arena, people become who they truly are: boys willing to beat each other to death. This, she insists, is “mankind in its natural state.” Coriolanus protests that he wouldn’t have killed anyone if Dr. Gaul hadn’t put him in the arena, but Dr. Gaul says Coriolanus still made a choice. Now, he has to figure out what human beings are, since his answer will dictate what kind of government they need. Coriolanus is disturbed.
Dr. Gaul is sharing Enlightenment political philosophy here; in Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes proposed that people are naturally violent and need a central government in order to live harmoniously in society. To Dr. Gaul, the Hunger Games seem to be a way to recreate Hobbes’s violent “state of nature” in a controlled environment, thereby justifying the Capitol’s existence.
Themes
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Coriolanus accuses Dr. Gaul of abusing her power as a teacher by making him kill Bobbin, but she ignores this and says that Coriolanus’s essay on war was terrible. She asks him to write another essay on what happens without control. Coriolanus says chaos happens, but Dr. Gaul asks him to elaborate—what’s it like being without laws or government? She sends him away and he leaves the Citadel. Outside, the Plinths’ Avox is there to take Coriolanus home. The Avox leaves Coriolanus at his apartment with food.
Coriolanus is far less worried about political theory than he is about the fact that a teacher—a person he thought he could trust—put him in danger. He realizes here that he can’t trust anybody. But again, Dr. Gaul shows that this was all a lesson for Coriolanus. Now that he’s experienced the terror of being in the arena, he’ll understand how necessary the Capitol is—and go out of his way to support it.
Themes
Tigris is waiting up for Coriolanus, but he refuses to tell her everything until morning. Seeing his bloody cuts, Tigris laments Lucy Gray’s plight. Coriolanus realizes he’s glad he killed Bobbin—Bobbin won’t kill Lucy Gray now. Coriolanus collapses in bed and wakes to Grandma’am singing the anthem. He showers, inspects his stitches, and decides to tell people he had a bike accident. Tigris gives him tokens so he can take the trolley, as well as egg-and-sausage rolls from Ma.
Coriolanus may be better able to empathize with Lucy Gray now after experiencing what it’s like to be in the arena. But he’s still focused on winning. Unlike Sejanus, he sees no reason to actually try to get the Games to stop—the reward for winning is, to Coriolanus, too huge to pass up. The anthem continues to be background noise for Coriolanus, too, rather than something he thinks about critically.
Themes
At the auditorium, Coriolanus feels bad when he sees Juno Phipps, Bobbin’s mentor. She doesn’t know yet that Bobbin is dead. The mentors take their seats, sing the anthem at eight, and then Lucky welcomes everyone to day two. Cameras pan to Marcus’s body. Bobbin’s is nearby and is nearly unrecognizable. Coriolanus sweats and wants to leave—but he reminds himself he’s not Sejanus. The cameras cut back to Lucky, who celebrates since they’ve hit the halfway mark; 12 tributes are dead. Lepidus interviews Juno, who insists Bobbin died under suspicious circumstances and demands to see footage. With horror, Coriolanus realizes footage does exist—there’s a record of him killing Bobbin.
Coriolanus doesn’t see Sejanus as anyone to admire or aspire to be like; he’s far too concerned with getting ahead to want to shut down the Games over this kind of violence. This concern with getting ahead causes Coriolanus to overlook the violence—even the horrific violence he committed. Instead, he starts to believe that the violence is both normal and necessary. This doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not disturbing. He doesn’t want anyone to know he killed Bobbin, showing Coriolanus’s humanity is still intact.
Themes
Lucky says he has a surprise for the 12 remaining mentors. He leaps across his studio to where Sejanus and Strabo Plinth are sitting. Sejanus reveals that his family is establishing the Plinth Prize, which will give a full ride to the University to the winning mentor. After some celebration, the cameras cut back to the arena. Coriolanus realizes Sejanus was right: Strabo is trying to cover up Sejanus’s “outrageous” behavior with money. Will Strabo try to buy Coriolanus’s silence about Sejanus’s trip into the arena? Coriolanus tells himself to focus on helping Lucy Gray.
Strabo is an interesting character. Recall that Sejanus said his father bought the family’s life in the Capitol to keep Sejanus out of District Two’s reaping—but here Strabo is, further incentivizing the Hunger Games for other Capitol families. Through this, he highlights the idea that within the Capitol, it’s impossible to trust anyone but oneself. Looking out for others, as Sejanus tries to do, will inevitably be punished.
Themes
Not much happens in the arena all morning; Coral and Mizzen collect food and water, but the other tributes stay hidden. After lunch, the mentors learn that only those with living tributes will sit on the mentor dais. Coriolanus dislikes this—Clemensia still seems angry with him. He struggles to stay awake until late afternoon, when the District Five girl emerges and Mizzen, Coral, and Tanner hunt her down and kill her. Lepidus interviews her mentor, Iphigenia, who can’t remember whether the girl’s name was Sol or Sal. Coriolanus reminds himself there are only 10 tributes to go until he wins the Plinth Prize.
The quick and matter-of-fact way that Coriolanus describes Sol’s death betrays how little he cares about her—to him, she’s just another obstacle between him and winning the Plinth Prize. The fact that even Sol’s mentor Iphigenia can’t remember Sol’s name suggests that the mentorship program hasn’t been very successful at encouraging the mentors to humanize their tributes.
Themes
Later in the evening, Lucy Gray races out of a tunnel alone. Jessup staggers out behind her, looking hurt. But soon, it becomes clear he’s sick. He swipes at the sun. Lucy Gray can’t have poisoned him—but then, Coriolanus sees him start to foam at the mouth.
Jessup’s mysterious illness drives home that the tributes don’t just have to fear each other in the arena. They also have to protect themselves from the Capitol’s neglect, which results in the tributes’ illnesses and deaths from starvation.
Themes
