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
Coriolanus is the only person on the train platform; he’s been waiting for hours for Lucy Gray Baird to arrive. He has a rose to offer her, which was Tigris’s idea. As he waits, Coriolanus wonders how his family will deal with the tax and remembers his conversation with Tigris last night. The cousins decided Coriolanus must win Lucy Gray over by making her feel valuable, hence the rose. Coriolanus sweats in the sun and decides that Lucy Gray is intimidating—she dropped a snake down a girl’s dress. She might even try to kill him. But Coriolanus has to try to get her to cooperate. Yesterday, he learned that each mentor-tribute team will have a five-minute interview slot. Lucy Gray has to stand out.
The way that Coriolanus and Tigris frame Coriolanus’s strategy (making Lucy Gray feel valuable) betrays that they don’t really see her as valuable. Making her feel that way is going to help them, but they don’t actually regard Lucy Gray as anything other than a curiosity and as Coriolanus’s ticket to success. Because of what Lucy Gray did with the snake during the reaping, Coriolanus doesn’t see her as trustworthy. This establishes snakes as a symbol of distrust and dysfunctionality in Panem.
Themes
After another hour, the train finally appears in the tunnel. The sound of its horn stirs up memories in Coriolanus: his father, Crassus Snow, was a military commander and required his family to meet him at the train station—until rebels killed him. Coriolanus was always terrified of his father, and he still feels afraid standing on the train platform. Finally, the train pulls up and stops. The cars aren’t passenger cars—they’re cargo cars. To Coriolanus’s surprise, there are people inside. After about a half-hour, Peacekeepers saunter over, open the first car’s door, and shout for everyone inside to move. Barefoot children, clad in rags and burlap, appear in the door, hacking and coughing. The Peacekeepers roughly yank them down.
In many ways, Coriolanus is still living in the past—and he acts and speaks as though he was genuinely traumatized by what he experienced during the war. This shows again that the war hurt everyone in Panem, even one of the wealthiest families in the country. Back in the present, though, Coriolanus is confronted with the fact that Panem clearly doesn’t see the tributes as children. Transporting them in cargo cars denies them their humanity. And it’s clear the kids are sick—another indictment of how Panem treats its less fortunate citizens.
Themes
Coriolanus is used to seeing the tributes on TV, but the stench of the dirty livestock cars is unexpected. He’s repulsed. The Peacekeeper moves to the second car and first Jessup, then Lucy Gray Baird, climb out. As the Peacekeepers shout at the other tributes in the car, Coriolanus approaches Lucy Gray, welcomes her to the Capitol, and offers her the rose. She takes a petal and puts it in her mouth, explaining that as a kid, she bathed in rose petals and buttermilk. Coriolanus introduces himself as her mentor and admits he probably shouldn’t be on the platform. Lucy Gray calls him a “rebel,” and Coriolanus doesn’t know what to think—this is an insult in the Capitol, but she seems to mean it as a compliment.
Seeing the tributes in person like this is a shocking experience for Coriolanus. He has to confront how poorly his country treats the tributes, who seem poor, underfed, and not at all in control of what’s happening to them. When Lucy Gray offers that she bathed in rose petals as a child, it suggests that even if she’s not a wealthy Capitol girl, she, like Coriolanus, comes from some degree of wealth and prestige. She might not be so different from Coriolanus in this regard, even if she’s a tribute now.
Themes
Coriolanus says his job is to take care of Lucy Gray as the Peacekeepers toss two small children onto the platform, breaking the girl’s tooth. Lucy Gray saunters away, wishing Coriolanus luck. Sensing that he’s losing his chance, Coriolanus asks the Peacekeeper if he can accompany the tributes to their lodgings. The drunk Peacekeeper assents. Seeing Lucy Gray watching him, Coriolanus takes a deep breath and climbs into the truck, which is a cage on wheels. As the truck moves off, Coriolanus realizes he's made a mistake: the tributes are grubby and smelly, and they seem ready to attack.
The Peacekeepers clearly don’t care about the tributes, given the way they throw the kids around with no regard for their safety or emotional wellbeing. But the Peacekeeper doesn’t seem to care about taking care of Coriolanus, either, since Coriolanus perceives that the tributes mean to do him harm. Coriolanus, though, shows how little he thinks of the tributes when he describes them as “grubby” and “smelly” as though it’s the kids’ fault; it doesn’t seem like the tributes have had the option to be anything but smelly after traveling in a livestock car.
Themes
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The boy from District 11 taunts Coriolanus and tries to strangle him, but Coriolanus knees the boy in the crotch. The boy then asks the other tributes to help him kill Coriolanus—but Lucy Gray asks them not to, since Coriolanus is her mentor. Coriolanus explains that each tribute will get a mentor as the truck pulls up to a dead end. He’s not sure where they are—but then, the truck backs into a dimly lit building. The cage tips, dropping Coriolanus and the tributes 20 feet down into what turns out to be the monkey house at the zoo. Capitol children on the other side of the bars gawk at Coriolanus and the tributes.
Stepping into the cage with the tributes was a way for Coriolanus to show the tributes he’s like them and he empathizes, but in reality, the kids don’t see Coriolanus as someone who can empathize with them. He’s a Capitol kid, with way more privilege than these kids have ever had. And winding up in the zoo with the tributes shows Coriolanus in no uncertain terms how the Capitol thinks of the tributes. To the Capitol, tributes are animals to be gawked at, not people to care for.
Themes
