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
Grandma’am sends Coriolanus to bed as soon as he gets home. He wakes up later to Tigris and some noodle soup. Tigris shares that Satyria has been calling for him, and Coriolanus asks if she’s calling about Clemensia. He shares the entire story with Tigris, who’s horrified. She suggests that Coriolanus avoid Dr. Gaul as much as possible. Once Coriolanus eats, he picks up Satyria’s next call. She just wants him to sing the anthem at Arachne’s funeral tomorrow. Once Coriolanus agrees, Satyria asks how Lucy Gray is. Coriolanus says Lucy Gray—and the other tributes—are terrible, since the Capitol isn’t feeding them. Satyria promises to try to fix this.
Prior to the start of the Games, both Tigris and Coriolanus saw Coriolanus’s mentorship as a way to get ahead. But now, they can’t ignore that being a mentor is putting Coriolanus in danger, just as the tributes are put in danger during the Games. No children, they’re coming to realize, are safe in Panem, though poor district children and Capitol children suffer in different ways. Satyria asking about Lucy Gray suggests that she, too, is starting to humanize the tributes.
Themes
In the morning, Grandma’am wakes Coriolanus up at dawn so she can coach him through the anthem. When she deems him ready, she pins a rosebud to his uniform jacket and sends him to the Academy. Coriolanus ends up sitting in the front row, near President Ravinstill. Coriolanus has never sung publicly, so he’s nervous. He looks around at the funeral banners and such, thinking it’s way too much for someone as insignificant as Arachne—especially when most war heroes didn’t get much recognition.
Though Coriolanus presumably leaves home prepared to sing the anthem, there’s no indicator he’s thought about what the words mean and how hypocritical they might be. The anthem is, for him, background noise. His observation about the mismatch between Arachne’s importance and the pomp in the funeral suggests that Coriolanus doesn’t see the point of this funeral: to make Arachne more significant than she was, so Panem can turn her into a martyr and vilify the tributes even more.
Themes
Finally, at 9:00 a.m., Coriolanus walks to the podium. Accompanied by a tinny instrumental recording, he begins the anthem. He sails through the song, which isn’t challenging, and sits to applause. Then, President Ravinstill takes the podium and says that Arachne was a victim of the rebel war. As drums beat, the funeral procession comes around the corner. Behind Peacekeepers comes a flatbed truck with a crane on it—and the District 10 girl’s body hangs from the crane. The other tributes are shackled to the truck bed. This, Coriolanus knows, will remind the districts that they won’t win. Arachne’s coffin comes after another battalion of Peacekeepers.
Arachne might not have been particularly important in life. But in death, she becomes a symbol of all the terrible things the Capitol folk have suffered during the war. Put simply, the funeral—which is no doubt televised—is a publicity stunt, not a way to honor Arachne. Hanging the dead tribute’s body shows viewers in the districts what happens when they cross the Capitol, while the shackled living tributes send the message that district folk will never be anything but prisoners in this system.
Themes
Dr. Gaul speaks next and seems unusually sane and intelligent. She promises that Arachne won’t have died in vain—the Capitol will fight back, and the Hunger Games will be dedicated to her memory. Coriolanus thinks this is ridiculous, but he stays quiet. As the crowd starts to disperse, Coriolanus turns to find Dean Highbottom staring at him. They exchange condolences and Coriolanus praises the procession. To his surprise, Dean Highbottom says it was “excessive and in poor taste.” Straightening Coriolanus’s rose, he remarks that nothing has changed, even if people insist they have to remember the cost. He tells Coriolanus not to be late for lunch, since there’s pie.
Keep in mind that while Coriolanus sees Dr. Gaul as maniacal and unhinged, all signs point to her being very intelligent and conniving (and, of course, evil). As the Head Gamemaker, she’s the mastermind behind the Games and this funeral procession, and she understands the symbolism of what she’s doing. Dean Highbottom’s reaction to the procession is interesting, given that he came up with the Games—he makes it seem like he doesn’t support treating tributes like this. And Coriolanus shows how willing he is to fall into line and follow rules when he insists the funeral was moving, even if he thought it was excessive.
Themes
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Fortunately, Dean Highbottom wasn’t lying about the pie. Coriolanus fills his plate and chooses the biggest slice he can find, though he feels like his self-control is eroding. He notices Sejanus not eating and, since throwing food away is a crime now, encourages Sejanus to eat. Near the end of the meal, Satyria tells the students that the Hunger Games are still on—and the mentors are supposed to take the tributes to tour the arena later, to show the districts the Capitol isn’t weak or afraid. Nobody looks excited, but nobody is willing to speak up, either. Believing that Dr. Gaul probably wants an excuse to torture a tribute publicly, Coriolanus takes Sejanus’s uneaten food in a napkin. This isn’t allowed, but Lucy Gray needs food.
Again, it becomes clear that the Capitol is very concerned with symbolism and projecting an image that will make them seem strong and in control. It’s no matter to them that the mentors might actually be in danger walking around the arena with the tributes—the point is to look strong and unafraid, preferably on national television. Seeing how vulnerable he is, Coriolanus decides Dr. Gaul is his adversary. Stealing the food for Lucy Gray is a way for Coriolanus to get back at the government for treating his life so casually.
Themes
Vans drive the mentors across town to the Capitol Arena. It used to be a state-of-the-art amphitheater for events, but the rebels bombed it. The field is full of bomb craters and there’s rubble everywhere. During the Hunger Games, tributes are locked inside with weapons. Afterwards, Capitol workers remove the bodies and weapons but do no other cleanup. Professor Sickle ushers students out of vans and into a line with their tributes. Coriolanus and Lucy Gray are next to Jessup and Lysistrata. Reaper, Clemensia’s tribute, glowers at the ground. Lysistrata offers Jessup medicine for his neck.
Holding the Hunger Games in an arena that the rebels bombed is convenient—there’s no reason to keep it nice anyway—but it also creates an image that puts blame for all this on the districts. Recall that the Hunger Games is a war reparation; forcing the tributes to die in an arena that rebels bombed creates the impression that the tributes are dying in the rubble that their own families might have helped create during the war.
Themes
Peacekeepers open the lobby doors and lead the mentors and tributes through the lobby. They stop at turnstiles that require Capitol tokens. Coriolanus realizes this was the entrance for poor people; the Snows had a private box at the top of the arena. Peacekeepers feed tokens in as the kids go through the turnstiles; the turnstiles say, “Enjoy the show!” in a cheerful voice as each person passes through. Coriolanus goes through and realizes he can’t get back out this entrance, which doesn’t help his anxiety.
The turnstiles drive home that for Panem, this tour of the arena is just a show. This is how they show citizens that they’re in control and the rebels won’t win; it’s not for the benefit of the tributes or mentors at all. And being forced to participate in this show is anxiety-inducing for Coriolanus, as he’s used to being in charge and watching other people be forced into this sort of thing.
Themes
Peacekeepers lead the mentors and tributes through a dark passageway. Coriolanus takes the opportunity to slip the fried chicken to Lucy Gray, and she takes his hand in the dark. They let go before they reach the arena. Coriolanus saw the circus a few times as a kid and he’s watched the Games on TV, but being on the field is a whole new experience. The field is huge. Coriolanus rearranges his face to look unimpressed. He didn’t expect this visit to feel so sad as he joins the other mentors on a walk around the perimeter of the field. Circus performers used to take this route. Coriolanus starts to look around for anything that might help Lucy Gray. If she can get into the stands, she’d have a chance.
Again, Coriolanus is right on the nose when he remembers the circus as he and Lucy Gray circle the arena. The Hunger Games are a circus in their own right—a circus designed to distract the population and keep the war alive in people’s minds. It’s also hard to ignore here that Coriolanus is just a kid who, perhaps, has never had to confront the magnitude and the suffering of the Hunger Games. Feeling so small and sad mirrors how out of control he feels (since he’s a pawn for the media, too) and how much empathy he’s developing for Lucy Gray.
Themes
Lucy Gray whispers that before the tributes’ participation in the funeral procession this morning, they got food. A few kids passed out last night, so they’ve had breakfast and dinner. They discuss Coriolanus’s performance at the funeral, and Lucy Gray compliments his voice. When she says that most people here think she’s “lower than a snake’s belly,” Coriolanus laughs at her “colorful” expressions. Coriolanus laughs again—and then everything explodes.
Snakes, because of how dangerous they can be (and because of the serpent in the Bible, who tempts Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge) are generally considered sinister creatures. With this expression, Lucy Gray gets at the fact that people in the Capitol think she’s subhuman and dangerous. Notably, too, Dr. Gaul clearly cares for her neon snakes better than she cares for the tributes, proving Lucy Gray’s point.
Themes
