Mockingjays symbolize different things to different people: to Coriolanus, the birds symbolize the Capitol’s failure to control everything in the districts; to Lucy Gray and other district folk, the mockingjays are symbols of resistance and hope.
Mockingjays are a hybrid species of bird that emerged after Dr. Gaul’s lab released their jabberjays (programmable birds that can record what they hear and were used to spy on rebels) after the war ended. The idea was that the entirely male flock would die—but instead, they bred with indigenous mockingbirds, creating mockingjays. Mockingjays can’t be programmed to record like their fathers, but they do still mimic what they hear and turn what they hear into music. Coriolanus sees this as failure on the Capitol’s part because things with the birds didn’t go according to plan, and Coriolanus hates nothing more than something that didn’t go according to plan. He also hates the birds because he finds their strange music so unsettling; the birds create haunting songs out of, at one point, a man’s last words before he hangs, clearly without understanding the significance of what they’re mimicking. This is somewhat ironic, as Coriolanus and many other people in the Capitol parrot all sorts of state propaganda without really thinking about it—and yet, Coriolanus only takes offense at this practice when birds outside of the Capitol’s control do it.
The fact that Coriolanus can’t control the birds is, in part, what makes mockingjays symbols of hope and resistance for the district residents. Where Coriolanus sees the birds as a gross mistake and as nature run amok, Lucy Gray and others in District 12 seem to treat the birds as an unlikely bright spot in an extremely dark turn of events (the rebels losing the war, and the Capitol subsequently exerting total control over the districts). The mockingjays are proof that the Capitol can’t control everything—and they’re also proof that, just as the mockingjays’ song emerges from one of the Capitol’s attempts to control the population, better times and a successful rebellion could also come in time.
Mockingjays Quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Human speech had vanished, and what remained was a musical chorus of Arlo and Lil’s exchange.
“Mockingjays,” grumbled a soldier in front of him. “Stinking mutts.”
Coriolanus remembered talking to Lucy Gray before the interview.
“Well, you know what they say. The show’s not over until the mockingjay sings.”
“The mockingjay? Really, I think you’re just making these things up.”
“Not that one. A mockingjay’s a bona fide bird.”
“And it sings in your show?”
“Not my show, sweetheart. Yours. The Capitol’s anyway.”
This must be what she’d meant. The Capitol’s show was the hanging. The mockingjay was some sort of bona fide bird. […] Coriolanus felt sure he’d spotted his first mockingjay, and he disliked the thing on sight.
Many fluttered into the sky, but the song had spread, and the woods were alive with it. “Lucy Gray! Lucy Gray!” Furious, he turned this way and that and finally blasted the woods in a full circle, going around and around until his bullets were spent. He collapsed on the ground, dizzy and nauseous, as the woods exploded, every bird of every kind screaming its head off while the mockingjays continued their rendition of “The Hanging Tree.” Nature gone mad. Genes gone bad. Chaos.
Mockingjays Symbol Timeline in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
