As 18-year-old Coriolanus finds himself in contact more and more often with the Head Gamemaker Dr. Gaul, he’s introduced to some ideas developed by prominent Enlightenment-era political theorists like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke. Though she never mentions these men by name, Dr. Gaul nevertheless encourages Coriolanus to consider some of the same ideas that they did, such as what the purpose of government is, what humanity’s true nature is, and what happens when there is no government to guide human behavior. However, over the course of the novel, Coriolanus sees many of these lofty ideals corrupted and used to justify the horrific abuse of some of Panem’s citizens, such as through the Hunger Games. So while readers may recognize some ideas—such as the idea that a government should protect all of a country’s citizens—as ideas many democratic governments hold dear in the real world today, Ballad shows how easy it is to corrupt these ideals and use them to create and then justify a government whose only goal is to consolidate and hold onto power.
The Enlightenment idea that guides Dr. Gaul’s thinking the most is the idea that humans are naturally evil and violent, and that they all desire power. At first, Coriolanus has a hard time believing this. He doesn’t see himself as an evil person; rather, in his estimation, he’s just trying to get by with the resources he has. Coriolanus also fully supports the Capitol’s goal of subjugating the districts and the people who live there, and so he doesn’t see the way they treat the districts as anything to get upset about. (This, of course, is part of how Panem maintains power—Capitol folk, like Coriolanus, benefit from and are powerful within the system, so they see no reason to change anything.) But Coriolanus has to accept that, at the very least, some people are truly evil, particularly as he watches Dr. Gaul torment animals, perform body modifications on Avoxes (tongueless servants), and do cruel things to both Capitol and district children, such as let her venomous snakes loose to bite them. In Dr. Gaul’s mind, the Hunger Games—a gladiator-style fight to the death between 24 children from the districts—proves her belief that humans are naturally violent. She reasons that if children can be put in a situation where they’re willing to murder each other on national television, humans obviously are innately evil and violent. Coriolanus comes to believe Dr. Gaul is right when he’s stationed in District 12 with the Peacekeepers and gets caught up in a brawl at the Hob, the local bar. In the dark, when everyone is anonymous, the poor District 12 miners—people who showed the Peacekeepers deference when the lights were on—suddenly have no problem fighting back. This impresses upon Coriolanus that it doesn’t take much for people to tap into their violent tendencies.
The way to deal with these naturally violent humans, Dr. Gaul proposes, is by creating a government capable of controlling them and their impulses. And by using abusive measures of control like the Hunger Games, Panem’s government justifies and sustains its corrupt power. Government, Coriolanus and his classmates understand, exists to place limits on what behavior is acceptable among citizens—for instance, mandating that things like theft and murder are illegal—and to protect citizens from abuse. This concept is commonly known as “the social contract,” and it states that people give up some of their rights in exchange for the state’s protection. However, Coriolanus and his classmates’ understanding of the social contract is somewhat warped and points to how corrupt Panem’s government is, as the government in Panem actively abuses citizens—namely, those tributes who are forced to participate in the Hunger Games. Essentially, what Dr. Gaul proposes (and what Coriolanus comes to agree with) is that people are naturally violent and need government—but while government keeps the lower classes from behaving violently or fighting back, the people in the ruling class (those who make up the government) are able to behave violently with few, if any, checks on their power. So the Hunger Games in Panem are, more than anything, a show of Panem’s power. Through the Hunger Games, Panem demonstrates to the districts that the people who live there are disposable pawns that Panem can use to flaunt its power. By forcing the tributes to engage in the violence inherent to the Hunger Games, Panem justifies its own existence: if the people from the districts will behave in this way, Panem proposes, those people obviously need to be controlled by the government.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Government and Power ThemeTracker
Government and Power Quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Coriolanus thought about his grandmother’s roses, which were still prized in the Capitol. The old woman nurtured them arduously in the roof garden that came with the penthouse, both out of doors and in a small solar greenhouse. She parceled out her flowers like diamonds, though, so it had taken a good bit of persuasion to get this beauty. “I need to make a connection with her. As you always say, your roses open any doors.” It was a testament to how worried his grandmother was about their situation that she had allowed it.
By now the smell of the car, musty and heavy with manure, had reached Coriolanus. They were transporting the tributes in livestock cars, and not very clean ones at that. He wondered if they had been fed and let out for fresh air, or just locked in after their reapings. Accustomed as he was to viewing the tributes on-screen, he had not prepared himself properly for this encounter in the flesh, and a wave of pity and revulsion swept through him. They really were creatures out of another world. A hopeless, brutish world.
A self-important little girl marched up beside them and pointed to a sign on the pillar at the edge of the enclosure. “It says, ‘Please don’t feed the animals.’”
“They’re not animals, though,” said Sejanus. “They’re kids, like you and me.”
“They’re not like me!” the little girl protested. “They’re district. That’s why they belong in a cage!”
“Who cares about these kids one way or another?”
“Possibly their families,” said Sejanus.
“You mean a handful of nobodies in the districts. So what?” Arachne boomed. “Why should the rest of us care which one of them wins?”
Livia looked pointedly at Sejanus. “I know I don’t.”
“I get more excited over a dogfight,” admitted Festus. “Especially if I’m betting on it.”
“So you’d like it if we gave odds to the tributes?” Coriolanus joked. “That would make you tune in?”
“Hardly rebels. Some of them were two years old when the war ended. The oldest were eight. And now that the war’s over, they’re just citizens of Panem, aren’t they? Same as us? Isn’t that what the anthem says the Capitol does? ‘You give us light. You reunite’? It’s supposed to be everyone’s government, right?”
“That’s the general idea. Go on,” Dr. Gaul encouraged him.
“Well, then it should protect everyone,” said Sejanus. “That’s its number-one job! And I don’t see how making them fight to the death achieves that.”
It was like the Hunger Games. Only they weren’t district kids. The Capitol was supposed to protect them. He thought of Sejanus telling Dr. Gaul it was the government’s job to protect everybody, even the people in the districts, but he still wasn’t sure how to square that with the fact that they’d been such recent enemies. But certainly the child of a Snow should be a top priority. He could be dead if Clemensia had written the proposal instead of him. He buried his head in his hands, confused, angry, and most of all afraid. Afraid of Dr. Gaul. Afraid of the Capitol. Afraid of everything. If the people who were supposed to protect you played so fast and loose with your life…then how did you survive? Not by trusting them, that’s for sure.
“My condolences on the loss of your friend,” the dean said.
“And on your student. It’s a difficult day for all of us. But the procession was very moving,” Coriolanus replied.
“Did you think so? I found it excessive and in poor taste,” said Dean Highbottom. Taken by surprise, Coriolanus let out a short laugh before he recovered and tried to look shocked. The dean dropped his gaze to Coriolanus’s blue rosebud. “It’s amazing, how little things change. After all the killing. After all the agonized promises to remember the cost. After all of that, I can’t distinguish the bud from the blossom.”
What had mattered then, what mattered still, was living without that fear. So he added a paragraph about his deep relief on winning the war, and the grim satisfaction of seeing the Capitol’s enemies, who’d treated him so cruelly, who’d cost his family so much, brought to their knees. Hobbled. Impotent. Unable to hurt him anymore. He’d loved the unfamiliar sense of safety that their defeat had brought. The security that could only come with power. The ability to control things. Yes, that was what he’d loved best of all.
But Lucy Gray was his tribute, headed into the arena. And even if the circumstances were different, she’d still be a girl from the districts, or at least not the Capitol. A second-class citizen. Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved. Part of a shapeless mass of unfortunate, barbaric creatures that hovered on the periphery of his consciousness.
“But surely, you’re not comparing our children to theirs?” asked Lucky. “One look tells you ours are a superior breed.”
“One look tells you ours have had more food, nicer clothing, and better dental care,” said Dean Highbottom. “Assuming anything more, a physical, mental, or especially a moral superiority, would be a mistake. That sort of hubris almost finished us off in the war.”
“My cousin said to remember this isn’t of our making. That we’re still children, too.”
“That doesn’t help, somehow. Being used like this,” said Lysistrata sadly. “Especially when three of us are dead.”
Used? Coriolanus had not thought of being a mentor as anything but an honor. A way to serve the Capitol and perhaps gain a little glory. But she had a point. If the cause wasn’t honorable, how could it be an honor to participate in it? He felt confused, then manipulated, then undefended. As if he were more a tribute than a mentor.
Another student, or even the Coriolanus of a couple of weeks ago, would have protested this situation. Insisted on calling a parent or guardian. Pleaded. But after the snake attack on Clemensia, the aftermath of the bombing, and Marcus’s torture, he knew it would be pointless. If Dr. Gaul decided he was to go into the Capitol Arena, that’s where he would go, even if his prize was not at stake. He was just like the subjects of her other experiments, students or tributes, of no more consequence than the Avoxes in the cages. Powerless to object.
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.
“I believe I said you could fight for the tributes, meaning you might be able to procure more humane conditions for them,” Coriolanus corrected him.
“Humane conditions!” Sejanus burst out. “They’re being forced to murder each other!”
It reminded me of my stint in the arena. It’s one to thing to speak of humans’ essential nature theoretically, another to consider it when a fist is smashing into your mouth. Only this time I felt more prepared. I’m not as convinced that we are all as inherently violent as you say, but it takes very little to bring the beast to the surface, at least under the cover of darkness. I wonder how many of those miners would have thrown a punch if the Capitol could have seen their faces?
It seemed a waste to be on guard, where clearly nothing ever happened, when he could be holding her in his arms. He felt trapped here on base, while she could freely roam the night. In some ways, it had been better to have her locked up in the Capitol, where he always had a general idea of what she was doing.
Free to speak his mind? Of course, he did. Well, within reason. He didn’t go around shooting his mouth off about every little thing. What did she mean? She meant what he thought about the Capitol. And the Hunger Games. And the districts. The truth was, most of what the Capitol did, he supported, and the rest rarely concerned him. But if it came to it, he’d speak out. Wouldn’t he? Against the Capitol? Like Sejanus had? Even if it meant repercussions? He didn’t know, but he felt on the defensive.
