The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“Without such a prize, he had no way to afford to go to university, which meant no career, which meant no future, not for him, and who knew what would happen to the family, and—”

The pressures on Coriolanus are also part of what drives him to make certain decisions. This aids the reader in garnering some sympathy for his character, knowing the struggles he faced in the past and the difficulties that continue to influence his present.

“Where she’d gotten the makeup he had no idea, for it was only just becoming accessible again in the Capitol, but her eyes were shadowed blue and lined with black, her cheeks rouged, and her lips stained a somewhat greasy red. Here in the Capitol, it would have been bold. In District 12, it felt immoderate.”

Coriolanus’s first impression of Lucy Gray reveals both astonishment and awe: He admires the bravado with which she presents herself at the reaping, while also feeling somewhat uncomfortable with her penchant for displaying herself. He is both attracted and repulsed by her in equal measure; most importantly, she remains mysterious to him—where did she get that makeup?—and thus outside of his control.

“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.”

The Capitol’s perspective on the tributes is made absolutely clear: They are cattle or pigs, disposable livestock unworthy of humane treatment. They are here only to sacrifice their lives for the power of the Capitol. No effort was made to clean the cars, Coriolanus notices—and is, at first, disturbed by.

“Without turning he knew it was the girl, his girl, and he felt immense relief that he was not entirely alone. He thought of how cleverly she had played the audience after the mayor’s assault, how she had won them all with her song.”

When Lucy Gray approaches him in the monkey cage at the zoo, Coriolanus knows he is safe from the other tributes; she is his protector. However, the use of the possessive is always worth noting: She remains in his favor only insofar as she remains under his control.

“Sejanus looked down at the empty backpack by his feet. ‘Ever since the reaping, I keep imagining I’m one of them.’ Coriolanus almost laughed before he realized Sejanus was serious. ‘That seems like an odd pastime.’

This exchange best captures the nature of the relationship between these two characters. Where Sejanus has empathy for the tributes, for the districts, Coriolanus harbors only contempt. He makes an exception for Lucy Gray, at least for a time, reasoning that she is exceptional, with her charm and lovely voice, and that she is not actually of the districts. In addition, this exchange reveals how careful Coriolanus is to cultivate the appearance of friendship with Sejanus. He doesn’t want to jeopardize offending someone who might be of use—with all that wealth—to him later.

“He found her easy to tell things to, somehow. Was it because he knew that all he recounted would vanish in the arena in a few days?”

This is the crux of Coriolanus's feelings for Lucy Gray, even if he convinces himself otherwise: She is ultimately expendable. The normally secretive Coriolanus lets her in on his own past and private pain, because he knows she is doomed. His secrets are safe.

“His terror was a private thing, not meant for public display.”

After the attack on Arachne by her own tribute, Coriolanus, urged on by Lucy Gray, tries to help her. He is cognizant of the cameras rolling and the crowd watching him, so he calculates his performance carefully, even in the midst of panic. It also represents a contrast between how he sees himself and how he—and the rest of the Capitol—sees the tributes. Their terror is meant for public display; that’s the point of the Games.

“He buried his head in his hand, 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 was for sure.”

This speaks to the epigraph from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at the beginning of the book: Coriolanus becomes the vile President Snow, at least in part, “by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him.” In this sense, he is Dr. Gaul’s tragic creature.

“Her hand found his, intertwining their fingers and sending a buzz through his body at their closeness. At this small intimacy in the dark. He gave her hand a final squeeze and released it as they headed into the sunlight at the end of the passageway, where such a display would have been inexplicable.”

Again, Coriolanus is acutely aware of the fact that his every move as a mentor in the Games is performative. While he can show affection and attraction for Lucy Gray in private, those kinds of displays are not appropriate for the audience. Their feelings for each other cannot be revealed in the light of day.

“Coriolanus had never really considered her a victor in the Games. It had never been part of his strategy to make her one. He had only wished that her charm and appeal would rub off on him and make him a success.”

This emphasizes, yet again, that Lucy Gray is expendable. It also reminds the reader that Coriolanus almost always views other people through the lens of his own self-serving agenda. People are either objects of use or obstacles to overcome.

“And while he had no claim on her heart—he barely knew the girl!—he didn’t like the idea of anyone else having it either. Although the song had been a clear success, he felt somehow betrayed by it. Even humiliated.”

When Lucy Gray sings a song ostensibly about a former lover, Coriolanus feels disgruntled. The thought that she might not be his sole possession “humiliates” him. Even though her singing wins over the Capitol, those responsible for sending her food and water in the arena, it alienates Coriolanus. When she is not behaving like “his girl,” she is rejected by him.

“Maybe he’d broken a rule or two by giving her the compact and suggesting she fill it with rat poison, who knew? There was no real rule book for the Hunger Games.”

This begs the question as to why Coriolanus gets punished for his transgressions in the Games: There is nothing inherently fair or ethical about these Games, and yet his assistance is deemed inappropriate. His enforced departure to the districts reads more like a deliberate test by Dr. Gaul.

“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 [mute servants] in the cages. Powerless to object.”

This reveals not only Dr. Gaul’s lack of respect for human life—even that of Capitol-born—but Coriolanus’s helplessness in the grand scheme of things. It is this very powerlessness that he spends so much of his energy to overcome. His desire for control is born of an utter lack of it throughout his young life. It links him, again, to the tributes, as Dr. Gaul sees him as just as expendable—that is, until he proves her otherwise.

“Without the control to enforce the contract, chaos reigned. The power that controlled needed to be greater than the people—otherwise, they would challenge it. The only entity capable of this was the Capitol.”

Coriolanus’s views on the social contract come to echo Dr. Gaul’s. He employs a logical fallacy here, creating a false dichotomy: There is either the choice to allow chaos to reign or the decision to control with tyranny and cruelty. This Hobbesian view offers little subtlety or empathy.

“And how much uglier District 12 had the likelihood of being, with its additional coat of coal dust. He’d never really seen much of it, just the grainy coverage of the square on reaping day. It didn’t look fit for human habitation.”

Coriolanus's contempt for District 12 extends to both place and people. As he himself feels early on in the book, “[e]veryone knew what happened if you went to the districts. You were written off. Forgotten. In the eyes of the Capitol, you were basically dead” (36). This kind of erasure was inflicted on him and explains, at least in part, both Coriolanus’s attachment to Lucy Gray and his ultimate betrayal of her.

“He wondered if that wasn’t the problem. The impossibility of being a Snow in this postwar world. What it had driven him to do.”

As always, Coriolanus considers himself exceptional, above the fray, and incapable of reproach. His justifications for his actions arise out of a deep-seated sense of entitlement and filial arrogance. Essentially, his actions are justified because the “postwar world” failed, and continues to fail, to recognize said exceptionalism.

“He leaned over and kissed her, flushed with happiness, because although he did not believe in celestial writings, she did, and that would be enough to guarantee her loyalty. Not that his own loyalty was in question.”

Coriolanus's ability to deceive others is matched only by his penchant for lying to himself. When Lucy Gray reminds him that they are inextricably linked, that she is his because fate made it so when they saved each other’s lives, Coriolanus is very pleased. Her loyalty is assured; she is his possession—until her presence impedes his ambition.

“Dr. Gaul had defended him. Well, not defended him. But made sure Strabo Plinth understood that Coriolanus was in an entirely different class than his delinquent son [Sejanus]. […] Perhaps she hadn’t written him off entirely.”

The fact that Coriolanus wishes to curry favor with Dr. Gaul when he was initially repulsed by her cruelty, shows his evolution as a character—or, rather, his moral devolution. Instead of siding with Sejanus’s empathy, he throws in his lot with Dr. Gaul and her views on power and control.

“Coriolanus felt increasingly wary the farther away they got from what passed as civilization out here.”

Coriolanus’s entitlement is on full display here; however, this observation also reveals a disconnect between him and nature, and therefore, between him and the Covey, “his” Lucy Gray. The reader can interpret the conflict between the Capitol and the districts as that of industrialization versus nature. Note that “civilization” here connotes city and technology, not moral development or accountability.

“The idea that the roses, the very symbol of the Snow dynasty, were to be demolished precipitated [Grandma’am’s] downward spiral into even greater agitation and confusion. […] Anger, impotence, humiliation—those were all he had to offer.”

This is core to Coriolanus’s character—his fierce desire to never be impotent, his determination to overcome humiliation. It also reminds the reader that, for him, the pressures to perform and succeed are great. The roses here do not symbolize romance or innocence; rather, they signify power and dynastic heritage—of which Coriolanus bears the full weight.

“He’d killed for the second time. If Bobbin’s death had been self-defense, what was Mayfair’s? Not premeditated murder. Not murder at all, really. Just another form of self-defense. The law might not see it that way, but he did.”

Coriolanus’s justification and ruthlessness grow as he works to preserve himself at any cost. If Mayfair had reported the rebel plan, then Coriolanus would have been implicated in the plot, even when he was really just trying to control Sejanus. His fate would have been like Sejanus’s, punished for treason. Thus, he feels justified in killing her.

“Coriolanus felt giddy as he blasted the mockingjays off the branches, managing to kill three. Not so clever now, are you!”

For Coriolanus, the mockingjays symbolize everything he cannot control: The districts, Lucy Gray, his own fate. He wants to put an end to the “chaos” that natural replication or unintended consequences represent. This also foreshadows the murder—or attempted murder—of Lucy Gray.

“They would hang him, but she would be there, knowing he was still a genuinely good person. Not a monster who’d cheated or betrayed his friend, but someone who’d really tried to be noble in impossible circumstances. Someone who’d risked it all again to save her from Mayfair. The hero of her life.”

To the very end, Coriolanus views Lucy Gray through the lens of his own self-serving perspective: When he thinks himself caught, prior to finding the murder weapons, he still believes that he acted nobly. Coriolanus deludes himself into thinking his actions were to save Lucy Gray, rather than to save himself. His ego cannot allow for another interpretation. As many stock villains do, Coriolanus sees himself as heroic, not malevolent.