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Chapter 18
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 hurries through the Capitol, feeling like he did something terrible. He tells himself he doesn’t want the snakes to kill Lucy Gray—but he also wants to win the Plinth Prize, and apparently he’s willing to cheat to win. As he deliberates, Coriolanus realizes he's been kind of cheating for a while. He can argue that it was just decent to sneak dining hall food for Lucy Gray, but now he wonders what else he’s capable of. He vows to be honest going forward.
Coriolanus’s mental gymnastics here are another sign of how successfully Panem has warped the conversation about the Hunger Games. Saving Lucy Gray’s life is, to readers, the clear right thing to do—but instead, Coriolanus can only focus on the fact that he’s cheated. This is a big deal to him not because he necessarily prizes honesty, but because if he’s found out, he might not win.
Themes
Coriolanus realizes he’s near the Plinths’ apartment, so he decides to pop in. Their wealth is obvious in their lavish furnishings. Ma greets Coriolanus in the front hall and since Sejanus is in bed (he’s experiencing a breakdown), she invites Coriolanus to join her in the kitchen for tea. He tries not to judge her for doing something as low class as serving a guest in the kitchen, but he thoroughly enjoys his huge piece of blackberry pie. As Coriolanus eats, he observes what seems like a shrine to District Two. He finds this pitiful. Ma joins Coriolanus at the table and they discuss how poorly Sejanus fits in in the Capitol. But Strabo, she says, is convinced this is for the best.
Coriolanus, of course, fails to refrain from judging Ma—his disdain is palpable as he follows her into the kitchen. Through his observations about her and how “pitiful” she is, he shows what he prioritizes: wealth, and the Capitol, over all else. It doesn’t even seem to register with him that Sejanus is in trouble, and as his mother, Ma is worried for her son. He also doesn’t seem to grasp that Strabo seems to be trying to do the best he can to keep his family safe, as he’s too busy resenting the Plinths’ wealth.
Themes
An Avox maid signals to Ma that Strabo would like to see Coriolanus, so Coriolanus follows the maid to Strabo’s library. Strabo looks out of place and sad in his velvet smoking jacket, but he still gives Coriolanus a look that Coriolanus remembers Crassus giving him. Strabo says that while Coriolanus looks like Crassus, he’s not like Crassus at all—Crassus wouldn’t have saved Sejanus from the arena. Maybe, he suggests, Coriolanus is more like his mother, who was “the very definition of a lady.” With prodding, Coriolanus says he’s like his mother in that they both love music (a stretch) and they both believe they shouldn’t take good fortune for granted. Coriolanus isn’t sure what he means by this, but Strabo accepts it. Strabo thanks Coriolanus again for saving Sejanus and then dismisses Coriolanus.
Coriolanus’s first glimpse of Strabo paints a picture of a man who might not be so different from Sejanus. He doesn’t seem to fit into the world of the Capitol, but unlike his son, he’s trying to make an effort. As Strabo discusses Crassus and Coriolanus’s mother, it becomes clear that Coriolanus—and Strabo, for that matter—would like to be more like his mother than he actually is. This represents Coriolanus trying to tap into a kinder, gentler side of himself, one that his mother embodied. And it helps humanize Strabo, too, that he says these kind things about Coriolanus’s mother.
Themes
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Once at home, Coriolanus sits down to write his essay for Dr. Gaul on chaos, control, and contract—what happens if no one is in control of humanity. Coriolanus thinks of how quickly the arena transformed him from prey into a predator. What would it be like if everyone was like that? If survival was people’s only concern? There are no laws in that scenario, and Coriolanus knows that this is where “the social contract” (the agreement not to kill or rob each other) comes in. But that requires laws, power, and control—which only the Capitol should have. This written, Coriolanus crawls into bed.
Through this essay, Coriolanus is doing exactly what Dr. Gaul wants him to do: considering these Enlightenment ideas and using them to ultimately justify the Capitol’s existence. Though the novel never fully answers what humans are like when there are no laws—the Hunger Games are contrived, not an actual natural state of humanity—through this exercise, Dr. Gaul encourages Coriolanus to decide that humans are naturally violent. Therefore, according to this line of thinking, they deserve to be subjugated.
Themes
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Coriolanus wakes up to the anthem in the morning and eats some of Ma’s breakfast foods on the trolley to school. The mentors now have assigned seating, and the only change in the arena is that Jessup’s body is with the other bodies. Nothing happens until midmorning, when Wovey, skeletal and ill, appears in a tunnel. Hilarius sends her water and food—but Wovey is in too much of a daze to do much but drink from one bottle. She sits back and goes still. Coriolanus wonders if Lucy Gray poisoned Wovey as Hilarius leaves the mentor dais. Around lunchtime, Reaper inspects Wovey’s face and carries her to the dead tributes. Coriolanus believes Reaper suspects Wovey didn’t die of hunger.
Once again, Coriolanus expresses no interest in the anthem’s lyrics—it’s background noise, rather than something to engage with thoughtfully. Though at this point it’s impossible to know for sure if Lucy Gray poisoned Wovey, the fact still remains that Wovey wasn’t strong or nourished enough to survive long. And this is the Capitol’s fault for not feeding her when she lived in her district, and then when she was directly in their care as a tribute.
Themes
Coriolanus wishes Lucy Gray would appear so he could send her more food and water—to eat, and to poison for others. Mizzen and Coral eventually eat the food that Wovey didn’t. Coriolanus, though, can’t stomach the lima bean soup lunch served to the mentors. Festus eats Coriolanus’s portion and then they return to the auditorium. Nothing happens in the arena that afternoon. At one point, Lucky interviews Dr. Gaul—and Dr. Gaul is holding Lucky’s parrot, who’s clearly upset, in a cage. Dr. Gaul announces Gaius Breen’s death and says that to punish their “rebel enemies,” she has “something special” for the kids in the arena. The camera cuts to the arena.
After so many years eating lima beans thanks to Grandma’am’s bartering with Pluribus, Coriolanus can’t bring himself to eat the food that reminds him of that terrible time. This starts to show that it is, perhaps, unnecessary to continually host the Hunger Games—people who lived through the war, like Coriolanus, won’t quickly forget what it was like to be afraid and hungry. Dr. Gaul looks even more menacing as she holds Lucky’s beloved pet.
Themes
A drone flies into the arena and drops the snake tank in the middle. Treech, Teslee, Circ, and Reaper are in the arena and watch with interest—until the snakes race in all directions. Clemensia leaps up and screams; Coriolanus holds her and tells her she’s okay. The tributes in the arena run, but the snakes attack Circ and kill him. Teslee tries to climb a pole, sobbing in terror. Dr. Gaul explains that the snakes are muttations designed to hunt humans. Mizzen and Coral race out of tunnels; snakes kill Coral while Mizzen manages to climb another pole. Then, mics pick up Lucy Gray singing, “la la la.” She walks backward out of a tunnel, snakes following her happily. Other snakes slither toward her as she sits. The snakes slither onto her rainbow skirts.
There’s no indication that in prior Hunger Games, tributes have had to contend with anything in the arena but each other. Dropping the snakes in is not only a way to punish the tributes, the rebels, and the districts; it’s also a way for Dr. Gaul to create drama and increase viewership. And though Dr. Gaul clearly didn’t plan for it, Lucy Gray singing to the snakes creates yet more drama and intrigue—as nobody but Coriolanus knows why the snakes behave this way. Dropping the snakes also impresses upon the tributes that they can’t trust the Capitol to play by previously established rules—Dr. Gaul might upend things at any time.
Themes
