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Chapter 1
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
Getting the District 12 girl is a huge slap in the face. District 12 kids usually die first. Coriolanus wonders if this assignment has to do with the fact that he jokingly calls Dean Highbottom “High-as-a-Kite-Bottom”—or if this means the Snow family is no longer powerful. Trying to control his emotions, Coriolanus turns to Sejanus. But Sejanus looks miserable, even though he got the coveted District Two boy. Sejanus chokes out that he’s from District Two. Clearly, he still sympathizes with the districts.
Again, Coriolanus is self-centered, so it only makes sense to him that Dean Highbottom is somehow punishing him for the rude nickname. Either way, as far as Coriolanus is concerned, this means his life is over, since he won’t make a good showing as a mentor. For Sejanus, though, getting the District Two boy seems just as terrible—but for him, it's because he still has an emotional connection to his home and feels for the people who live there.
Themes
A screen at the front of the auditorium shows the seal of Panem and the anthem blares. Coriolanus is the only one of his classmates who knows all the words. The president, President Ravinstill, recites from the Treaty of Treason, which established the Hunger Games as a war reparation. Then, the footage cuts to District 12. On a makeshift stage, the mayor, Mayor Lipp, pulls a slip from a burlap sack and announces that District 12’s girl tribute is Lucy Gray Baird. The camera turns to focus on a curly-haired girl in a dress of rainbow ruffles. Lucy Gray gets up, heads to her left, and then seems to drop something green down another girl’s collar—and the girl shrieks. Coriolanus is entranced, since his tribute clearly knows how to attract attention.
Over the last decade of listening to the Grandma’am sing the anthem every morning, Coriolanus has clearly learned the words—though again, he doesn’t think critically about what they mean. Getting some history about the Hunger Games, specifically that it’s a war reparation, shows that the districts lost the war—and that the Capitol feels it’s essential that the districts never forget that fact. Lucy Gray stands out from others in District 12 because of her colorful dress and her showmanship. She might be more than Coriolanus expected her to be.
Themes
Mayor Lipp races for the girl, who’s his daughter, Mayfair. As he reaches Mayfair, a green snake flies out of her dress. Lucy Gray, meanwhile, takes the stage and barely seems to notice. Coriolanus wonders if she’s unstable as one of his classmates suggests that Lucy Gray is like a circus performer. When Mayor Lipp returns to the stage, he strikes Lucy Gray in the face. Peacekeepers haul him off the stage, and the camera focuses on Lucy Gray. She’s wearing makeup—an odd choice, especially since makeup is barely available these days—and looks ready to cry. Sejanus mutters that someone probably rigged the reaping, and Lucy Gray’s name probably wasn’t on the slip.
There’s clearly something going on between Mayor Lipp, Mayfair, and Lucy Gray that readers and Coriolanus know nothing about. Though Coriolanus doesn’t realize it (he’s focusing too much on Lucy Gray’s dress and showmanship), this makes it clear that Lucy Gray is a person, and that she had a life before her name was called in the reaping. If Sejanus is right about the reaping being rigged, this would suggest that corruption is running rampant in District 12, if not all of Panem.
Themes
Lucy Gray’s demeanor suddenly changes when a child in the crowd starts to sing. She smiles, grabs the mic, and picks up the song. Lucy Gray is clearly a born performer, and the Peacekeepers let her sing and swish across the stage. At the end of her song, the Peacekeepers who took the mayor away return and take the mic from her. Then, Mayor Lipp draws the District 12 boy, Jessup Diggs. The camera cuts to the reapings in the next districts, but Coriolanus only pretends to pay attention. He knows Lucy Gray is a gift—if only he can get the audience to root for her.
Lucy Gray demonstrates that if she can create enough of a spectacle with a song, she can cover up the fact that she just put a snake down another girl’s dress. Panem on the whole seems to realize the same thing: if it can turn the Hunger Games into a spectacle, people won’t notice as much that it’s forcing kids to fight to the death. Coriolanus is aligned with the Capitol, so he picks up on how important it is to create a spectacle.
Themes
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Finally, the reaping is over and it’s lunchtime. Coriolanus forces himself not to rush for the buffet; he’s been hungry his entire life. During the war, the rebels starved the Capitol, and many Capitol citizens turned into monsters. Coriolanus once saw a neighbor, Nero Price, hack a leg off of a maid who had died in the street. Grandma’am had fed her two orphaned grandchildren by bartering with Pluribus Bell, who once owned a nightclub and turned to trading on the black market. From him, Grandma’am bought 30 bags of lima beans, which fed the family of three for years.
Again, the fact that Coriolanus has spent his entire life hungry shows that the war affected everyone, not just the working classes in Panem. Rather, it turned everyone into either a monster (as it did Nero Price) or a hero (as with Grandma’am, bartering for the lima beans). But the trick, Coriolanus suggests, is to look like the war didn’t affect him. He can’t allow his scars to show, and he should never act like he has less than he needs.
Themes
Coriolanus fills his plate and then goes to get dessert. They’re serving apple pie today, a rarity. But as Coriolanus studies the slices, Dean Highbottom thrusts an enormous piece at him and then asks what Coriolanus plans to do after graduation, especially if Coriolanus doesn’t win a prize. Dean Highbottom scoffs when Coriolanus says his family would pay the tuition and insists he knows that the Snows are broke. Coriolanus wanders back to his table, regretting ever giving Dean Highbottom a nickname. Coriolanus knows he has to fix things with the dean or he won’t be able to afford school. If he can’t go to school, there aren’t any other options—he’ll be a nobody.
Coriolanus is the sort of person who feels most comfortable with a plan—he can execute a plan, but being without one makes him anxious. Dean Highbottom essentially threatens to destroy Coriolanus’s plans here by insinuating that if he has his way, Coriolanus won’t get a prize and won’t be able to attend school. This, of course, raises the question of why Dean Highbottom has it out for Coriolanus. But it also shows how limited Coriolanus’s idea of success is—he has to go to school, or he’ll be a failure. There’s no other alternative.
Themes
