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Chapter 4
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 is shocked; his academic record is spotless. Dean Highbottom tells him to go, and Coriolanus does. Later that evening, Coriolanus heads for the zoo. He happily remembers visiting the zoo as a child, but now, most of the cages are empty—many animals were eaten during the war. All that’s left are rats and raccoons. As Coriolanus approaches the monkey cage, he finds Sejanus trying to coax tributes to take a proffered sandwich. Coriolanus approaches and Sejanus says the tributes unsurprisingly don’t trust him. A little girl steps up and reminds Sejanus that he shouldn’t feed the animals. Sejanus argues that the tributes are kids, like them, but the little girl says the tributes are district and belong in a cage.
The zoo might not have many animals now to amuse the Capitol’s children, but the girl who reprimands Sejanus shows that Capitol kids have been raised to think of the tributes as animals. This girl clearly doesn’t see the tributes as people who don’t belong in a cage, being gawked at. Sejanus’s attempt to feed the tributes suggests not just that he cares, but that the Capitol isn’t feeding the tributes. So even as the Capitol brings the kids here to entertain them, it continues to neglect and starve them.
Themes
Ignoring the girl, Sejanus asks Coriolanus for help. Coriolanus doesn’t want to get in trouble again, and he doesn’t want Sejanus to get more attention than him. But, deciding he’s safe and Dr. Gaul is on his side, Coriolanus takes sandwiches and plums, heads to a flat rock, and spreads out his handkerchief like he’s having a picnic. Lucy Gray sits down, accepts a sandwich, and encourages Coriolanus to join her. Then, Lucy Gray tells Jessup to accept a sandwich. After Jessup takes his, the other tributes rush Sejanus for theirs—all except Marcus, the District Two boy.
Notice that once again, Coriolanus’s real motive here is to attract more positive attention than Sejanus. For him, this isn’t about making sure fellow human beings get the food they need to survive—it’s about helping himself. So acknowledging the tributes’ humanity is convenient for him, not something he does all the time. This establishes Coriolanus as selfish and superior.
Themes
The news cameras approach Coriolanus and Lucy Gray. Lepidus asks about Sejanus and asks why Sejanus is bringing sandwiches; doesn’t the Capitol feed the tributes? Lucy Gray says she hasn’t eaten since before the reaping, and then she asks viewers to bring any food to share to the tributes. Lepidus seems uncomfortable as he scurries away.
Keep in mind that Lepidus works for the state-sanctioned television network; he seems to fear that it won’t go over well if he facilitates people finding out that the Capitol is mistreating the tributes so badly. He, like Coriolanus, has to look out for himself. Doing the right thing is secondary to bettering his position.
Themes
Coriolanus suggests that Lucy Gray sing again, but she asks what Coriolanus gets out of mentoring her. Coriolanus is embarrassed; this is the first time he’s acknowledged that Lucy Gray is going to die. He’s always thought of her as more of a fighting dog than a person, even though Lucy Gray is a person. Sighing, Coriolanus says Lucy Gray doesn’t have to sing, but a performance might get her more food. He admits he doesn’t have extra food at home. They smile over having eaten some terrible things to get by during the war, and then Coriolanus turns to leave. But he stops when Lucy Gray starts to sing a song about a train. In it, she asks a lover to build her a mansion and write her a letter.
It seems like a positive step that Coriolanus realizes here that he hasn’t thought of Lucy Gray as truly human up until this point, and that this isn’t how he should be thinking about her. But he’s also torn: Lucy Gray is a person, but Coriolanus is invested in her only because he wants her to win the Hunger Games. He acknowledges her humanity a bit more as they share how hungry they were during the war. And Lucy Gray then thanks Coriolanus with what he wanted: a song.
Themes
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Coriolanus is transfixed; the song is a lot like one Coriolanus’s mother used to sing to him. He keeps a picture of his mother on his nightstand and still sniffs his mother’s compact, which contains rose-scented powder. She died in childbirth a few months into the war; Coriolanus’s father died months later. Coriolanus wonders if Lucy Gray lost her mother to rebels, too, and thinks about how Lucy Gray separates herself from District 12 by saying she’s Covey.
Through her singing, Lucy Gray starts to connect Coriolanus with happy memories of his mother. The aside that he still sniffs the powder in her compact speaks to how much he still misses his mother. And the compact—a frivolous thing of beauty—suggests that Coriolanus is interested in beautiful things, not just power.
Themes
Sejanus interrupts Coriolanus’s thoughts by thanking him. He reveals that he can’t help imagining himself as a tribute as bales of hay roll down a chute into the monkey house. Sejanus says if he was in District Two still, he’d be in the reaping. Then, he says his tribute, Marcus, was a classmate and hates him. Sejanus laments that Marcus would rather starve than take food from him. Coriolanus insists Marcus will still win—so Sejanus offers to trade tributes. Coriolanus knows this is how he could win. But, he realizes, winning with Marcus wouldn’t take brains or skill. Winning with Lucy Gray would be historic, and she’s already won the audience over. Coriolanus also realizes that Lucy Gray is one thing he has that Sejanus wants. He refuses Sejanus’s offer.
Sejanus clearly doesn’t care about winning. Doing the right thing is far more important to him, and Coriolanus realizes this. But Coriolanus doesn’t admire this in Sejanus, necessarily. Rather, he sees Sejanus as a person who will be easy to manipulate and use to make himself look better. So Coriolanus is still interested in winning. But now, he realizes that his win will be even sweeter if he not only wins with a long-shot tribute, but also gets to lord his power over someone like Sejanus, whom Coriolanus doesn’t like.
Themes
