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Snakes represent the danger that lurks everywhere in Panem, even in unexpected places. Lucy Gray initially establishes herself as a surprisingly cutthroat competitor in the Hunger Games when her name is called in the reaping. Instead of heading straight to the stage, Lucy Gray slips a snake down Mayfair Lipp’s dress—Mayfair is responsible for Lucy Gray’s name being called in the first place. As the Games progress, Lucy Gray continues to use snakes, such as Dr. Gaul’s technicolor snakes, to kill and ultimately win the games. And a month later, at the end of Coriolanus’s stint as a Peacekeeper in District 12 and as their romance falls apart, Lucy Gray sets a trap for Coriolanus that results in him getting bitten by a snake. By befriending and using snakes to achieve her goals in a way that seems somewhat out of character for a kind, loving musician, Lucy Gray demonstrates that in Panem, it’s not a good idea to trust anyone based on how they look—anyone could be just as cutthroat as Lucy Gray is.
Coriolanus also came to the same conclusion earlier in the novel, when he and Clemensia meet with Dr. Gaul in her lab with the technicolor snakes. Dr. Gaul creates a situation where the snakes bite Clemensia, leaving Clemensia seriously ill and in the hospital for days—something Coriolanus sees as evidence that he can’t trust Dr. Gaul. She may be a teacher and someone that, in theory, students should be able to trust, but in reality, she’s more than willing to maim students if it suits her aims.
More specifically, though, snakes also represent the danger Coriolanus himself poses to others. When he reaches his hand into Dr. Gaul’s snake tank, the snakes treat him like he’s one of them, which aligns him with snakes early on in the novel. He later encourages Lucy Gray to use poison against the other Hunger Games tributes and eventually poisons Dean Highbottom, using poison in much the same way that snakes’ venom poisons their victims. And at one point Lucy Gray says that she loves many things she doesn’t trust—like snakes. Though Lucy Gray does seem to genuinely love Coriolanus, she ultimately learns that he, like a snake, is untrustworthy.
Snakes Quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes quotes below all refer to the symbol of Snakes. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
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.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes LitChart as a printable PDF.
Snakes Symbol Timeline in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The timeline below shows where the symbol Snakes appears in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...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...
(full context)
Chapter 3
...rose. Coriolanus sweats in the sun and decides that Lucy Gray is intimidating—she dropped a snake down a girl’s dress. She might even try to kill him. But Coriolanus has to...
(full context)
Chapter 7
...man leads them to Dr. Gaul, who’s next to a tank containing hundreds of neon snakes. Clemensia and Coriolanus lie that the whole class talked about the proposal and then wrote...
(full context)
Dr. Gaul laughs that her assistant used the proposal as bedding in the snakes’ cage and asks Coriolanus and Clemensia to fetch the papers. This feels like a test,...
(full context)
Chapter 8
Clemensia shrieks and shakes the snakes off her hand. Her hand oozes technicolor pus. Lab techs rush in, inject Clemensia with...
(full context)
...crouches close to Lucy Gray and decides not to tell her about Clemensia and the snakes. He offers her the nutritional crackers, and she immediately finishes one packet. Then she explains...
(full context)
Chapter 9
...compliments his voice. When she says that most people here think she’s “lower than a snake’s belly,” Coriolanus laughs at her “colorful” expressions. Coriolanus laughs again—and then everything explodes.
(full context)
Chapter 18
...Dr. Gaul. At the elevator, though, he encounters lab assistants with the tank of neon snakes. Coriolanus has a bad feeling about this. Will the snakes end up in the arena?...
(full context)
Chapter 19
...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...
(full context)
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...
(full context)
Chapter 20
Coriolanus isn’t sure why the snakes are behaving like this, and he never told Lucy Gray about Clemensia and the snakes....
(full context)
...and his classmates. Coriolanus is the only one able to connect Gaius’s death to the snakes, telling Lepidus that “when hit, we hit back twice as hard.” Everyone but the remaining...
(full context)
Coriolanus decides he must make up with Clemensia. As their classmates sleep, they discuss her snakeskin (which is going away) and Coriolanus apologizes for abandoning Clemensia. They make up, share a...
(full context)
...her wrist with his ax. But Lucy Gray leaps into his arms—and a hot pink snake bites him in the neck. He dies. Vipsania leaves the dais and Clemensia and Coriolanus...
(full context)
Chapter 24
Coriolanus tells Lucy Gray about Dr. Gaul’s lab, her snakes, Clemensia, and dropping the handkerchief into the snake tank. That, he says, is why he’s...
(full context)
Chapter 27
...Sejanus go to pick berries. Lucy Gray warns her away from the rocks, where the snakes live; Maude Ivory explains that Lucy Gray loves snakes and will hold them.
(full context)
...is important.” Lucy Gray says she doesn’t trust a lot of things she loves, like snakes. But she does trust Coriolanus.
(full context)
Chapter 30
...be heartbroken. He catches sight of the orange scarf and reaches for it—when suddenly, a snake strikes him. She clearly planted the snake; Coriolanus now sympathizes with Billy Taupe. The wound...
(full context)
...compass to navigate back to District 12. Back at the base, a doctor examines his snakebite and says it wasn’t a poisonous snake. Coriolanus should be fine. In the bathroom at...
(full context)
