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Introduction
Prequels occupy a unique space within their fictional universes. It would be reckless to suggest that Ballad truly precedes the main trilogy in thought, that Coriolanus’s experiences with Lucy Gray inform his interactions with Katniss. On the contrary, Coriolanus’s interactions with Katniss inform his interactions with Lucy Gray. The prequel novel draws on the material in the main trilogy and recontextualizes it to give the main trilogy a level of depth that it previously lacked.
Stylistically, Ballad is far removed from the main trilogy. The trilogy is young adult fiction through and through. Told in first-person present, we are given intimate access to Katniss’s thoughts and feelings. Her youth, inexperience, and naïveté color our experience: we do not always see the world reliably because she does not. Ballad is written third person. We see glimpses of Coriolanus’s thoughts only when the narrator allows it, and he is no more reliable than Katniss. We must watch Coriolanus from a distance, analyzing his words and deeds to discover his true thoughts.
In this essay, I contend that Coriolanus’s youth is characterized by an internal and external struggle between good and evil. Coriolanus was not born the dictatorial Coriolanus Snow we know from the trilogy, nor is he forced into that role by purely external or environmental influence. Rather, in the mode of Greek tragedy, he forces himself into this role through the culmination of his own choices. These choices are the result of an unconscious proclivity toward selfish destructiveness.
Major themes
The yetzer hara
Judaism posits the existence of two opposing forces in the human psyche: the yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara, or the Good Inclination and the Evil Inclination respectively.
While “good and evil” are acceptable rough translations of tov and ra, the English terms carry with them a significant amount of cultural baggage and connotations which do not necessarily agree with the Hebrew usages in the Hebrew Bible. A detailed examination is beyond the scope of the present essay, but we will adopt the translations “good, beneficial [to the community], constructive” and “evil, useless or detrimental [to the community], destructive”.
The two inclinations constantly contend with each other. The yetzer hara is especially insidious:
Surely, if you do right,
There is uplift.
But if you do not do right
Sin couches at the door;
Its urge is toward you,
Yet you can be its master. (The Contemporary Torah, 2006, Gen. 4:7)
The power of the yetzer hara is on full display in the story of the Flood in Genesis. God wipes out all of humanity, save Noah and his family, in response to their rampant violence and injustice. Yet, God immediately repents of this act. Even God is powerless to defeat the yetzer hara:
[God] smelled the pleasing odor, and [God] resolved: “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done. (The Contemporary Torah, 2006, Gen. 8:21)
This is not to say that the yetzer hara is all-powerful. Gen 4:7 states unequivocally that “you can be its master.” It is, however, a constant and unending struggle:
Incidental to the verse, “Tremble, and do not sin,” the Gemara mentions that Rabbi Levi bar Ḥama said that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: One should always incite his good inclination against his evil inclination, i.e., that one must constantly struggle so that his evil inclination does not lead him to transgression, as it is stated: “Tremble, and do not sin.”
If one succeeds and subdues his evil inclination, excellent, but if he does not succeed in subduing it, he should study Torah, as alluded to in the verse: “Say to your heart… (Koren Talmud Bavli, 2019, Berakhot 5a:2)
The yetzer hara can be overcome by, for example, constant study and meditation on Torah, that is, immersive study and meditation on the good.
These two impulses, their influence over man’s actions and his struggle against or submission to them, provide a conceptual framework for Coriolanus’s moral development.
Tigris and Dr. Gaul
Dr. Gaul is a flat, static character. She is the representation of an idea, a certain approach to political philosophy and human nature. She does not change over the course of the narrative. Her function in the narrative is, essentially, to be the primary driving force in developing Coriolanus’s worldview. She is the physical embodiment of the yetzer hara.
There are many characters who influence Coriolanus more positively than Dr. Gaul, but there is one character who, like Dr. Gaul, is relatively flat, static, and an unambiguously good influence. If any character can represent Coriolanus’s yetzer hatov, it is Tigris.
An examination of these two’s interactions with Coriolanus and the ways in which Coriolanus responds to and integrates their influence into his worldview and actions provide a window into his moral decline. They show Coriolanus’s transformation from Coryo into President Snow.
Sejanus and Lucy Gray
If Tigris and Dr. Gaul are the angel and devil on Coriolanus’s shoulders, Sejanus and Lucy Gray are the ultimately unfortunate victims of Coriolanus’s decisions. Sejanus and Lucy Gray are more complex characters than Coriolanus’s moral guides and have their own arcs, but in the context of Ballad’s Coriolanus-centric narrative, they serve as Coriolanus’s foils. Sejanus is Coriolanus’s opposite in nearly every way: District born, new money, and sympathetic to the Districts’ suffering. Lucy Gray contrasts Coriolanus more subtly. She is everything that Coriolanus wishes to be: free, uninhibited, confident enough not to care what others think of her. It is precisely these qualities which cause Coriolanus to seek to control, dominate, and eventually despise her.
On impulse
Ballad’s third person limited viewpoint gives us glimpses into Coriolanus’s thought processes. Coriolanus is analytical to a fault, always weighing the effects his words and deeds have on those around him, and especially on their perception of him. He tends to think and tread carefully. He is also a master of the art of retroactively rationalizing his behavior and that of others. This combination of traits makes him an outrageously unreliable narrator. He projects his own biases and assumptions about human nature on others uncritically, and consistently re-imagines the world around him to establish the rightness of his actions post facto.
This makes Coriolanus’s internal monologue an unreliable tool for analyzing his actual beliefs. Instead, the reader must wrestle with Coriolanus’s ever-changing understanding of his present moment. Objective fact eludes us, and we come away not with Coriolanus’s thoughts but his methods of thinking. We are invited into Coriolanus’s subjective experience of reality.
There are, however, a handful of moments which Coriolanus does not interpret for us, when he acts without premeditation. It is when Coriolanus acts without impulse that we get the clearest look into the values and beliefs at the center of his character.
Minor themes
The Covey and the Citadel
Songbirds and snakes are prominent symbols in the novel. The Covey and the Citadel both employ each of them in different ways. Coriolanus’s responses to symbols and those who employ them provide additional clues about his worldview.
Crassus, his mother, and the Grandma’am
Coriolanus feels tremendous pressure to live up to his family name as a Snow, despite his precarious relationship with his predecessors. The memory of his mother brings him comfort, but he sees in her an example of vulnerability and weakness. His relationship with his father was strained, but Crassus was a war hero and a source of inspiration. Coriolanus’s internal conflict is, in part, an imaginary conflict between his mother and his father.
Nor can we ignore the fact of his having been raised by the Grandma’am. No doubt, much of the obligation Coriolanus feels toward the Snow name is the result of the Grandma’am’s expectations of him. The naive childhood worldview and politics he holds at the beginning of the novel are a blend of postwar trauma and Grandma’am’s peculiar brand racism and classism.
A close reading
With these themes in mind, we will embark on a close reading of the text in the hopes of mapping out the evolution of Coriolanus’s core beliefs and moral decline.
Part 1: Establishing a baseline
Only his cousin’s cleverness with a needle had saved him so far. (Collins, 2023, p. 3)
The novel opens immediately with Coriolanus’s insecurities about the fallen state of the Snow family. He is less concerned about the family’s actual poverty (perhaps because, as a student, there is little he can do to remedy it) than with keeping up appearances. Tigris is essential to the deception upon which Coriolanus’s self-esteem rests.
Every meal, she’d rattle on about the Snows’ legendary grandeur, even when their fare consisted of watery bean soup and stale crackers… “When Coriolanus is president…” everything from the rickety Capitol air force to the exorbitant price of pork chops would be magically corrected. (p. 8)
It’s uncertain how far back “every meal” goes, but it is clear that Coriolanus has long been steeped in stories of the Snows’ glory days. Coriolanus seems to begrudge these tales. He may consider them to be an indication of a state of denial, perhaps dementia setting in, or perhaps a simple refusal to accept the material reality of the present.
The Grandma’am has high hopes for Coriolanus’s future. Tigris, who has foregone University and brings in little money, is unlikely to be able to single-handedly drag the Snows out of poverty. That burden falls to Coriolanus. The Grandma’am does not stop there, however. She expects Coriolanus to rise to the highest political office in the Capitol, and to miraculously solve all the Capitol’s problems too! This is a heavy burden of expectation to place on an eighteen-year-old boy, especially one whose constant hunger makes such a dream seem like a ludicrous impossibility.
He noticed the lilac circles under her golden brown eyes… “When was the last time you slept?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m fine. I ate the potato skins. They say that’s where the vitamins are anyway. And today’s the reaping, so it’s practically a holiday!” she said cheerfully.
“Not at Fabricia’s,” he said… Tigris would spend the day waiting hand and food on her employer and her motley crew of guests… Tomorrow, nursing them through hangovers, would be worse. (p. 8)
Tigris fixes Coriolanus’s shirt dilemma at great cost to her own wellbeing. She loses an entire night of sleep before what are sure to be a grueling two days of labor at her abusive job, pulling through on nothing but potato skins. She insists that she will be fine to protect Coriolanus.
“It does look elegant. You know what her roses mean to her. Thank her.” (p. 12)
The narrative does not say whether Coriolanus would have thanked the Grandma’am otherwise. Her prompting may imply that he would not have. Coriolanus’s tendency to carefully manipulate those around him imply that he might have. Either way, Tigris is here literally functioning as the angel on Coriolanus’s shoulder.
It was not the shield that caught Coriolanus’s attention but Sejanus’s outfit… The ensemble was stylish, brand-new, and smelling of money. War profiteering, to be exact… The Plinths now enjoyed privileges that the oldest, most powerful families had earned over generations…
For Coriolanus, the Plinths and their kind were a threat to all he held dear… It was particularly vexing because the bulk of the Snow family fortune had also been invested in munitions… The center of the Capitol’s military manufacturing had shifted to District 2 and fallen right into the Plinths’ laps. (pp. 16-17)
Sejanus’s outfit is the opposite of Coriolanus’s. Coriolanus’s shirt is old and was barely made presentable in time. Sejanus’s is brand new. Coriolanus has lived in the shadow of the legend of the Snow family name. The Plinths, new money, are enjoying the privileges which the Snows have lost. Coriolanus is keenly aware of this.
Coriolanus views the Plinths as a threat. To Coriolanus, Sejanus is a usurper, taking for himself what is rightfully the Snows’. The fact that the Plinths made their fortune in the same industry that once made the Snows theirs rubs salt in the wound. Sejanus being Distict born is a direct threat to Coriolanus’s sense of hereditary entitlement, which he seemed to resent mere pages ago but which he seems to have accepted as one of his core beliefs.
“No, not really. But only because she hasn’t thought of it,” said Coriolanus, seesawing between disdain and camaraderie. (p. 19)
A gentleman of good breeding must always present himself amicably, so Coriolanus jabs at Sejanus in the most passive-aggressive semi-self-depracating way imaginable. We will see Coriolanus keep up this seesawing as his opinions and attitudes toward Sejanus vacillate over the course of their relationship.
Ma? Was Coriolanus’s place about to be usurped by someone who referred to his mother as “Ma”? (p. 20)
It’s bad enough for Sejanus to be District born in theory. His blatant disregard for Capitol etiquette is the cherry on the sandwich, and a clear indication of Coriolanus’s blatant classist prejudices.
“What is it?” he asked. “Aren’t you happy? District Two, the boy — that’s the pick of the litter.”
“You forget. I’m part of that litter,” said Sejanus hoarsley.
Coriolanus let that sink in. So ten years in the Capitol and the privileged life it provided had been wasted on Sejanus. He still thought of himself as a district citizen. Sentimental nonsense.
Sejanus’s forehead creased in consternation. “I’m sure my father requested it. He’s always trying to get my mind right.”
No doubt, though Coriolanus. Old Strabo Plinth’s deep pockets and influence were respected if his lineage was not. And while the mentorships were supposedly based on merit, strings clearly had been pulled.
Coriolanus makes two assumptions here, both wrong. The first is that the boys are obviously more likely to win the Hunger Games because they are naturally stronger than girls. Even if we make allowances for the pre-bombing arena making the Hunger Games largely a close-quarters bloodbath, his sexism is questionable at best, and indicative of his attitude toward women in general. The second is that Sejanus cares as much about winning as Coriolanus does. Coriolanus fails to remember that Sejanus is from District Two and may know his tribute personally, and fails to imagine that anybody would have moral reservations about the Hunger Games at all. We might conclude that Capitol citizens may find the Hunger Games distasteful but do not fundamentally condemn them; they are ugly but necessary and just. Or perhaps Coriolanus is projecting his own attitude onto his peers.
Coriolanus’s resentment toward Sejanus only grows when he realizes his usurper isn’t even grateful for the privileged position he occupies. Sejanus takes his wealth and status for granted while Coriolanus starves.
We know little to nothing about Sejanus’s academic record, so it is unclear what Coriolanus means by “merit”. What is clear is Coriolanus’s sense of entitlement. He is entitled to the best tribute, and he is entitled to the recognition of his peers and teachers.
Lucy Gray Baird stood upright in a dress made of rainbow ruffles, now raggedy but once fancy. (p. 24)
Lucy Gray’s dress matches Coriolanus’s shirt, once an indication of prosperity, now stained and tattered. Crassus’s old shirt, however, was part of his military ensemble, and has been redone to mask the Snows’ poverty. Lucy Gray’s mother’s dress is almost gaudy and meant for performance and entertainment. Despite its deteriorated state, it is deceptive in its own right: what is a performance if not an elaborate lie?
Coriolanus scanned the crowd and felt a spark of hope. His long shot of a tribute, his throwaway, his insult had captured the Capitol’s attention… With his help, perhaps she could keep it, and he could turn disgrace into a respectable showing. (p. 25)
Coriolanus’s interest in Lucy Gray begins and ends with himself. He sees her as an object, disposable, first as an insult given him by Dean Highbottom, then as a tool for his own gain. There is an implicit assumption that Lucy Gray will not win the Hunger Games. Her death is a given. This may play into Coriolanus’s thinking of her as less than human. The Districts are savage rebels, murderers, Lucy Gray is not a victim but just recompense, and if she will be dead soon anyway, he need not dwell too deeply on the moral implications of his thinking.
She managed to blow a kiss before they were on her. “My friends call me Lucy Gray — I hope you will, too!” she called out. (p. 29)
Lucy Gray shares Coriolanus’s desire to have some control over how others view her. Here, we might conclude that her manipulation is an innocent facet of her role as a performer. The audience is aware of the conceit in a way that Coriolanus’s peers are not. We will see how this desire develops later on.
The cousins never spoke of it, even to each other, but it was burned into Coriolanus’s memory… the absolute horror of realizing that he, too, could now be viewed as edible. (p. 32)
Quite a trauma for one so young. Coriolanus learned early on the savagery that humanity is capable of, and this no doubt defined his growth into a paranoid and self-serving young adult. We have seen Tigris take this as a call to action to be generous and compassionate, to prevent such atrocities from being necessary. It is tragic that they never spoke of it—perhaps Coriolanus would have been able to process the trauma more effectively—but Tigris, a child herself, could hardly be blamed.
It fell to eight-year-old Tigris to boil the beans to the thick stew, then the soup, then the watery broth, which was to sustain them throughout the war. (p. 33)
It seems Tigris has been selflessly ensuring the Snows’ survival from an extremely young age. Although she was forced into the role by the war and the Grandma’am’s incompetence, we are given no indication that she is dissatisfied with her lot.
Collecting taxes from Sejanus Plinth in his palatial apartment on the Corso while he lived in some rat hole fifty blocks out? (p. 36)
Coriolanus is prone to catastrophizing. The minute he hears a rumor that might threaten his family’s tenuous finances, he imagines himself living in a hovel and collecting taxes from the Plinths in an apartment much like his own once was. This explicit inversion of the Capitol-District relationship that threatens the foundation of Coriolanus’s worldview is entirely imagined, a product of his own paranoia and penchant for overthinking.
The cousins agreed that he needed to make a good first impression on the girl so that she would be willing to work with him. He should treat her not as a condemned prisoner, but as a guest… It would give him a jump on the assignment, as well as an opportunity to win her trust. “Imagine how terrified she must be, Coryo,” Tigris had said. “How alone she must feel. If it was me, anything you could do to make me feel like you cared about me would go a long way… Like I was of value.” (pp. 37-38).
The direct quote from Tigris demonstrates her empathy. She does view Tigris as a human with human emotions, not as a condemned prisoner or subhuman District scum. Coriolanus, on the other hand, views treating Lucy Gray well as a means to an end. He seeks to gain her trust so that he can leverage it to bolster his grade. His trip to the train station is motivated not by a desire to make Lucy Gray feel safe and wanted, but to get a head start over his peers.
Another girl, a typical girl, would be impressed, but there was nothing typical about Lucy Gray Baird. In fact there was something intimidating about a girl who… had dropped a venomous snake down another girl’s dress. Of course, he didn’t know that it was venomous, but that was where the mind went, wasn’t it? She was terrifying, really. And here he was… hoping she would — what? Like him? Trust him? Not kill him on sight? (p. 39)
Coriolanus makes some outrageous assumptions here. He firstly assumes that the snake Lucy Gray dropped down Mayfair’s dress was poisonous, and justifies this assumption by presenting it as the logical conclusion that anybody would drop. We have no evidence that this is the case. It seems rather to be a manifestation of his intense paranoia. He fears her without any real reason to, going so far as to suspect that she might murder him in cold blood.
It is interesting to note his fearful reaction to the snake, despite his characterization in the Trilogy as being snake-like himself. He has yet to adopt poison as his modus operandi, nor has he yet consciously accepted his tendency toward deception.
They really were creatures out of another world. A hopeless, brutish world. (p. 41)
Another example of Coriolanus thinking of the tributes as subhuman. They are, to his mind, inherently animalistic.
“Besides,” she said, “he’s my mentor. Supposed to help me. I might need him.” (p. 46)
Since we lack access to Lucy Gray’s actual thoughts in this moment, we can only speculate. If we take her at her word, it seems that Lucy Gray is taking advantage of Coriolanus in the same way that he is taking advantage of her. They are compatriots in this respect, perhaps laying the groundwork for their budding relationship. It is also possible that this is merely an excuse to save his life, something that she thinks the other tributes will accept. At the very least, we know that Lucy Gray is not helpless. She is able to adapt to Coriolanus’s role as her mentor and is ready to make use of this unexpected resource.
Without turning he knew it was the girl, his girl… (p. 49)
His girl. Lucy Gray is his property.
Lucy Gray raised her hand to meet his but refrained from sticking it through the bars, which might have appeared threatening. (p. 51)
Lucy Gray is keenly aware of her surroundings and how she appears to those around her. She knows how to take control of appearances, and acts in just the right way to diffuse the fear of her Capitol audience.
Coriolanus could sense the audience beginning to warm up to his tribute, no longer bothering to keep their distance. People were easy to manipulate when it came to their children. (p. 52)
Lucy Gray is a performer by trade. It is entirely possible that her situational awareness and social skills are simply the result of professional experience. Coriolanus, however, assumes that this is an intentional manipulation, betraying his own manipulative tendencies.
“You’re good at games. Maybe one day you’ll be a Gamemaker.” (p. 59)
“Game recognize game,” as the saying goes. Dr. Gaul immediately sees in Coriolanus a kindred soul: he is quick on his feet, takes initiative, and is a natural manipulator. He passes her test, and she makes the decision to take him under her wing right away.
“It is if no one watches!” she snapped back. She gave Coriolanus an indulgent smile. “He’s a child himself. Give him time. I’ve got a good feeling about this one…” (p. 60)
Dr. Gaul explicitly acknowledges her recognition of Coriolanus’s potential before excusing herself. Coriolanus’s thoughts about the Hunger Games, the role they play, and the nature of humanity are implicitly laid out for his future education.
What was Sejanus up to? Was he trying to outdo him and steal the day’s thunder? To take his idea of coming to the zoo and then dress it up in a way Coriolanus could never compete with, because he could never afford to? (p. 63)
Coriolanus cannot conceive in a world in which Sejanus feeds the Tributes purely out of altruism, empathy, or compassion. He must assume that Sejanus is trying to compete with him. We see again his insecurities about Sejanus’s wealth and status.
He wasn’t sure. The optics so far were good, singling her out again, presenting her as someone of value. But to eat with her? That might cross a line. (p. 65)
Coriolanus here implies Lucy Gray’s subhuman status. She is an object. An object of value, to be sure, and it is especially valuable to him if others see her as valuable as well. But to eat with her as though she were a fellow human, a fellow citizen of Panem? That surely crosses a line.
Coriolanus didn’t like sharing the spotlight, but Sejanus’s presence could protect him… he would’ve thought the name Snow carried more weight than Plinth, but… he’d prefer to have Sejanus by his side. (pp. 66-67)
A begrudging friendship based on expedience is born. It is interesting to note Coriolanus’s lackluster and ignorant response to the episode between Sejanus and Marcus. Coriolanus is keenly aware that Sejanus is from District Two, but he fails to see any reason for the strain between the two. To Coriolanus, it is as if Sejanus’s life began when he moved to the Capitol. Anything before then is part of a dark, primordial past.
Here, in the relative privacy of the corner, he realized for the first time that she would be dead in a few days… he had thought about her more as his contender. His filly in a race, his dog in a fight. The more he treated her as something special, the more she’d become human… Lucy Gray was not really an animal, even if she was not Capitol. (p. 68)
Coriolanus invokes the images of horse racing and dog fighting. He explicitly acknowledges his thinking of her as subhuman, and his treatment of her as an animal. She had value only insofar as it allowed Coriolanus to sell tickets to the show, so to speak. And yet, he has begun to recognize something human in her. Coriolanus attributes this to his own actions — it is his treatment of her that elevates her. However, we have seen his appreciation of her talents, the personality traits they share, and their subsequently growing camaraderie. It is becoming increasingly difficult not to recognize Lucy Gray’s humanity. We will see whether this changes once she is no longer behind bars.
His mother used to sing him a song at bedtime. Not this one, exactly, but it had used those same words… He could sense her presence, almost smell the delicate scent of the rose powder she wore, and feel the warm blanket of security that had enveloped him each night. (pp. 70-71)
Coriolanus associates his mother with delicacy and the scent of roses, security and the feeling of warmth. And now, thanks to Lucy Gray’s singing, he associates his mother with Lucy Gray. It may be partly because of his love of, or longing for, his late mother that he develops such strong feelings for Lucy Gray.
He again felt the bitterness of a Plinth being granted the mightiest tribute. And he was tired of Sejanus whining over his father’s buying him the victor. (p. 73)
Here, Coriolanus seems to be comparing himself to the proverbial “starving children in Africa.” What right does Sejanus have to complain when there are poor, underprivileged kids like Coriolanus in the world? As if it weren’t bad enough that Coriolanus’s position has been usurped, it could not have been given to a more ungrateful subject!
There was one more consideration. He had something Sejanus Plinth wanted, and wanted badly. Sejanus had already usurped his position, his inheritance, his clothes, his candy, his sandwiches, and the privilege due a Snow. Now he was coming for his apartment, his spot at the University, his very future, and he had the gall to be resentful of his good fortune. To reject it. To consider it a punishment, even. If having Marcus as a tribute made Sejanus squirm, then good. Let him squirm. Lucy Gray was one thing belonging to Coriolanus that he would never, ever get. (pp. 74-75)
Coriolanus comes close to trading Lucy Gray, his girl, for who he assumes will be the winning tribute. Interestingly, he seems to value spite above maximizing his chances to win the Games and Plinth Prize. Is this envy, hatred, or mere sadism?
“We don’t have a mirror, so I can only imagine.” She didn’t bother to put on her sparkly camera personality for him, and in a way he was glad. Maybe she was beginning to trust him. (p. 85)
Coriolanus continues to see Lucy Gray as a means to an end. Her trust increases his chances of making a good impression. We also see his naivety and the narrowness of his self-centered perception. He sees as an expression of trust what could just as easily be exhaustion, resignation, a strategic reservation of energy.
“Married?”…
“Why? Are you asking?” said Lucy Gray seriously. He looked up in surprise. “Because I think this could work.”
Coriolanus felt himself blush a little at her teasing. “I’m pretty sure you could do better.”
“Haven’t yet.” A flicker of pain crossed her face, but she hid it with a smile. “I bet you’ve got sweethearts lined up around the block.”
Her flirtation left Coriolanus tongue-tied. (pp. 86-87)
It is impressive how little it takes to get Coriolanus riled up.
“My mother always smelled like roses,” he said, and then felt awkward. He rarely mentioned his mother, even at home. (p. 89)
Perhaps it is Coriolanus who is beginning to trust Lucy Gray. This is certainly an unprecedented level of vulnerability. Even around Tigris, he seems to be at least somewhat cautious.
Coriolanus’s initial reaction was to recoil like the others, to grab hold of the monkey house bars for support, but Lucy Gray hissed, “Help her!” He remembered the cameras streaming live to the Capitol audience. He had no idea what to do for Arachne, but he did not want to be seen cringing and clinging. His terror was a private thing, not meant for public display.
He forced his legs into motion and was the first to reach Arachne. (p. 100)
This scene recalls Lucy Gray’s advice to “own it” when Coriolanus first landed in the monkey house. In this case, however, it seems far more likely that Lucy Gray is concerned for Arachne’s life, not for how Coriolanus looks in front of the cameras. Lucy Gray may be attempting to act as Coriolanus’s yetzer hatov, but it is his yetzer hara, his desire to look good for the cameras and hide his unflattering terror, that actually spurs him to action.
“Maybe they’ll just send the tributes home.” The idea was not entirely unappealing when he thought of Lucy Gray. Hy wondered how the fallout from Arachne’s death was affecting her. Were all the tributes being punished? Would they allow him to see her?" (p. 189)
Coriolanus seems to be developing some sort of empathy, or, at least, sympathy for Lucy Gray. It is, however, still tempered by his own desire to see her.
“There is a point to everything or nothing at all, depending on your worldview,” said Dr. Gaul. “Which brings me to your proposal. I like it. Who wrote it? Just you two? Or did your brassy friend weigh in before her throat was cut?” (p. 111)
Okay, Camus.
Jokes aside, Dr. Gaul’s callousness toward Arachne’s death is noteworthy. It is an attitude Coriolanus will slowly, but surely, adopt.
Coriolanus had just begun to put two and two together when he saw the look of alarm on Clemensia’s face. She yanked her hand fromt he tank, but not before a half dozen neon snakes sank their fangs into her flesh. (p. 113)
Snakes. Fear. Deception. Lavish displays of violence. No doubt this incident is a defining moment in young Coriolanus’s life.
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 was for sure. And if you couldn’t trust them, who could your trust? All bets were off. (p. 116)
Coriolanus’s catastrophizing is here on full display, as is his selfishness. Sejanus doesn’t trust the Capitol either, but his response is to selflessly risk his own personal safety and comfort to help the districts. Coriolanus’s response is to shrug off any obligation to society and look out only for number one.
Strangely, he found the only person he wanted to talk to was Lucy Gray, who was both clever and unlikely to repeat his words. (p. 117)
Coriolanus chooses to confide in Lucy Gray because she is about to die. To whom can she confide? His secrets are safe with her.
“But I’m participating in them. I’m helping them happen!” His head dropped in shame. “I should be like Sejanus and at least try to quit.”
…
Ignoring the guard’s warning, he impulsively stepped over the rock and crouched down across the bars from her. “Are you all right?” She nodded, but she didn’t look all right. He’d wanted to tell her about the scare with the snakes and Clemensia’s brush with death. He’d hoped to ask her advice, but it all paled in comparison to her situation. He remembered the crackers the nurse had given him and fumbled for the crumpled packets in his pocket. “I brought you these. They’re not big, but they’re very nutritious.” (pp. 120-121)
Genuine empathy! Genuine feelings of guilt for his role in the senseless slaughter of children! Here he recognizes that Sejanus is moral, and that he is not.
“You matter to me,” he insisted. The Capitol may not value her, but he did. Hadn’t he just poured his heart out to her? (p. 122)
Is Coriolanus saying that she matters as a result of his actions, or are his actions the result of her mattering?
Katniss
Conclusion
Trauma and dialectics
The world is but a perpetual see-saw… I do not portray his being; I portray his passage; not a passage from one age to another… but from day to day, from minute to minute. I must suit my story to the hour, for soon I may change, not only by chance but also by intention. It is a record of various and variable occurrences, an account of thoughts that are unsettled and, as chance will have it, at times contradictory, either because I am then another self, or because I approach my subject under different circumstances and with other considerations. (Keightley & Pickering, 2014, p. 15)
[Trauma] is a condition of individual psychic damage of such severity that the person who suffers from it is unable to make experience storyable and knowable. (Keightley & Pickering, 2014, p. 168)
It is because remembered experience is constitutive of our successive selves as these inform our sense of identity through time that the distinguishing feature of traumatic experience is its denial or severe inhibition of [a resynthesis of the traumatic memory]. (Keightley & Pickering, 2014, p. 170)
How do I put this basically enough? It’s a philosophical theory, the kind you might encounter if you took time to read some books. The fundamental premise is to envision history as a sequence of “dialectical” conflicts. Each dialectic begins with a proposition, a thesis, which inherently contains, or creates, its opposite - an antithesis. Thesis and antithesis. The conflict is inevitable.
But the resolution of the conflict yields something new - a synthesis - eliminating the flaws in each, leaving behind common elements and ideas. (Obsidian Entertainment, 2010)
A post-apocalyptic Prometheus
Prometheus has been reinvented and reinterpreted time and again since his entrance into the (extant) literary canon in the 8th century BCE. For our purposes, it is sufficient to say that Prometheus is a titan who defies the will of the gods by bringing Fire to humanity.
Prometheus’s identity as a titan is significant. The titans are older and more powerful than the gods, but were overthrown by them. Prometheus is the last remnant of a fallen race and lives now in a social and cosmic order defined and determined by the gods. Prometheus is powerful enough to defy the will of the gods, but not powerful enough to escape punishment. The consequence of his rebellion is to have his liver eaten daily by birds, only to have it regrow to be eaten again ad infinitum.
Coriolanus Snow, too, is the last of a once-great, now-fallen dynasty. The Snows were once among the most powerful of Capitol’s family, but they have been brought low and replaced by a new order of Plinths.
But while Prometheus’s Fire was knowledge, technology, philosophy, and society, stolen from the gods and given to lowly humans, those are not things wanted nor needed by the “lowly” Districts. Snow’s Fire is compassion, kindness, love, and empathy. Snow’s Fire is that indwelling spirit of human goodness which the Districts possess and the Capitol lacks. Prometheus is moved by pity to give Fire to humanity. Snow is unable to be moved by anything but disdain.
When Snow sees the Fire of humanness in Sejanus, he snuffs it out. When he cannot control the Fire of freedom in Lucy Gray, he stifles it. Prometheus is blinded by the temptation of the Fire; Snow is blinded by the status quo, so invested in conforming to the power structure of the gods’ world to even recognize the Fire’s value.
Prometheus is a hero, and he suffers the tragic fate of a hero. Snow is no such thing. He is the Capitol’s faithful servant and lives a long life.
References
Collins, S. (2009). The Hunger Games. Scholastic.
Collins, S. (2011). Mockingjay. Scholastic Inc.
Collins, S. (2014). Catching Fire. Scholastic Inc.
Collins, S. (2023). The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Scholastic Inc.
Keightley, E., & Pickering, M. (2014). The Mnemonic Imagination: Remembering as creative practice (1st ed. 2012). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Obsidian Entertainment. (2010). Fallout: New Vegas [PC version]. Bethesda Softworks.
Shelley, M. W., & Klinger, L. S. (2017). The New Annotated Frankenstein (First edition). Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Stein, D. E. S. (Ed.). (2006). The Contemporary Torah: A gender-sensitive adaptation of the JPS translation. Jewish Publication Society.
Steinsaltz, A. (2019). Koren Talmud Bavli (Noe Color Edition). Koren Publishers. https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud