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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
Music
Throughout the novel, music is portrayed as a form of personal and political expression: it’s how oppressed people say what they mean without being killed for it. Music unites the people of the Districts when the Capitol wants to keep them as separate as possible. Lucy Gray Baird’s songs are a means of communication that transcends words, enabling characters to feel things they can’t safely express. She’s hungry for music, playing the guitar Coriolanus finds her for hours when he presents it to her. This motif also highlights the power of art and culture to challenge authoritarian regimes. The songs in the novel often carry subversive undertones, subtly defying the Capitol's control. Music also acts as a catalyst for character development. One of Coriolanus’s principal goals in life is to become the person Lucy writes her love songs about. His initial disdain for her folksy, heartfelt music softens as he recognizes its power over people and its potential to further his own goals as a mentor. By the time he reaches District 12, he’s become obsessed with Lucy loving him enough to make him the focus of her creative process.
Moral Misdirection
What you learn becomes who you are in this novel, which explores the impact of learning from the wrong people at many points in its plot. This highlights how harmful experiences and societal norms can shape individuals and themselves perpetuate cycles of oppression. Coriolanus' upbringing in a society obsessed with wealth and status fuels his hunger for power. He learns to manipulate, exploit, and prioritize self-preservation at all costs, mirroring the Capitol's own values. These morally dubious ideas become his driving purpose, leading him down a path of ruthlessness and insensitive ambition. They’re only fueled further by the repeated mantra of humanity’s vicious true nature that Dr. Gaul spoon-feeds him. The Districts, constantly subjected to the Capitol's cruelty, are taught to survive through fear, obedience, and distrust. They see the people of the Capitol as being fundamentally different from them, a view the Capitol also holds and actively encourages. This cycle keeps the Capitol and Districts voluntarily as well as legally separate. They participate in perpetuating the very system that keeps them down.
Lucy Gray, despite being raised in the harsh realities of District 12, refuses to be defined by the corrupting guidance she’s brought up with about her “limitations.” The Games are intended to show tributes that their lives are worthless to the Capitol. However, Lucy refuses to learn this lesson, and resourcefulness, defiance, and empathy are a big part of what wins people over to her side.
Nature vs Nurture
The struggle between nature and nurture is very important in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as the reader is invited to consider whether it’s someone’s environment or their inherent nature that makes them the way they are. Raised by the Covey, a group somewhat outside the Capitol's control, Lucy Gray often displays the resourcefulness and toughness she’s learned from her nomadic community. Her defiance and creativity are not squashed by the callousness of the Capitol. Coriolanus, on the other hand, is a product of the Capitol's artificial environment. His ambition, ruthlessness, and thirst for power are cultivated by the societal values he's exposed to. This is not to suggest that all District people are good and all Capitol people bad: Sejanus, who belongs to both District and Capitol, shows that this situation is more nuanced than it might at first seem. Even Tigris, who is raised in an identical environment to Coriolanus, manages to remain kind and straightforward during a childhood that sows the seeds to turn Coriolanus into a monster.
