payment page
Summary
Chapter 21
Coriolanus is on a train journey to District 12, feeling isolated, miserable, and sleep-deprived. He miserably recalls requesting his assignment to District 12, which is not a popular choice for prospective Peacekeepers. This leads him to reminisce about the humiliating encounter with Dean Highbottom in his office. Highbottom took his time to belittle Coriolanus, and then offered the option to join the Peacekeepers as an alternative to public disgrace. Coriolanus reluctantly accepted. Returning home, Coriolanus breaks down and reveals everything to Tigris and the Grandma’am. Tigris helps Coriolanus pack for his new life as a Peacekeeper, and they spend a sleepless night on the roof discussing the horror of the Games.
The next day, Coriolanus leaves District 12, disguising himself with a sun hat and sunglasses Tigris gives him. At the barracks, he meets his bunkmates, and learns to his surprise that Peacekeepers are recruited from the Districts as well as the Capitol. He suffers through basic training, struggling with the physical demands and his own disappointment about his situation. A letter from Tigris informs him of the money troubles at home and the rumors circulating about him. Coriolanus despairs. Just as he has begun to resign himself to a Peacekeeper’s life, Sejanus Plinth unexpectedly walks into the barracks.
Chapter 22
Coriolanus is overjoyed to see Sejanus and hugs him. Sejanus is surprised at the warm welcome, and explains that his father bribed the Academy into letting Sejanus join the Peacekeepers, and into letting him and Coriolanus graduate. Coriolanus looks at the diploma Sejanus has brought in grateful disbelief. They discuss their futures and Coriolanus asks about Lucy, but Sejanus says he’s heard nothing. He tells Coriolanus how relieved he was to leave the Capitol. Coriolanus tells him that he thinks Dr. Gaul enjoyed torturing things, as she believed that humans were by nature chaotic and violent.
Beanpole, another Peacekeeper-in-training, stumbles back in and unwittingly reveals that Lucy is going to be singing the next Saturday at the Hob, a local bar. Coriolanus and Sejanus receive packages of lavish food from Mrs. Plinth, which they plan to trade for gin and event tickets at the Hob. Things are looking up, until they learn that they’re being assigned to attend the execution of a rebel the next day. During the execution, there’s a disturbance in the crowd as a Lil, a young woman, struggles to reach Arlo Chance, the man being hanged. He cries out to her to run but is cut off by the trapdoor release that kills him.
Chapter 23
Coriolanus hears Arlo's last words—“Run, Lil, Run!”—repeated by jabberjays all around him. It’s frightening, and the sound disturbs all the new recruits. An officer fires a gun to scare the birds away and control the crowd.
Jabberjays were genetically modified birds the Capitol made to secretly record and transmit rebel conversations and plans. Coriolanus learns from a nearby officer that the mockingjays were a mistake resulting from the Capitol not realizing the jabberjays could mate with mockingbirds. The Peacekeepers head back to the barracks, where Coriolanus discovers a letter that Pluribus, his neighbor in the Capitol, has written him. It provides some insight into why Dean Highbottom hated Coriolanus so much, though why the hatred has lasted so long remains unclear. As they do their chores that evening, Sejanus wonders aloud if he has made the wrong decision in becoming a Peacekeeper. Coriolanus tells him to stop moping.
Although they’re still nervous about how they will be received after the hanging, Coriolanus and others from the base watch Lucy and her band perform. Coriolanus is electrified to see her and sends popcorn balls to her through Maude Ivory. His plans to get close to her are thwarted, however, as when he’s almost at the stage, a disturbance erupts by the door. It's a young, drunk, dark-haired man and Mayfair, the mayor’s daughter. Lucy suddenly looks angry and grim, and Coriolanus thinks to himself that this must be the lover from her songs.
Analysis
Part of the reason Coriolanus has such a difficult time with being assigned Peacekeeper duties is that Peacekeepers are supposed to be homogeneous. Coriolanus has always wanted to be thought of as special and singular; he has never imagined a version of his future where he wasn’t the only person in a role. He imagines himself as President of Panem, he imagines himself as the winning mentor, and he imagines himself as Lucy Gray's lover. The idea that he wouldn't be the only person in any of these shoes makes him feel jealous and angry. Indeed, he has built his entire identity on the idea that as a Snow, he is special, and that it's his singular destiny to rebuild his family from the ground up. But as a Peacekeeper, he is one of many. In fact, having distinguishing characteristics is actually considered undesirable, and during basic training he’s taught he must conform. Beyond skills which are going to help him militarily—like being a good shot—it is now his job to be as much like everybody else around him as he possibly can.
Coriolanus is also extremely proud of his physical appearance, and so being forced to conceal or disguise it is very damaging to his ego. When he leaves his apartment for the last time to go to basic training, he does so in old torn clothes and flip-flops. Tigris provides him with a sun hat and sunglasses in order to complete this costume, and as they walk, he tries as hard as he can not to be recognized. There is a brief moment of relief when his long curly hair is shaved off, because his curls are so much a part of his identity in the Capitol that anyone who might have recognized him before now certainly won't. However, this soon wears off. He left his home as Coriolanus Snow, but he gets on the train as just another Peacekeeper recruit in a brand-new itchy nylon uniform.
During basic training, Coriolanus mostly spends time with Sejanus and with his bunkmates, so he doesn't actually have to dig into any of the grittier aspects of working as a military police officer. This changes when he is assigned to attend the hanging of a rebel who appears to be beloved by the community in District 12. When he sees the doomed Arlo crying out to a woman at the back of the crowd who's reaching for him, Coriolanus starts to feel as though he isn't where he should be. He worries what he would have done if there had been more trouble than had already occurred at the hanging; although he has been watching the Hunger Games his whole life, he has never had to shoot anyone point-blank. The hanging makes the potential violence of the of the Peacekeeper job feel suddenly far more real for him.
Coriolanus and Sejanus are both struggling with their identities to a significant degree in this part of the novel. Although they are relieved to have been assigned Peacekeeper work instead of being killed, imprisoned, or expelled from the Academy, it's still not the grand future that either has imagined for themselves. Coriolanus is excited and temporarily mollified by the prospect of taking the officers' exam. Being an officer would allow him to have a similar military career to that of his very famous and successful father. Sejanus, however, continues to wrestle with the moral issues that troubled him at the Academy. Part of this is that many of the Peacekeepers with whom they live are not from the Capitol. They are District children who have become Peacekeepers for the prospect of a good steady salary and a safe retirement. Sejanus, who has always felt conflicted between his District and Capitol identity, feels this struggle even more intensely when he is living in an environment as mixed as District 12. He is not sure where his loyalties are supposed to lie. There's a lot of foreshadowing in this section about future attempts Sejanus will make to disrupt the status quo. Coriolanus tries to think the best of his friend, but he is becoming more and more suspicious of Sejanus's motives.
