Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Snakes 

Snakes are an important and multifaceted symbol in the novel. They represent the difference between the highly manicured life of the Capitol and the more organic natural life in the Districts, and they’re living representations of the novel’s ideas of nature versus nurture.  There's nothing natural about the genetically engineered snakes that Dr. Gaul creates. These mutated beasts come in bright neon colors and do not need a snake’s usual camouflage strategies. Their bites cause enormous gouts of brightly colored pus to explode from their victims: even their way of killing people is a spectacle. As seems to be the norm for every living thing in the Capitol, they're also specifically designed to be hostile to humans. Snakes in the Districts, by contrast, just want to mind their own business and don't want to be stepped on. Coriolanus is so used to the idea that snakes are full of deadly venom that he convinces himself he's being poisoned when he gets a non-venomous bite in the woods of District 12. Snakes also point to duplicity: many characters in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes lie, cheat, and manipulate to achieve their ends. The most obvious example of this is Dr. Gaul, the Head Gamemaker. Dr. Gaul grows special snakes in her lab, but in many ways, she is also like a snake herself. She's discreet, intelligent, and works her way into people's minds through sneaky and often unseen methods. Her constant, judicious repetition of the idea that humans are necessarily violent fundamentally changes Coriolanus's personality and shapes his approach to the world, even though she never explicitly tells him that he has to believe the same thing as she does. 

Mentor Lists 

At the beginning of the Hunger Games, each of the mentors is issued a list detailing the relationships between mentors and their District partners. These lists appear formatted as tables throughout the section of the novel set in the Capitol, so the reader can see this roll call of death and failure laid out just as baldly as the mentors themselves do. The Academy student volunteers from the Capitol are paired with a District child to mentor, and all of them are expected to accept these designations without question. Coriolanus is initially incredibly disappointed by his pairing but quickly learns that Lucy is the best possible option he could have been given. These lists, however, don't stay the same throughout the novel. As tributes and the occasional mentor die off, the lists change and fluctuate. The fact that the mentors keep being handed new versions of this roll call symbolizes the Capitol's ability to reduce people to names and numbers. When the mentors die, they are given elaborate funerals, but when tributes die, it mostly just results in an adjustment of the assignment sheet before the games begin. Coriolanus’s ability to reduce people to objects is also foreshadowed by his use of his final mentor list. When people die, he updates it himself, crossing names out so he’ll remember who’s still around. 

Mockingjays 

Mockingjays symbolize freedom and demonstrate how weapons of oppression can be turned against the people who create them given the correct circumstances. The narrator tells us that mockingjays were created by accident. The genetically engineered jabberjays that the Capitol sent to the Districts to discreetly spy on people were never meant to reproduce. However, the all-male jabberjay population was able to mate with female mockingbirds of Panem, creating a creature outside of the Capitol’s control that still possesses some genetically enhanced abilities. Jabberjays can be controlled by a remote: mockingjays just repeat whatever they like. Crucially, mockingjays don’t just repeat human speech like jabberjays, but also other sounds and each other’s songs. Their ability to produce noise is often used against Capitol soldiers and is key to Lucy’s escape from Coriolanus at the end of the novel. Coriolanus hates mockingjays,  not just because he finds their songs annoying, but because to him they symbolize the potential for chaos to overcome order. He wishes they would all die, leaving only the Capitol-sanctioned birds. 

The Arena 

The Hunger Games Arena is symbolic of the power and control over the people of Panem the Capitol holds. To the people of the Capitol, seeing the semi-destroyed state of the arena itself symbolizes why it’s acceptable for them to continue forcing the Districts to participate in the Hunger Games. Its cracked foundation and crumbling interior are evidence of the destruction the rebel forces wreaked on the Capitol. The arena is also a microcosm of Coriolanus’s world in several ways. The stark division between the spectators safe at home and the desperate tributes fighting for their lives reflects the larger power dynamics within Panem. Televising the Games demonstrates to the people of the Districts that their lives are forfeit to the decisions of their lawmakers. The arena also points to the cruelty and injustice built into the very fabric of Panem society. Although Coriolanus observes that the rules of survival change when he enters the arena, they actually just become more direct. People in Panem are forced to fight for their lives, to be highly conscious of the status and position of everyone around them at all times, and to make and break alliances as it becomes necessary. Although the Games are meant to entertain as well as educate, what happens in the arena is also in a sense just a faster version of the experiences people have in the outside world after the civil war.