The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

As “the very symbol of the Snow dynasty” (454), roses become the future President Snow’s signature. From Grandma’am’s rose garden atop their once lavish apartment, to his mother’s rose-scented powder, Coriolanus’s connection with the flower of love and courage runs deep. Roses are not only beautiful, but treacherous, with their sharp thorns. This seems a fitting emblem for a character for whom appearances are important and whose prickly personality can wound.

Coriolanus and Lucy Gray bond over the fact that they’re both orphans—though the former does not like “being called that” (88)—and Lucy Gray reveals that her rainbow-ruffled dress was her mother’s. Coriolanus mentions that “[m]y mother always smelled of roses” (89) and gives Lucy Gray her compact, its rose-scented powder later replaced with rat poison. When Coriolanus gets ready for reaping day, Grandma’am gives him a rose to wear, “but a thorn pierced his palm,” threatening to ruin his father’s refashioned shirt (11). Roses signify danger in the original trilogy as well, with President Snow leaving them as threats.

Upon their first meeting, Coriolanus gifts Lucy Gray with a rose. She, in turn, takes a bite of it, metaphorically consuming him: “She ran her thumb over the glossy, white surface and slipped the petal into her mouth, closing her eyes to savor the flavor” (42).