Aside from the reality of a mysterious, occasionally poisonous predator is the archetypal image of the serpent, latent with mythological, biblical, and historical symbols. Among the most common phobias is ophiaphobia, or fear of snakes, despite the unlikeliness of one to encounter a snake in the urban world (Rapoport 195). Lawrence, though does encounter "Snake", and while fear is, without a doubt, entangled in the web of reaction to and regard of the serpent, it is not the only dominant emotion. Intimidation is immediately established from the dawn of the poem, where Lawrence's narrator is "in pajamas for the heat", in the company of a visiting serpent (2). In such casual attire as pajamas, one is left feeling vulnerable and exposed, susceptible to social attack. Lawrence's character is, of course, vulnerable to the snake's venomous predation, but he is also susceptible to society's and human nature's convictions of the slithering snake, which effectively influences the narrator's judgement. Naturally, this intimidation is absurd. It continues throughout the poem while the narrator "like a second-comer" waits, but the snake, throughout the incident, proves to be harmless (15). The true daunting forces of the narrator's sentiments are the "voices of [his] education" (22). While the said voices remain mysterious, foreboding, and unnatural in Lawrence's realm of natural thought and environment, the snake is familiar, and is accredited with figurative familiarity:
He lifted his head from drinking, as cattle do,
He looked at me vaguely as drinking cattle do (16-17).
Comparing the snake's actions to the docile, accustomed behaviour of a primarily agricultural species lessens the threat that the snake projects, yet the poem's tension is not respectively decreased. Ironically, the stereotypically conniving, quick-witted serpent image in not reflected in this simile. Cattle are slow, tribal followers. The snake's independent arrogance is contradicted by such a comparison, yet this contradiction effectively serves to strengthen the bond, the connection, between the narrator and the snake. The narrator relates to the serpent, yet he is still afraid.
Essentially, the narrator's fear of the snake is actually distrust or wariness ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Comparing the snake's actions to the docile, accustomed behaviour of a primarily agricultural species lessens the threat that the snake projects, yet the poem's tension is not respectively decreased. Ironically, the stereotypically conniving, quick-witted serpent image in not reflected in this simile. Cattle are slow, tribal followers. The snake's independent arrogance is contradicted by such a comparison, yet this contradiction effectively serves to strengthen the bond, the connection, between the narrator and the snake. The narrator relates to the serpent, yet he is still afraid.
Essentially, the narrator's fear of the snake is actually distrust or wariness of the negative image that the snake's symbolic value reflects upon it. The snake's reputation precedes it; the snake is pre-judged because of its disreputable label. From Lawrence's ideological perspective, the snake is reminiscent of the serpent from the Garden of Eden. Despite the snake's intentions, despite the snake's "straight mouth" and "straight gums", it is rich with discrediting features, as seen from the perspective of the human subconscious (11-12). Representatively, the snake is the antithesis of all that is good.
Notoriously, Eden's serpent is the most striking, most influential snake symbol in Christianity and in Western society. The snake is typically viewed as a messenger of evil and a contributor to the Original Sin. Having led Eve to the Tree of Knowledge, the snake induced the Fall of Man. This ancient account grants the snake a mythological presence that resides in the human subconscious. Psychologically, the human eye sees the serpent figure as a tyrant, a danger, a threat. Tyrannous, the symbolic snake is powerful. Lawrence's snake is powerful, as well.
Emerging from the "burning bowels of this earth", the poet's snake is particularly suggestive of the biblical serpent (30). Retreating to a home in "that horrid black hole", the snake is descending below the universe (52). The imaginative reader conjures a hellish-type image, in which Lawrence's snake is "uncrowned in the underworld" (69). Exposed as such, the snake's projection shifts.
From the despised, devious, and deadly archetype that the narrator presupposed, to the "king in exile", the snake is idealized (69). It is not simply a catalyst for evil, but an ulterior hero. The narrator, longing to talk to the snake, is overwhelmed not only with "perversity" but also guilt (32). Respect, or even worship, of the snake is reminiscent of Eve's homage to Eden's serpent; reverence of the snake goes beyond the psychological boundary of the first of the Ten Commandments, which declares "You shall have no other gods before me" (qtd. in Morgenson 5). "Like a god", the snake's power is invoked and the threat is real (Lawrence 45). Lawrence's narrator, in such a state of guilt, succumbs to the snake's symbolic inheritances. Following his ego's intuitions, he makes an attack at the snake: he lunges at body and soul. The ego fails. In his pajamas, with "a clumsy log", the narrator remains socially vulnerable (56). While the snake "convulsed in undignified haste", it is the narrator who is truly undignified, humiliating, a folly (59). Despicable now are the narrator's judgements, the societal subconscious, and the symbolic barriers by which he defines reality.
The snake, of course, is not enclosed by these barriers, however respectively judged it may be. The narrator, though, is controlled by such instincts, bitten by the snake's symbolism. Carl Jung captures the essence of the serpent symbol:
It is ... equally the symbol of the good and bad, of Christ and the devil... It is an excellent symbol for the unconscious, perfectly expressing the latter's sudden and unexpected manifestations, its painful and dangerous intervention in our affairs, and its frightening effects (McGuire 374).
Jung proposes that a fear of snakes is actually a fear of the unconscious psyche. Lawrence's narrator, similarly, shames the instinctual method by which he assaulted the snake:
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself, and the voices of my accursed human education (64-66).
Feared is not the snake, but the human psyche, the unconscious will, and the serpent symbol itself. The narrator cannot transcend beyond these instincts; he cannot control the subliminal need to extract the snake from his realm-and this is what he fears. A struggle exists. The narrator cannot escape the unconscious ideological view, yet he wishes to.
Like the snake shedding its skin, the narrator wants to shed his biases. The snake, "deliberately going into the blackness", is free of the psychological restraints of the narrator (53). Unlike the snake, the narrator cannot hide himself from humanity. Symbolically and physically, he is trapped. In his pajamas, standing and waiting, the narrator "felt so honored" (34). However, he must question the danger of cowardice, perversity, humility, and of course dignity. Even in the "deep, strange-scented shade", out of any man's view, the narrator is exposed to humanity's eye. Even alone, he is watched: by himself and the unconscious forces that condition him. Suitably, "Snake" has been described as being about "the failure of man to take an appropriate place in the physical universe" (Hosbaum 133). The narrator does not belong in the underworld of the snake, yet he is frustrated with the symbolic restrictions of civilization.
"Pettiness" the narrator expiates, for his prejudices, his psychological limitations, and his inability to escape the voices of symbolism (74). He regrets: "And I wished he would come back, my snake" (67). The snake, "because it casts its skin, is an [Egyptian] symbol of renewal...", and indeed the snake will come back (McGuire 268). It may not be the same golden snake; it may not be a snake at all, but the symbolic boundary that ensnared Lawrence's narrator will continue to ensnare humanity. Like the serpent symbol, the sense of frustration is rejuvenating and relative, not only "on the day of Sicilian July", but always (21).