Snake by D.H. Lawrence

The Snake, a poem by D.H. Lawrence examines the interior conflicts that are placed upon man by the conflicting forces of our innocent instincts and the common sense of the kingdom of man.

The speaker walks from his house in the dead heat of summer to be confronted head on with nature itself and caught up in a dreamlike instant in which he faces what he feels to be truth and what other men have told him to be reality.

The speaker begins in conflict and in innocence wearing “pajamas for the heat.”(2)

On his way to get water to relieve the heat, he comes face to face with the reality of nature. A golden bellied king of the earth, dressed in the colors of his world. Not dark, to hide, but rather brilliant “earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth”(20).

The colors of this snake show that he does not hide in the jungle. He is strong enough to walk proudly in the world and, according to the voices in the speakers head, venomous as well (24). The speaker is suddenly jolted into a state of dreamlike compression. The actions of the world seem to slow down while his awareness of the world seems to increase.

He begins to feel his instincts which tell him that he is in the presence of nature itself and that he is being honored with its presence (34) while he also hears the voices of men which tell him that he must kill this creature (25). He stands and watches as the beast drinks from the supply of his civil world while he examines every movement in slow motion detail and debates the correct idea to stand upon.

To be a man, he must be prepared to kill this threat, but he does not feel the need. The snake is clearly a son of nature, an equal, a “someone” who simply arrived at the trough first and perhaps even lives as a superior even to man. If not superior, then clearly an early arrival to whom the speaker is content to wait behind like “a second comer”(15). The voices of men point out his fear and make this a flaw which they contend server to stop him in his duty.

The speaker admits his fear (37) but it is secondary in station to the honor he instinctually feels. The speaker wrestles with these conflicting thoughts while the snake continues its mission with an air nobility. The snake does not move quickly, like prey in danger, but rather “slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream”(47) almost without equal or enemy.

All around, the heat of the day drips with oppression while the center of the earth smokes. The speaker is dwarfed by the ostentatious set on which he is a player. It is not until the snake turns away that he is shaken from his dream (54). Out of fear or perhaps out of shame, he takes up the mantle of mankind and makes a last effort to fulfill his charge. The prince of the world quickly escapes uninjured while the speaker is left only with his regret.

The employment of imagery in this piece is strong with the use of the brutal heat and slow motion movement to create a sense of solitude and stillness. The speaker paints the liquid posture of the snake with strong use of “S” words which seem almost to turn the readers tongue into the very reptile itself. The speaker is on his own and must choose between honoring the snake in the way that his soul directs and walking in the shoes of contemporary man.

While he hears the voices of the men of his past, he sees these words only as the thoughts of a demagogue and prefers instead to embrace the actuality of his own feelings. It is only at the end that he gives in to his weakness and puts forth a half hearted attempt which fails miserably. This collapse only helps to illuminate the speaker’s true choice and he instantly knows that he has sinned against himself and against nature.

In the end, he sees that truth is nothing unless it is in agreement with self and that the world of man can be a petty spot on the plane of nature.