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The snake
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,---did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
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This is another of Dickinson's poems presenting the point of view of a child, but the speaker is
now an adult looking back. Can we determine whether the "child" is a boy or a girl? In one variant of
the poem "child," in stanza 3, reads "boy." Could a girl also be barefoot outside?
Initially, the snake is characterized as (1) transient or passing swiftly
and (2) deceptive or misleading . (1) His appearance is "sudden." The
snake's passing briefly divides the grass in one place, then does the
same thing somewhere else. The snake is hard to see. (2) The speaker
has been deluded by the snake's appearance--mistaking the snake for the
lash of a whip. In other words, the snake appears to be one thing but
is actually something else. What associations does a whip or a lash
have? Is this descriptive detail positive or negative? When you reread
the poem, do you see it as preparing for the ending?
The snake is described in human terms: "fellow" (twice), "rides," and
"comb"; the use of "floor" for the kind of ground he likes suggests a
house, rather than outdoors. At this point in the poem, do these words
suggest the speaker's separateness or estrangement from the snake and
nature, or do they suggest connection?
The speaker knows and is known by "Several of nature's people" and
feels "a transport / Of cordiality" for them. (Transport means
carried away with emotion, rapture; cordiality means graciousness,
sincerity, or deep feeling.) Do these words emphasize the speaker's
separateness or estrangement from nature and her people, or do they
suggest connection? Is the snake included among "nature's people"? If
not, does the snake's exclusion hint at a distancing of the speaker from
the snake, a separation, however small, between them?
The last stanza begins with "But." What kind of connection does "but"
establish with the preceding stanzas? does it lead you to expect
similarity, an example, a contrast, or something else?
The speaker feels "a tighter breathing" and "zero at the bone" every
time he/she sees a snake. "Tighter breathing" suggests constriction, a
holding of the breath; is this a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling?
"Zero" suggests cold and also nothingness. That the feeling penetrates
to "the bone" suggests how deeply felt, how intense the emotion is. When
you put all these details together, does the response sound like
fear?
Is this a poem about the threat or danger that may suddenly reveal
itself in nature? Could "zero" hint at death or the presence of death in
nature?
One last detail: why does Dickinson use s sounds in the first stanza?
Are s sounds appropriate to a snake, the subject of this poem?
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