The poem "Snake" by D.H. Larence has many different layers of meaning. It is narration of a persons unexpected meeting with a snake. Fear and fascination take control as he is left with the internal struggle of being rational vs. natural feelings. It highlights the difference between our natural feelings and what is socially acceptable or learned.
The narrator "knows" that the snake is dangerous:
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous
and yet he doesn't want to harm him:
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
In the end, his education prevails and he throws a log into the water. However, he immeadiately regrets this:
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.
It evokes feelings of love and sympathy for all animals. This poem reveals the human weakness of liking the evil and the corruption. It shows that humans are naturally attracted to the things they are afraid of the most.
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