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DH Lawrence’s Poem The Snake-An Analytical Study
D.H. Lawrence is an English novelist and poet of the twentieth century. He is more famous as a novelist than a poet. He wrote a good deal of poems that are characteristically his own with a difference if compared with that of his contemporaries. The Snake is a typical Lawrencian piece of poetry. In this poem, the poet D.H. Lawrence expresses his kind feeling toward a wild being like a snake.
First, the poet says about when and how he met a snake face-to-face. He says that it was on a hot summer day that he went, taking a pitcher with him, to his water trough which was under the shade of a dark carob tree. While he was about to reach the trough, then he saw a snake that had come out through a chasm of an earth wall. Seeing the snake the poet waited some moment and observed the snake’s activities there. He saw that the snake was ‘earth-brown’ and ‘earth-golden’ in colour.
Secondly, the poet expresses his mental dilemma between the traditional belief and his poetic i.e. humane feeling towards the snake. Traditionally people’s attitude towards a snake is that a snake should be killed if possible. But the poet’s feeling is different. The poet thought that ‘Snake’ is like a human being. It has its own feeling, comforts and hospitality towards other beings which people generally fail to feel. The poet suffers from the dilemma that if he kills the snake following traditional belief, then it would be cowardice. The poet truly admits that he was afraid of the snake, but he also honoured the snake more for which he hesitated to kill it. At last, his humane i.e. kind feeling was defeated under the pressure of the traditional belief and then he picked up a clumsy log and threw it to the snake while it was going back through the dark fissure of the earth wall. The log stroked the snake to its back, but it did not kill the snake.
In final, the poet comes to the conclusion that his acts toward the snake, were anti-humane. At last, his human feelings overcame his cruel feeling towards the snake and he regretted his cruelty to the snake. He then felt that human education is anti-humane. So finally he began to think the snake to be a king. Regretting his atrocious activity towards the snake, the poet says:
‘O life
And I have something to expiate.’
To comment on the poem it is said that the poem is about a struggle between human education and felt education. The poem teaches us that wild beings are also like human beings. They should be treated with kind feelings.
It is written in free verse which reads like a piece of prose. Its language is prose but emotional, homely, rally and simple. In the poem, the poet has used some homely phrases such as—‘yellow-brown’, ‘earth-Brown’, ‘earth-goddess, ‘slack-long’, ‘two-forked tongue’ etc which are felicitous to themselves. There is the use of some alliterative phrases such as—‘burning bowels’, ‘mused a moment’, ‘dark door’ etc.
In conclusion, it would be reasonable to say that this poem is a utilitarian poem relevant to the age. 0 0 0
DH Lawrence’s Poem The Snake-An Analytical Study
N.B. Â The article ‘DH Lawrence’s Poem The Snake-An Analytical Study’ originally belongs to the book ‘World Poetry Criticism’ by Menonim Menonimus. DH Lawrence’s Poem The Snake-An Analytical Study
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