Symbolic Serpents

Symbolic

Serpents

Debbie Barry

2 Symbolic Serpents

Published by:

Debbie Barry

2500 Mann Road, #248

Clarkston, Michigan 48346

USA

Copyright © 2013 by Deborah K. Barry. All rights

reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without

the written permission of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1490373287

ISBN-10: 1490373284

Symbolic Serpents 3

Originally submitted as a college

assignment:

Ashford University

ENG438: Literary Theory

Patricia Vineski

July 16, 2012

4 Symbolic Serpents

Symbolic Serpents 5

Symbolic Serpents

Exploring the significance of snakes

and dragons in the poetry of Emily

Dickinson and Marianne Moore helps the

reader appreciate each author’s

understanding of personal power. Snakes

and dragons represent power. The snake

represents masculine power as a phallic

symbol. The dragon, in Western tradition,

represents a different form of masculine

power: the power of the warrior. The

snake’s power is insidious, dominating the

less-powerful through stealth as it “The

Grass divides as with a Comb –“ (Line 5)

(Dickinson, quoted in Lynn, 2012, p. 211).

The dragon’s power is honest and direct, “a

symbol of the power of Heaven” (Line 4)

(Moore, quoted in Lynn, 2012, p. 212).

Dickinson’s “A Narrow Fellow in the

Grass” illustrates Freud’s “feminine Oedipus

6 Symbolic Serpents

attitude,” which Jung later calls the Electra

complex (Cherry, 2012, para. 3). Moore’s

“O to Be a Dragon” is a yearning to escape

from the prison of powerlessness that is

defined by the Freudian Oedipus complex

and the Jungian Electra complex. Both

Dickinson and Moore present responses to

the masculine power structure of their time

period. Whereas Dickinson’s speaker, a

boy, is incapacitated by his encounter with

masculine power in the form of a snake in

the grass, Moore seeks to attain power of her

own in the form of a dragon.

The different ways in which

Dickinson and Moore view serpents and

write about serpents in their poetry informs

certain differences between the two authors.

If the reader identifies each poet’s speaker

with the poet herself, it is possible to learn

about each poet through her poem. In the

case of Dickinson, it is reasonable to

postulate this identification, as Dickinson

“anthropomorphizes ... the snake ...

Symbolic Serpents 7

Identifying herself with them, she identifies

them with her” (Gillespie, 1973, p. 262).

While Moore’s identification with her

speaker lacks similar support, it is

reasonable to assume that a writer’s

unconscious contributes to the choice of

words and phrases because of the influence

of the id, which is “largely the territory of

the unconscious” (Lynn, 2012, p. 195). as a

result, it is possible to gain a deeper

understanding of the poets through the

diction and syntax of their poetry.

Snakes and dragons are traditional

symbols of evil, especially in Western

cultures. According to Biblical tradition, a

snake, or a serpent, tricked the first people in

creation into committing the Original Sin.

Western tradition "emphasizes the negative

side of their [dragons’] power and energy;

the dragon-foe became synonymous with

Satan and has come to symbolize evil"

(Snyder, 2011, para. 3). Both snakes and

dragons are serpents. Traditionally, humans

8 Symbolic Serpents

fear serpents, especially in Western cultures.

“[T]he dragon is what remains of our

instinctive reaction to the three most deadly

predators for our primate ancestors: the

snake, the eagle and the large cat” (Glaser,

2009, para. 3). Dickinson’s poem deals with

the ancient, instinctive fear of the snake

directly; Moore deals with the ancient

construct of the dragon that represents

humankind’s earliest adversaries. In

Dickinson’s final lines, she reveals that she

does fear the serpent: “But never met this

Fellow/ Attended or alone/ Without a lighter

breathing/ And Zero at the Bone —“ (Lines

21-24) (Dickinson, quoted in Lynn, 2012, p.

212). Unlike Dickinson, Moore does not

fear the serpent. For her, the serpent is not

the snake, but the dragon. “O to be a

dragon,/ a symbol of the power of Heaven”

(Lines 3-4) (Moore, quoted in Lynn, 2012,

p. 212). Moore challenges the common

stereotype of the dragon as a creature of evil

when she equates it to Heavenly power.

Symbolic Serpents 9

Moore sees the dragon as a noble creature.

Her final line, “Felicitous phenomenon”

(Line 6), describes being a dragon as a lucky

and unusual occurrence (Moore, quoted in

Lynn, 2012, p. 213). Whereas Dickinson is

rendered numb and powerless by her fear of

the snake, Moore is empowered by her

reverence for the dragon.

Freud’s Oedipus complex is the

“desire to do away with the father and join

with the mother” (Lynn, 2012, p. 194). The

feminine Oedipus attitude, or Electra

complex, is “a psychoanalytic term used to

describe a girl's sense of competition with

her mother for the affections of her father”

(Cherry, 2012, para. 1). The two complexes

are opposite sides of the same coin, with the

Oedipus complex applying to boys and the

Electra complex applying to girls. Freud

maintains that one or the other of these

complementary complexes is present in

every child. When the complex continues,

“repression happens ... eventually creating

10 Symbolic Serpents

psychological trouble” (Lynn, 2012, p. 194).

Alternatively, the complex is destroyed “by

the boy’s perception that is father is

superior,” allowing healthy psychological

growth to occur (Lynn, 2012, p. 194). This

is equally applicable to destroying the

Electra complex when the girl perceives that

the mother is superior.

Dickinson, spending much of her life

as a recluse and having no romantic

connections, represses many of the desires

that are natural for a woman. Her

continuous repression manifests in the fear

of the phallic symbol of the snake that is

evinced in her poem. “A narrow Fellow in

the Grass/ ... A spotted shaft is seen –“

(Lines 1, 6) (Dickinson, quoted in Lynn,

2012, p. 211). In Dickinson’s poem, the

narrow shaft is a clear reference to a male

erection, representing the most primal

exercise of power by one human over

another. The “Whip lash/ Unbraiding in the

Sun” (Lines 13-14) presents the image of a

Symbolic Serpents 11

whip, which is yet another phallic symbol

(Dickinson, quoted in Lynn, 2012, p. 212).

Upbraid comes from the Old English “up

‘up’ + bregdan ‘move quickly, intertwine’"

(Harper, 2012, para. 1). “[W]hen the snake

looks to the poet much like a ‘Whip lash /

Unbraiding in the Sun,’ the image is both

aural and visual. If, when stationary, the

creature looks as if it were ‘unbraiding,’ we

are to recall the aptness of describing the

moving snake as the lashing out of a whip”

(Monteiro, 1992, para. 3). The lashing whip

is not only a strongly phallic symbol, it also

suggests keeping the weaker person in a

subservient state through the power of the

whip. A whip is used to make animals obey

their masters, and during the time of slavery,

it is used to make the slaves work for their

master and to punish any slave that defies

his or her master. The whip, then, is a

symbol of power that is to be feared. While

upbraiding means scolding in modern usage,

its etymology reinforces the serpentine


image of the snake in the grass. Snakes are

known to move quickly, and the side-to-side

movement of a snake’s body along the

ground may be described as intertwining

with the grass through which it passes. The

lines of the poem, then, have a double

meaning. Dickinson is describing the snake

moving quickly when she, as the boy in the

poem, encounters it. Additionally, the poet

displaces the scolding power of her mentors

to the snake in the grass. The snake exerts

power over the boy by scolding and by

behaving like a whip. In Dickinson’s life, a

series of male authority figures, including

four male tutors and mentors, exert power

over the author (Whicher, 1934, p. 3). The

snake in the grass illustrates the power that

these male mentors have in Dickinson’s life,

subtly exerting masculine power over the

weaker poet.

The boy in Dickinson’s poem

challenges the snake by attempting to grab

it, exerting the boy’s power over the snake.


When he finds the snake scolding him, the

boy reaches out, but “When stooping to

secure it/ It wrinkled, and was gone –“

(Lines 15-16) (Dickinson, quoted in Lynn,

2012, p. 212). Again, the comparison of the

snake to a penis is apt. When the power of

the oppressor, represented by the snake, is

resisted by the oppressor’s target, the

oppressor’s forcefully erect penis shrivels to

a small, weak, wrinkled shadow of its

power. Just so, the snake wrinkles up into

nothing and is gone when the boy tries to

pick it up. This reversal of the power

balance between Dickinson and the male

power structure allows the poet to explore

the possibility that she might be able to

challenge the status quo. In doing so,

Dickinson attempts to destroy the Electra

complex, represented as the Oedipus

complex of the boy in her poem.

Assuming the aspect of a boy in her poem

allows Dickinson to protect herself mentally

through displacement. She projects her


fears and hopes onto the boy, allowing him

to face the masculine power of the snake.

Having the snake wrinkle up and go away

allows her to explore how it feels to

overcome that power without putting herself

at risk by facing the masculine power that

orders her own life. For Dickinson, “Nature

is narrow, constricting, like a coffin (or a

snake). Anything ‘straight’ is distasteful,

because ‘numbing’" (Gillespie, 1973, p.

261). The straight, narrow shaft of the snake

is a negative image for Dickinson, but

reducing the image to something wrinkled

and inconsequential, as the boy does,

releases Dickinson’s unconscious from the

numbing fear of the snake’s power.

Moore’s poem suggests that the

desire to have the power of a dragon is a

wise desire, as the opening lines name the

putative wisest man in the Bible: “If I, like

Solomon,.../ could have my wish—“ (Lines

1-2) (Moore, quoted in Lynn, 2012, p. 212).

Moore does not claim to possess the wisdom


of Solomon; Moore intellectualizes her

desire for power by musing that she would

choose that power if she was wise. The

suggestion in the poet’s wish is that she does

not believe she is wise enough to express

such a wish, thus repressing her inner desire

for power. “[T]he dragon is a fighter, a

serpent, and in mythic terms, an insatiable

warrior” (Martin, 1984, p. 192). Unlike

Dickinson, who views power in terms of the

elusive snake, Moore views power in terms

of a courageous warrior. The speaker in

Moore’s poem wishes to assume that power

and to become a powerful warrior. Unlike

Dickinson, whose male role models exert

considerable power in her life, Moore has

few male role models. She is raised by her

grandfather after her father is committed to a

mental hospital before her birth (Liukkonen,

2008, para. 3). Moore’s conflict with her

mother, as defined by the Electra complex,

then, is in competition for the affection of

her grandfather in the absence of her father.


In associating a dragon with good

instead of with evil, it may be that Moore is

in denial about the true nature of the creature

that she selects as a symbol of power. “O to

be a dragon,/ a symbol of the power of

Heaven” Lines 3-4) (Moore, quoted in Lynn,

2012, p. 212). Another possibility is that

Moore experiences reaction formation in

regard to dragons, believing or hoping that,

if she says they are symbols of Heaven, then

they are good. If she is experiencing

reaction formation, it is likely to be a

manifestation of her id as her inner dragon

contending with her ego as it tries to make

her good. “In western literature dragons

symbolize intense passion and represent the

battle knights must fight against immorality”

(Snyder, 2011, para. 3). Using this image,

the dragon is the unconscious passions of

Moore’s id, and the knight is her ego,

wielding her personal power to prevent her

falling into immoral behavior. If the

symbolism is applied universally, the dragon


represents the repressed passions of

humanity, and Moore’s wish is that people

could release those inner passions and

embrace the power of honest expressions of

desire and emotion.

Moore’s desire to be a dragon is a

mask for the desires of her id. She wishes to

be bold and powerful in the world. She

desires to be a warrior who can fight for

herself to establish herself as a powerful

individual. Because women are only

beginning to have power in society in

Moore’s lifetime, a woman is forced to

repress her desires. Moore’s ability to

express in writing the desires that she

represses in society suggests that she has

successfully destroyed her Electra complex

and is establishing a healthy mental identity

for herself as a strong individual.

In contrast to Moore’s evident desire

to be a bold, warrior-like dragon, she

expresses her desire to be “at times

invisible” (Line 5) (Moore, quoted in Lynn,


2012, p. 213). Sometimes, power lies not in

being seen, but in the ability to be unseen or

unnoticed by those by whom one may be

oppressed. Moore does not wish to be

invisible all the time; she does not desire to

cease to exist in society. Instead, she desires

to be invisible at times. It is reasonable to

assume that the times at which she wishes to

be invisible are those times that she chooses

to go unnoticed, not those times at which

she is overlooked or ignored by others. The

former option allows Moore to assume

personal power in her life, while the latter

choice abdicates her power to the oppression

of others.

Both Dickinson and Moore explore

the concept of size in their poetry.

Dickinson compares the relatively large size

of the snake’s shaft at the height of its power

to the small size it assumes when it wrinkles

up with the loss of its power to frighten the

boy. For Dickinson, size has a direct

correlation to power and to self-image.


When she feels powerful, she is large and

purposeful, like the snake that parts the

grass. When she feels others exerting power

over her, she is small and wrinkled in on

herself, like the snake that is threatened by

the boy’s attempt to grab it. For Moore, size

is a lesser concern. The dragon may be “of

silkworm/ size or immense” (Lines 4-5)

(Moore, quoted in Lynn, 2012, pp. 212-

213). A silkworm is very, very small, but it

has the power to spin threads that are

immensely strong. Moore acknowledges

this potential for great power to come in a

small size, but she does not rule out the

value and power of a very large dragon.

“Since antiquity, dragons have

represented the vast primal forces that

support the material realm” (Snyder, 2011,

para. 2). Large or small, Moore appears to

be wishing for these vast forces, not for a

vast physical form, when she wishes to be a

dragon. While Moore, like Dickinson, never

married, women in general take into


themselves the vast primal forces when they

create life through procreation. It is possible

that Moore wishes to take on the power to

mold primal forces through motherhood. A

mother’s body appears small, like a

silkworm, as childbearing begins, but attains

what many women consider to be immense

size before the baby is born. The desire to

produce life is an unconscious drive that is

imprinted in every woman, and Moore may

be regretting her decision to remain

childless. Certainly, many women who have

no children yearn to take on the vast power

of nature to reproduce, even if that desire is

repressed in favor of striving for other kinds

of personal and social power.

Dickinson suggests that she gets

along with some parts of nature, thus

intensifying the image of the fear that she

feels for the snake. It is not all of nature that

frightens her, just as not all of society

frightens her. It is the snake that numbs her

with fear, just as she is rendered powerless


by the oppressive power that is exerted over

her life. Dickinson is known to consider the

things of nature to be “narrow, constricting,

like a coffin " (Gillespie, 1973, p. 261).

Nevertheless, she writes: “Several of

Nature's People/ I know, and they know me

--/ I feel for them a transport/ Of cordiality –

“ (Lines 17-20) (Dickinson, quoted in Lynn,

2012, p. 212). These lines are in denial of

her usual reactions to nature. As such, they

reinforce her conflict with the snake, and

with the power that it represents.

Dickinson and Moore have very

different relationships with the serpents that

they choose for their poetry. In “A Slender

Fellow In the Grass,” Dickinson encounters

the snake unintentionally. It surprises her as

“His notice sudden is –“(Line 4) (Dickinson,

quoted in Lynn, 2012, p. 211). The

suddenness of the encounter is frightening

for Dickinson, who comments that she

“never met this Fellow/ Attended or alone/

Without a lighter breathing/ And Zero at the


Bone –“ (Lines 21-24) (Dickinson, quoted in

Lynn, 2012, p. 212). Every encounter with

the snake leaves Dickinson afraid. The

masculine power of the snake numbs her

ability to respond, just as surely as do

freezing temperatures. She feels the cold of

fear and powerlessness in her bones, at the

core of her being. In “O to Be a Dragon,”

on the other hand, Moore is, or seeks to be,

the dragon. She assumes the power of the

dragon, taking on, accepting, and claiming

the dragon’s power as her own. Whereas

Dickinson is overcome by the masculine,

phallic power of the snake, Moore is

empowered by the masculine, warrior power

of the dragon.

The symbolic serpents in the poems

of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore

provide a basis for understanding how each

poet relates to personal power and to the

power structures that surround her life.

Through an understanding of these two

poems, and of how Freud’s Oedipus


complex and Jung’s Electra complex relate

to the lives of Dickinson and Moore, the

reader is able to appreciate how living in

fear of oppressive, masculine power

structures can influence the expression of a

person’s unconscious desires and fears.

Dickinson encounters power as something to

be feared; Moore embraces power as

something to be sought in life. The snake in

the grass and the mighty dragon are two

sides of a single coin, with incapacitating

fear on one side and wondrous possibilities

on the other side. A serpent may be a snake,

or it may be a dragon. Just as Dickinson and

Moore each respond differently to the

serpent, each person is free to choose

whether to be powerless with fear or to be

empowered by wisdom and courage.


References

Cherry, K. (2012). What is the Electra

complex? Retrieved from

http://psychology.about.com/od/eind

ex/g/def_electracomp.htm

Gillespie, R. (1973). A circumference of

Emily Dickinson. The New England

Quarterly, 46(2), 250-271.

Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/364117

Glaser, E. (2009). Dragons in our genes: An

examination of the collective

unconscious. Retrieved from

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchan

ge/node/4148

Harper, D. (2012). Upbraid. Online

Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved

from

http://www.etymonline.com/index.p

hp?term=upbraid


Liukkonen, P. (2008). Marianne (Craig)

Moore (1887-1972). Retrieved from

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmoor.htm

Lynn. S. (2011). Texts and contexts: Writing

about literature with critical theory.

Boston, MA: Pearson Education

Martin, T. (1984). Portrait of a writing

master: Beyond the myth of

Marianne Moore. Twentieth

Century Literature. 30(2/3), 192-

209. Retrieved from


Monteiro, G. (1992). Dickinson's a narrow

fellow in the grass. The Explicator,

51(1), 20. Retrieved from ProQuest

Database.

Snyder, M. (2011). Dragon dreams.

Retrieved from

http://whiteknightstudio.blogspot.co

m/2011/11/dragons.html

Whicher, G.F. (1934). Emily Dickinson's

earliest friend. American Literature,


6(1), 3-17. Retrieved from



Debbie Barry and

her husband live in

southeastern

Michigan with their

two sons and their

two cats. The

family enjoys

exploring history through French and Indian

War re-enactment and through medieval re-

enactment in the Society for Creative

Anachronism (SCA). Debbie grew up in

Vermont, where she heard and collected

many family stories that she enjoys retelling

as historical fiction for young audiences.

Debbie graduated summa cum laude with a

B.A. in dual majors of social sciences with

an education concentration and of English in

2013.


Also look for these titles by Debbie Barry:

Books for Young Learners:

Around the Color Wheel

Colors and Numbers

Stories for Children:

Bobcat in the Pantry

Born in the Blizzard and Freshet

Expressing the Trunk

Gramp’s Bear Story

When Mary Fell Down the Well

Writing Competition

History and Genealogy:

Family History of Deborah K.

Fletcher

Grandma Fletcher’s Scrapbooks

Nana’s Stories

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families

Property Deeds and other Legal

Documents of the Fletcher and

Townsend Families, 2nd Edition

with Digital Scans

The Red Notebook


The Red Notebook, 2nd Edition with

Digital Scans

Zoa Fletcher’s Photos

Zoa Has Her Way

Other Topics:

A Journey Through My College

Papers: Undergraduate Series

Advantages of Brain-Based Learning

Environments

African Americans in Post-Civil War

America

American Students Are Crippled By

Cultural Diversity Education

Analyzing The Yellow Wallpaper

Debbie’s Vision in Art, Volumes 1-4

Debbie’s Writing

Identity Within and Without

Indifferent Universe

Loss

More Than Just Monogamy

Nature in Early American Literature

Picturing The First Writing

Religion and Myth in English Poetry

Responsibility to a Broader

Humanity

Speech Codes in Education

The Evil of Grendel

The Heart’s Vision

The Heart’s Vision in Color

Symbolic Serpents

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