Critical Appreciation On "Snake" by D.H. Lawrence

In D.H. Lawrence’s poem entitled “Snake”, it is about a man’s experience in encountering a snake. The persona in this poem is confused about the way he feels for the snake. He is torn apart between his feelings and knowledge.

The persona feels honoured and at the same time is fascinated to come across the presence of a snake at his water-trough. He continued to look on and admire the snake as it is. At the same time, he knows for a fact that snakes are dangerous and needs to be killed. This makes him question about his masculinity. He feels that he is not a man to not kill the snake. From the way I see it, his feelings stopped him from killing the snake whereas his knowledge triggered him to kill it. Somehow, it came to a point where the persona did try to kill the snake but he missed it. He then felt awful and regretted his action because the snake was no longer there. He wishes for the snake to come back because it is like a king to him.

In my humble opinion, this poem shows how confused a man can be when feelings and knowledge is concern. This conflict eventually leads a man to regret his decision and wished to repeat time. For instance, the persona regretted his attempt to kill the snake although it did not hurt the snake in any way. He did it mainly because he was afraid that the society will question on his manliness.

Eliza Maria Benjamine