“The Snake” Question Answer ENG A WBCHSE 11

“The Snake” by David Herbert Richard Lawrence Question Answer for grade 11 included in the subject of ENG A for WBCHSE. DH Lawrence’s “The Snake” is a poem about the speaker seeing a snake that has come to drink water from his trough.

The poet has adopted very simple, mild, clear, colorful descriptive, and imaginative choices of words to portray his poem. This makes the poem picturesque.

The poem is free verse having no specific rhyme. The poem’s first part talks about the arrival of the poet and the snake with a brief description of the creature. The second division talks about the mode of drinking water of the snake and the patient attitude that was borne by it. Further, the poet was suffering from a conflict about whether to kill or spare the snake. The next segment portrays the return of the creature and lastly, the remorse which was expressed by the poet. 

LONG ANSWER QUESTIONS:

Question 1: What are the qualities of DH Lawrence, as a portion which are revealed in this poem ‘Snake’? 

Ans: ‘The Snake’ is a fine example of modern free words where the rhythm and length of the line change with the quality and the nature of the impression that the poet aims to convey. 

       The poet is fascinated by the sight of the gleaning snake, drinking from his water trough. He is awe-struck and spellbound at the sight of this serpentine beauty. He feels honored that such a glorious creature should have come to quench his thirst from his trough. The colour of the snake makes him suddenly realize that the snake belongs to a poisonous variety and therefore, he feels an impulse implanted in him by his human education to kill the snake outright. But his inborn admiration for beauty and glamor overcomes his acquired hatred of poisonous snakes, and silently and motionlessly, he goes on watching the movements of the snake. On seeing the beautiful creature disappear down a dark miserable hole, the poet is suddenly overpowered by the human disgust of crawling, burrowing reptiles, and in a fury of hatred, he throws a log at the snake. Soon, afterward, his innate respect and admiration for beauty reawaken and he blames himself for having offended this uncrowned king, the Lord of Life. He is reminded of the harm that befell the ancient mariner in the poem “The Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge, and he wonders whether the same evil may not visit him for having tried to injure the snake. He feels foolish, petty, mean, and thoughtless and expresses a wish that the snake may come back again so that he may expatiate his guilt by treating the snake in a manner worthy of its kingly status. 

      The poem reveals to us that the author is the master of graphic description, one who knows that words have magic about them and makes effective and masterful use of knowledge. The poem also displays the author’s acute sensitiveness to beauty and expertise over verbal and rhythmic facilities. 

Question 2: “For he seemed to me again like a king… crowned again.”Analyze the poet-narrator’s thoughts when he recalls the snake as a king in his sight. 

Ans: The poet-narrator recalls the shimmery beauty and dignified slow movement of the snake. It daunts upon him that the snake is an awe-inspiring creature like a king. In reality, he is a king in exile though he does not belong to the world of men but the underworld. It looks as though he has been deprived of his crown and royal authority in its own domain. He has wandered out of it into the upper world.

Since he has once again gone back into the dark hole, the poet imagines that he is going to be crowned as a king once again in his own domain and the period of exile, the time he has spent at the water trough has now come to an end. The poet imagines all these facts about the snake since the snake has become for him a creature at whom he stares with great fascination. No longer does he think of the snake as a dreadful creature to put to death the moment it is cited. The flickering motion of the snake’s tongue which moved in and out of the mouth immediately reminded the poet of lightning in the sky on a dark night. The movement of the lightning is very swift as it flashes and dies in an instant. 

Question 3: What, in your opinion, had prompted the poet- narrator to kill the snake? 

Ans: A careful analysis of the sequence of events will suggest to us the reason behind the step taken by the narrator. Earlier, in the poem, we are told that the poet narrator looked upon the snake as a guest who had honored him by coming to drink water at stuff and thus quenches thirst. He could have attempted to kill a poisonous snake then because a snake’s presence made him tremble. But he kept watching the snake as he was drinking. Soon, however, having had his fill, the snake began to withdraw. He put his head first into the hole allowing his body to draw up after him. This, the poet-narrator did not like. The snake had ignored the presence of a human being on the scene giving him the feeling that he was beaving him by standing out against him. This provoked in the poet-narrator a sense of hatred almost at the time when the snake was withdrawing as would soon be out of all harm’s way even if the poet-narrator narrator desired to hurt him by hurling a stone or something else at him. Seeing the snake planning to escape into the dark hole, a feeling of disgust and revulsion must have driven out of his mind the feeling of hospitality and regard for him. 

     So long as the snake was within his reach and could be controlled by him or even put to death, he could watch him with admiration and respect the latent sense of fear was not so strong as to come to the surface and displace his fascination for his king in exile, ‘uncrowned in the underworld’ but now ‘due to be crowned again.’