Notes

It’s surprising how snakes in literature offer so much more than the typical malice seen in modern media. In particular, Jean de La Fontaine, born in 1621 in Champagne, protege of Nicolas Fouquet, wrote Fables, seperated into three books between 1668 mand 1694, and dying in 1695, uses the snake as much more than evil. In particular, we’ll examine La Fontaine uses the snake in his stories to critique the societity of his time. To do that, we’ll first take a look at how snakes are represented in pop culture, to then be able to contrast with La Fontaine’s work, then investigate how he nuances the snake’s representation. We’ll finish by giving a more in depth analysis of La Fontaine’s work, and how he uses these stories as a criticism on his time.

Traditionally, the snake has represented vengeance and death. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “La Barrique d'amontillado”, the main character Montresor belongs to a family whose coat of arms depicts a snake biting a leg being crushed by a golden foot. The coat of arms can be interpreted two different ways. The first is having the snake represent Montresor’s enemy, Fortunato, and the golden foot represent Montresor. In this sense, the snake represents Fortunato's insolence, a dulled form of evil, and the golden foot as justice, at least to Montresor, as this is likely his interpretation. The second interpretation, perhaps Poe’s, is that the snake would represent Montresor, and Fortunato the leg and golden foot. In that sense, the leg and golden foot represent Fortunato's clumsiness, both consciously and subconsciously, while the snake represents Montresor’s vengeance, and by extension, death. Which is not to say that death is always linked with vengeance. In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince”, at the very end, the prince is bitten by the snake to be reunited with his rose. While it is never stated that the prince is killed by the snake, the prince describes himself as “d'être mort et ce ne sera pas vrai”. Thus, it is not unreasonable that the reunion between the rose and prince is metaphorical, and in which case, the snake represents death. However, little is mentioned of the snake’s intents, and whether they are malicious or not. The prince mentions “qu'ils n'ont pas le venin pour la seconde morsure”, implying that, once the prince has started to die, he could not be hurt again, were the snake malicious. Thus, the prince only sees a win-win scenario: the prince can return to his planet, and the snake, if they are malicious, will have had the satisfaction of biting someone.
Which brings us to the snake’s other attributes; representing rebirth and guardianship. In a sense, it could be argued that the prince, in order to reincarnate, has to die, and does so to the snake. This idea of guardianship is also found in Brian Jacques “Redwall”, though as a secondary trait. The snake is described by the characters as a local myth who attacks unsuspecting travelers. While it represents death, it also guards a legendary sword, one with an unbreakable edge. Our main character, Mathias, retrieves the sword and flees with the rest of his group. The snake, characterising death, gives chase. In the end, our main character, Mathias, literally but also metaphorically defeats death by killing the snake with the legendary sword. Which, from an analysis standpoint, could represent how death can’t simply be defeated by normal means; the snake could just have been defeated by a regular sword, but instead, it took an unbreakable sword to defeat it. Contrast with Rudyard Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, where the main character Rikki-Tikki-Tavi defeats the snakes in melee combat. Here, the snakes, angered by humans on their property, actively go out to try and kill the humans. They refuse to share the land and guard the property for intruders. The snakes want the humans to leave in order to be able to safely raise their kids, and in that sense, they are guarding their kids from these external threats. Of course, Rikki, defending the family, has to prevent the snakes from killing the family. Where the snakes represent guardianship, Rikki could represent loyalty. This symbolism of guardianship is best exemplified with Giovanni Francesco Straparola’s “Blanchebelle et le Serpent”, in which a grass snake, named Samaritana, who, interestingly, does not seem to incarnate malice, helps a family birth a child. After her birth, the snake reassures the girl, named Biancabella, who the snake explains is her sister, and asks her to follow her orders, lest she wishes misery. The snake than commands her to bathe in milk and rosewater, much to the girl’s chagrin. However, after doing so, the girl becomes more beautiful and sheds jewels when her hair is combed. Her beauty does not go unnoticed, and many princes and kings to her, of which she is eventually married to Ferrandino. But when she calls out for the snake, the latter does not respond, and the former assumes that she has somehow disobeyed the snake. But as is later stated, “[the snake] [...] had never for one moment abandoned her”. It is only after she is severely harmed by the prince’s stepmother and thrown out, and only after she decides to take her own life, that the snake reappears, this time in the form of a girl like her, asking her to not “take [her] own life, which [they] ought to preserve for some better end.” Samaritana later helps bring the stepmother to justice for her actions towards Biancabella. In essence, Samaritana symbolises not a guardian of the sacred, but a paternal guardian, one which is uncommon to find in literature. It is a rather unusual approach, as it starkly contrasts the usual representation of the cold uncaring snake, while still fitting in the traditional symbolism of the snake.

The snake, in particular, appears twice in La Fontaine’s second volume. The first one is “The Head and Tail of Snake”, being the sixteenth story of the seventh novel in which the snake’s tail is discontent with her position. The tail argues that she should be leading the snake, as it saw her sister and herself as equals, but did not believe to be treated as such. She added that, bearing the poison, she alone was able to fend off danger. She wished to the Gods to let her lead, and that she would do a great job as her sister had done. But the Gods, in doing so, cursed the snake, as the tail could not see. Thus, the snake was led astray, and to its eventual death. In this, we see that La Fontaine critics the warmongering kings that ruled during his time. We see him criticize them for blindly fighting against an enemy, with only one goal in mind, winning, to the detriment of the wellbeing of the people whom they ruled over. This is the allusion made when he writes in his story of the tail wanting to lead, for she bore the poison. We also realise the truth in that, while the tail claims to be equal to her sister, in reality they couldn’t be opposites. Whereas the head represents the logical part, watching out for potential dangers and being able to lead the snake, the tail represents defense, defending against what the snake cannot see, what is behind. In that sense, the tail acts as a warning to potential attacks, telling the latter that even blind, they can fight. Which can be seen as an allegory for pacifism, in that armies should be used for defense, and only for offense in dire situations, after logic and diplomacy have broken down. In essence, the snake represents here the duality of war and peace, and the disaster that happens when war leads.
The snake also reappears in “The Man and the Grass Snake”, being the first story in the tenth novel, which describes a man who wishes to punish a snake he found. As snakes have and are commonly associated with malice in Christian tradition, this appears as a reasonable act. However, the snake argues that a general association to malice does not necessarily equate to an individual personality of malice. It goes further by denying their species to be the symbol of ungratefulness, instead placing that symbolism on mankind. The man, wishing for a counterargument, solicits multiple other animals, each agreeing with the snake, much to the man’s distraught. He repeatedly calls them untrustworthy, therefore invalid, by inventing reasons to call them so, and solicits another animal. At the end, he states that none of their arguments matter, for he reasons, that everything was made for man, without justifying. So here, La Fontaine argues that it is not so much as the snake incarnes evil, but more so that man believes the snake to incarne evil, whether that is true or not, and thus justifies any action as suppressing evil. This can be expanded to represent how nation leaders will attack other nations, in the name of “suppressing evil”. Said leaders will oust them as evil with reason, but La Fontaine argues that said reasons are rather dismissive. This ties in nicely with the secondary interpretation of this story, the one La Fontaine explicits at the very end of the fable. He states that man can be irrationally unreasonable, and that, to not attract man’s ire upon them, they should not speak, or do so from far away. Which is what most authors of the enlightened period did: Beaumarchais satires Spanish royalty and Voltaire publishes his books from Switzerland.

In all, the snake has several different symbolisms, of which various literatures, including Jean de La Fontaine, utilise in their novels. In particular, La Fontaine uses the snake is used as an antithesis in such a manner as to express the duality of human reasoning and irrationality. But it isn’t just literature. In all forms of media, the snake is represented along these symbolisms.

Intro
Question/Problematic:
Snakes in pop culture
Death (Prince/Redwall/Cask[though this one is also vengefulness])
Fertility and Guardianship (Blanche/Rikki)
Contrast with LaFo
Contrast
LaFo’s nuance
Snakes in LaFo
Analysis of Front and Back of Snake
Analysis of Man and Snake
Conclusion
Answer: