Analyzing Mary Oliver's Poem 'The Black Snake'

Mengting Yang
Professor Pigeon
English 301B
6/2/2015
The Black Snake
Mary Oliver was a famous poet and nature-lover, she used nature as center of her poetries. She was observant and thoughtful, which endowed her poetry a unique charm and depth. In her poem “The Black Snake” also manifests everything in the natural world is equal. This poem narrated that the speaker found a black snake was killed by a truck and thus to start thinking death and life. Meanwhile, Mary’s poetic language also has strong power. This poetry is a simplicity and short but she used many elements of poetry to make this poetry more profound and meaningful, and the symbolism and figures of speech are the two main element in “The Black Snake”. Figures of speech brings value

to the poem, for example, the speaker compared the black snake to an old bicycle tire and braided whip. What’s more, for the symbolism, I am willing to explore some questions, such as the reason why the speaker choose a black snake as her narrated object, and I will focus on some elements in the poem what they symbolize. In addition, I will analyze other elements of poetry as well, like imagery and tone.
In the first stanza of the poetry, the speaker narrated that a black snake crawled on the morning road, but because a truck could not swerve, the snake killed. In my opinion, morning represented light and hope, but because of irresistible factor as the truck broke down, this hope was snuffed out and then death came. To be honest, for the majority people, snakes are not a symbol of good luck, but they mostly represent evil or bad things. However, the speaker would stop her car for the black snake, and carried him into bushes to bury him. I believed that everything in the natural world is equal in her view. Moreover, I found this poem not only displays the speaker’s understanding of death, but also expresses the relationship between human beings and nature. The black snake was killed by truck, but the speaker helped him, besides, in the whole poem, the speaker used “he” to name the black snake rather than “it”, she may regard this animal as “human”.
In the second stanzas, the speaker firstly said that “he lies looped and useless as an old bicycle tire”, (line 5, 6) she used simile of figures of speech to create an explicit comparison between the black snake and an bicycle tire, because the black snake’s shape was as same as a bicycle tire when black snake coiled itself up.

Then she also used simile of figures of speech to describe the dead snake. For instance, “He is as cool and gleaming as a braided whip”, the speaker compared the black snake with a braided whip, and “he is as beautiful and quiet as a dead brother”, she regarded the black brother. Let’s start with the first one of two sentences, the speaker chose the braided whip as vehicle because its shape also was as same as the black snake’s, but different from an old bicycle whip, the speaker chose some positive words that were “cool” and “gleaming” to describe the black snake, I thought the conver of diction presented changes in her delicate feelings. Subsequently, the second sentence made me understood what changes were. I thought that was she no longer think the black snake was a snake but her compatriot, because she said that he was her dead brother. These similes also expressed the speaker’s affection in

nature.
In the fourth and fifth stanzas, the speaker drove away and began to think the snake’s death. She said “its suddenness, its terrible weight, its certain coming.” (line 18, 19, 20) these words not only emphasized features of death, but also highlighted the fragile of the black snake. Besides, the black snake’s death was precipitate also implied the fragile of life and human beings, so I thought this sentence used metaphor of figures of speech. For my perspective, the snake symbolized alive things around the world, his death made the speaker realize anything and anyone cannot escape when death comes, because we were powerless to resist.

According to these stanzas above, I found that the tone of the poem is negative, hopeless and full of sadness. For the snake’s death, alive speaker just buried him, then she left.
However, in the final stanza, the speaker paints in words a beautiful and happy scene, “the snake coiling and flowing forward happily all spring through the green leaves before he came to the road.” (line 22, 23, 24) Happy, spring, green leaves and alive snake, these words depicted a visual imagery and these images also symbolized hope and life. This stanza was differ from other negative stanzas, its context was full of alive objects. I thought the speaker really wanted to tell readers life is ever renewed by death, even though we are in the dark, we still are full of courageous and hopeful. Furthermore, this stanza as well as changed the tone of the poem from sadness to hope.
In general, the speaker narrated what she met and her internal monologue, and application of elements of poetry made the poem more infectious.