Donald Peattie's Short Story 'The Rattler'

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A decision has the capability of changing everything affecting not only you but the

people and things around you, maybe even changing the way you see yourself as well. In the

short story “The Rattler” by Donald Peattie, the man didn't want to harm the snake but was

concerned about the safety of his children , animals , ranch and etc. You can comprehend why

the man had to remove the snake from the farm, but can't understand why he had to kill the

snake.(There were many other ways that the snake could have been removed from the farm

without harming him.) The man contradicts everything that he stood for in the story. He claims

to have never killed or thought of killing anything his whole life, but wants to do what …show more content…

The sight of the snake is so heartbreaking that even the man is left to rethink

what he has just done . It must have been one gruesome sight . “Then for a moment I could see

him as I might have let him go” . The man feels sympathy for the snake and what he has done.

He is proud of the fact that he did not cut the rattle tail off of the snake for a trophy. It doesn't

make what he did to the snake any better. He wishes that he didn't kill the snake and is left to

wonder what would have happened if he just let the snake go.

In the short story passage entitled “The Rattler,” language and details about the man and

the snake made me feel empathy towards the man and sympathy towards the snake. You feel

empathy for the man, because he went out of his way to try and kill the snake even though he

wasn't harming anyone. One can understand that the man did it to protect his family in the long

run,but you can't help but think that there were other ways to get rid of the snake besides

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