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
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is best for his family to protect them . “I have never killed an animal I was not obliged to kill; the sport in taking life is a satisfaction ... my duty, plainly, was to kill the snake.” Page 1 of 2 The Peaceful Fangs Of Death A Matter Of Flight Or Fight 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 is best for his family to protect them . “I have never killed an animal I was not obliged to kill; the sport in taking life is a satisfaction ... my duty, plainly, was to kill the snake.” The man went against everything that he was saying. He could have set up a trap for the snake, captured it, taken it somewhere else, and set it free far away from the ranch. He just wanted to overthink everything. He thought of all of the negative and evil things that the snake resembled. The negative aspects of the snake played into what the man thought the snake was going to do. This made the man afraid .This was shown when he says, “It was a rattlesnake and knew it. I mean that where a sixfoot black snake thick as my wrist... longrange attack and armed with powerful fangs... the rattle felt no necessity of getting out of anybody’s path.” The author's description of the snake and of the snake location in his environment makes it seem like the snake is stumbling into the man's territory but in all actuality it is the man that has stumbled into the snake's path . The snake is a misunderstood, beautiful, powerful creature in my eyes. One cannot help but feel sympathy for the snake and the way he died. He wasn't doing anything. He was murdered just because he looked like he was a threat and the reputation that comes with being a snake . “ he strike he shot into a dense bush and set up his rattling... shook his fair but furious signal, quite sportingly warning me that I had made an unprovoked attack, attempting to take his life... he would have no choice but to take mine if he could.” The snake is trying to escape from the persecution of the man, but can't no matter what he does .He hides in the bushes to seek refuge, but the man refusing to leave the snake alone, still seeing him as a threat to him and his family . The snake’s rattling tail warns the man numerous times to leave him alone, but the snakes rattling falls upon deaf ears . “He struck passionately once more at the hoe; but a moment later his neck was broken , and he was soon dead... There was blood in his mouth and poison Page 1 of 2 Page 2 of 2 dripping from his fangs, it was a nasty sight , pitiful now that it was done.” The snake’s description after the attack is as if he is harmless, like an innocent victim, that has just been brutally mugged.
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
killing the snake . You feel sympathy for the snake because of the nasty sight in which the man describes the snake’s death. If you really think about it the snake could have reacted more vicious than he did, he was peaceful until he had no choice but to react violently .People are always afraid of the unknown the unpredictable and in this instance the man feels this way about the snake, him not being able to predict what the snake is capable of doing in future made the man afraid which caused him to act out in violence. It's kinda of like the roles of the human and the animal have been changed. You’d expect the snake to have been the one to make the first strike of violence, but he remained peaceful in the beginning. It was the man that was the aggressor. This story makes readers think and question, Are animals the savages or are we? Page 2 of 2 1 of 2 Displaying Untitled document.
In the book Rikki crushes all but one egg of Nagaina’s to bribe Nagaina into staying away from the kid. Rikki said, “What’sthe price for a snake’s egg? For a young cobra? For a king cobra? For the last-the very last of the brood? The ants are eating all the others by the melon bed.” Also in the book the snake flees with the egg trying to outrun Rikki. In the book it states, “He had forgotten about the egg. It lay on the veranda and Nagaina came nearer and nearer to it, til at last, while Rikki-Tikki was drawing breath, She caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path.” Also in the movie the mongoose booked it right into the snake hole where many mongooses never come out. (movie) The movie shows “Rikki chasing Nagaia down a hole where the snake lived.” Also in the movie Rikki killed Nagaina, and whatever cobra ever dared to try to threaten him or the family. In conclusion that is how the Resolution is related to the book and the
The emotive language Lawson utilises conveys the protectiveness and fear the Drover’s wife experiences when faced with the knowledge that the snake is in the house with them. The love for the family can be seen in the text ‘The Drover’s Wife’ by Henry Lawson as the main character faces many challenges trying to keep her children
...ife, and he does not want to end up like them. He says, “It’s sad, in a way. I wish I could assure the Porter and the McGlocklins and all the others that we can be friends as long as we like, but that I won’t be taking up serpents anymore. I refuse to be a witness to suicide, particularly my own. I have two daughters to raise, and a vocation in the world” (238). He finally acknowledges his place in the world, is ready and happy to fulfill his calling.
“The Rattler” explores the conflicts between man and nature that seem inescapable. The narrator is taking a walk through the desert when he comes across a rattlesnake. After some thought, he decides to kill it and proceeds to violently slaughter it with a hoe. The snake fights back when provoked, but fails. The author makes the reader feel sympathy towards the snake and empathy towards the man through the personality of the snake, the point of view of the man, and the language and details regarding the setting.
Over centuries, humankind has searched for the line where positive and negative influence over nature intersect. “The Rattler”, a tale of a man and a rattlesnake who cross paths in the desert, deals with this very question. The individual is at first cautious of the snake, thinking it best to leave the dangerous creature alone. But at the thought of the nearby neighbors, he takes it upon himself to kill it, and then continues on into the night. The author uses comparison, diction and personification in “The Rattler” to promote sympathy for both characters: the snake and the man.
Ménez, Andre’. The Subtle Beast: Snakes, from Myth to Medicine. New York, New York: CRC Press, 2003.
The effect the reader perceives in the passage of Rattler is attained from the usage of the author¡¯s imagery. The author describes the pre-action of the battle between the man and the snake as a ¡°furious signal, quite sportingly warning [the man] that [he] had made an unprovoked attack, attempted to take [the snake¡¯s] life... ¡± The warning signal is portrayed in order to reveal the significance of both the man¡¯s and the snake¡¯s value of life. The author sets an image of how one of their lives must end in order to keep the world in peace. In addition, the author describes how ¡°there was blood in [snake¡¯s] mouth and poison dripping from his fangs; it was all a nasty sight, pitiful now that it was done.¡± This bloody image of snake¡¯s impending death shows the significance of the man¡¯s acceptance toward the snake. In a sense, the reader can interpret the man¡¯s sympathy toward the snake because of the possibility that he should have let him go instead of killing him.
...d use Rikki as a weapon to control snakes. “‘Teddy is safer with that little animal in his room than with a watchdog. If a snake came into his room-’ But Teddy’s mother wouldn’t think of anything so awful” (Kipling 5). In addition to keeping Rikki as a pet and companion for his son, he sees how it may benefit and protect his family. Teddy’s father sees Karait as a threat to Teddy so he beats the snake with a stick, and shoots Nag when he hears him fighting with Rikki. Instead of trying to rearrange the garden so the snakes can’t hide in the tall grass, he just uses his human power to remove the threat permanently.
Kimbrough, David L. Taking up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995. Print.
When Marciano looked at profile of The Snakes, he found out that they were extremely violent, deadly, harmful, psychotic, and on the FBI’s most wanted list. They have a record of holding hostages, killing innocent people, robbing, arson, identity theft, hacking websites, stealing credit cards, and having large amounts of cocaine. Though this time, it is even worse; they have the United States on its knees with the stolen bomb. The people of the country are depending on the very brave men and women who are dedicated to recover the nuclear bomb and put the country back to rest. The Snakes have every intention of letting the bomb go off, but they want to make a trade with the Federal Government. They wanted to trade the bomb back for one-hundred million dollars. Marciano heard about what is going on; ever since he was a kid, he waited an opportunity to save the world, but never thought it wo...
Goodman Brown heads down a “dreary road...” (311). He is then approached by his fellow traveler, who happens to be the devil. The devil had with him “a staff that bore the likeness of a great black snake" (312). The devil tries to convince Goodman
Alex keeps coming back to his snake after his nights on the town, and his first
Rikki Tikki Tavi demonstrates many acts of bravery to show that he is the one true hero in the story. For example, the narrator states that “...Karait had lunged too far, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi had sprung, jumped on the snake’s back, dropped his head far between his forelegs, bitten as high up as the back as he could get hold, and he rolled away. The bite paralyzed Karait,” (Kipling 133-134). This was an important act because this is when Rikki not only killed the dangerously fast and small snake, Karait, but also saved Teddy’s life. Teddy would have been killed or seriously injured by the snake, but Rikki was brave and went in for the kill, which ended with
... Nature, including human beings, is `red in tooth and claw'; we are all `killers' in one way or another. Also, the fear which inhabits both human and snake (allowing us, generally, to avoid each other), and which acts as the catalyst for this poem, also precipitates retaliation. Instinct, it seems, won't be gainsaid by morality; as in war, our confrontation with Nature has its origins in some irrational `logic' of the soul. The intangibility of fear, as expressed in the imagery of the poem, is seen by the poet to spring from the same source as the snake, namely the earth - or, rather, what the earth symbolizes, our primitive past embedded in our subconsciouness. By revealing the kinship of feelings that permeates all Nature, Judith Wright universalises the experience of this poem.
Bravery was revealed all throughout The Snake Charmer and to Joe Slowinski “... to be afraid: It just wasn’t in his nature.” (James 13). Periodically throughout the book, Slowinski experiences scenarios of great stupid, but extreme, bravery. An example of this is his constant use of bare snake wrestling, not using his snake grappling hook. Surprisingly so, even with a snake bitten infected right hand, Joe “...still managed to catch another Copperhead, left handed.” (52). Joe Slowinski was a brave man, even if it came at the worst of times, such as the time he “... absentmindedly thrust his right hand into the sack to extract a snake…” (8) which ultimately lead to his sad, yet ironic death.