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Snakes

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Submitted By jogarcia
Words 1031
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Life vs. Death

In the short story, “The Rattler”, a man and a rattle snake cross paths in the desert, and life vs. death is involved. The man has to decide whether he should kill the snake or not, and he decided that he is obligated to. Though we understand both sides of the story, the man should not have killed the snake. The snake was calm and alert, not trying to harm anyone, but still protecting himself. In the short passage, “The Rattler” , the personification of the snake, the point of the man, and details about the setting all lead readers to feel sympathy toward the snake, as well as sorrow and frustration towards the man. Readers feel sorry for the snake because it loses its life, even though it never threatens or causes the man any harm. The snake is calm. The snake is careful and watchful, but does not strike. The rattler had not moved; he lay there like a “live wire”. The snake has all potential to harm, but controls itself, not threatening the man. The snake even gave the man a second chance by hiding in the bush, as if saying “I don’t want to harm you, but I can, so leave me alone!” As we all know, snakes are very much able to harm, but the snake, being calm, chose to even hide in order to not harm the man. Readers can also see that the snake is very patient. The snake was patiently waiting for the man to “show intentions”. Instead of automatically striking, it decides to wait, to only harm as self-defense, so that he does not have to harm for no reason. The snake is unwilling to fight, unless absolutely necessary. Any other snake would have most likely striked as soon as anyone even got near it, but this snake was patiently waiting for an actual reason to self-defend itself, unlike the man. As all snakes, the snake was courageous. “ He shook and shook his fair but furious signal, quite sportingly warning me that I had made an unprovoked attack”, the snake, not afraid to warn the man, by rattling , tells him to back off, because he cares about his life just as much as the man. The snake obviously values its life, how dare the man even think about taking away his sacred life away from it? Just because the snake is a snake, does not mean that it does not value its life just as much as we and the man do. And the snake is most definitely not afraid to fight for its life if it comes down to it. The snake is strong and powerful, not easily pushed around. The snake is not afraid to show its abilities, but has no intention to attack the man for no reason, but is completely able to defend itself. Readers feel sorry for the man because this snake is so admirable, yet, has lost its life. Readers feel both sympathy and frustration towards the man because though he should not have killed the snake, he has a family to take care of, and he feels sorry about killing the snake afterwards. The man goes out on an evening stroll, and finds himself in a situation that involves a hard situation, the famous question, “should he kill the snake or not”? And so, the man is misguided, the man thinks that he is doing the right thing, but is he? First of all, the snake is in its own habitat, the desert. It is the man who has tres-passed. The snake was not doing anything at all, but a lot of things became a consideration to the man, like his family and the animals. The man should have gone with his “first instinct” which was to not kill the snake. “My first instinct was to let him go his way and I would go mine, and this would have been well content”. The man is also deliberate. Killing the snake was done consciously and intentionally. As soon as he started thinking about other factors like the children and animals, he quickly decided that he should kill the snake. “My duty, plainly, was to kill the snake”, was it, really? “I went back to the ranch house, got a hoe, and returned” all it took was one thought, then he just assumed that it was alright for him to kill the snake. Though a lot of open minded readers understand both sides of the story, many can agree that killing the snake was most certainly not the right thing to do. Readers feel sorry for the man because he went against his morals. The setting of the story started off very calm and peaceful, reader would’ve never expected what happened later on in the story, “After sunset… I walked out into the desert… Light was thinning; the scrubs dry savory odors were sweet on the cool air.” The man was trespassing, as he was walking in the desert, which is the snakes natural habitat, did the man really have any right to kill the snake? A lot of readers can agree that he did not, not at all. And though readers understand both points of view, the man was still wrong. Yes, the man has a family to worry about, but the snake was not in the desert to intentionally be harm to the man’s family, but because that is where he lives, there was absolutely no reason for the snake to have to die.
Readers can agree that the snake is calm, patient, and courageous, and that the man is misguided and deliberate. Did the snake really deserve to die? We can all agree that he did not. Yes we understand both points of view, the man felt sorry afterwards, but does that hide the fact that he killed the snake? No. He thought it through, but obviously, in this circumstance, it would have been much better if he would not have. Why couldn’t he just go with his first existence? Readers can agree that the snake did not deserve to die, and the man was certainly wrong.

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