Of the
three most renowned authors who published in Weird Tales in the early twentieth century, Robert E. Howard was
the one who adhered to the traditional Biblical perception of the serpent as
emblematic of evil. In stories like “The
Children of the Night” (1931), “People of the Dark” (1932), “Worms of the
Earth” (1932) and some of the Conan adventures, Howard develops the theme of a
subterranean race of snake-like humanoids who remain a perennial threat to
humankind. Once like us, they reverted
to reptilian form after living underground for millennia. In Howard’s fiction, the appearance of
serpentine imagery signals the nearness of primordial evil, a force capable of
bringing about both spiritual and physical corruption. It is also conflated at times with his
appalling racial theories, now entirely discounted but popular during Howard’s
heyday.
“The
Dream Snake” (1928) is somewhat different in conception than the stories above,
in that the inescapable serpentine monster may be an aspect of the doomed man’s
psyche, a metaphor for his impending demise.
It is less a struggle between darkness and light, evil and good, than a
study of one man’s troubled psychology.
Even in one of his many non-supernatural pieces, the 1929 Steve Costigan
fight story “The Pit of the Serpent” (a.k.a. “Manila Manslaughter), Howard
places the action in a pit once used for serpent-fighting. The frequency of snake imagery in Robert E.
Howard’s fiction is one of its most conspicuous features.
Unlike
Howard, H.P. Lovecraft made relatively little use of snake imagery in his
stories, which is surprising given his repressed sexuality, preoccupation with
nightmares, and ever present classic Freudian motifs in his work. Of the “big three”, his fictional creations
cry out for psychoanalysis, and it is no accident that his unique contribution
to horror literature was produced during the period when Freudian psychotherapy
was in vogue.
Though
phallic symbols and other sexually charged imagery abound in Lovecraft—towers,
trees, tentacles, tunnels—snake imagery does not. Is it possible, with his extreme self-consciousness
that Lovecraft may have edited out
such a common and vulgar symbol? And
yet, there is this notorious passage from “The Dunwich Horror” (1929):
Above
the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog’s
rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a
crocodile or alligator. The back was
piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of
certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human
resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began.
The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen
a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded
limply.
Lovecraft
often seems less restrained and self-conscious in some of his collaborations
with other writers. In most cases these lesser lights—with the exception of
Barlow, Whitehead, and Price—owed the success of their meagre attempts to his
intervention. In the context of snake
imagery in horror fiction, “The Curse of Yig” (1928), a story he wrote with
Zealia Bishop, is over the top.
The
tale is preposterous: a married couple
suffers gruesome supernatural vengeance after the dutiful wife kills the offspring
of a local snake god. She does this to
spare her husband the trauma of encountering a brood of recently hatched
rattlesnakes—lately he had become increasingly spooked by Native American legends
concerning the snake god Yig. The ensuing
wrath of Yig involves a considerable amount of castration anxiety and penis
envy, with the wife eventually transformed into an embodiment of the “great
snake” she is trying to save her husband from.
Is it possible Lovecraft was making a statement about matrimony as he
experienced it?
Not surprisingly, occultists have a
different view of snake imagery, and often see the serpent as a symbol of wisdom. In The
Black Arts (1967), a survey of occult history by Richard Cavendish, the
author notes that the snake, the scorpion, and water, because of their
association with dark, subterranean, hidden places, symbolize the depths of the
human personality, especially the unconscious.
In alchemical imagery, the snake that guards the temple entrance may
represent humankind’s animalistic nature, a hindrance to spiritual progress and
enlightenment or conversely a step
towards greater understanding if it can be mastered and comprehended.
This
seems to be the tack taken by Clark Ashton Smith, probably the most
psychologically stable of the “big three” at Weird Tales, though he
also struggled in life. In his poignant
story “The Last Incantation” (1930), the wizard Malygris consults a demon “in
the form of a coral viper with pale green belly and ashen mottlings.” (In “The Death of Malygris”, published in
1934, this same viper aids the magician in wreaking vengeance on a group of
would-be assassins.)
Advanced
in years, Malygris wants to conjure the spirit of his beloved Nylissa, who
perished in his youth. He asks the viper
whether this is wise to do, but the world weary snake is conservative with the
truth. Malygris goes through with his necromantic
plan. Instead of a joyous and ecstatic
reunion with his beloved he instead encounters a painful truth about the nature
of time and memory. “Why did you not
warn me?” he asks the snake. The latter explains
that the lesson is most effective when experienced directly by the student.
Here
the serpent is beyond good and evil, beyond the Garden of Eden, and also beyond
mere carnal appetite. The snake acts as
an agent of wisdom, a vector directing the seeker to knowledge, perhaps “forbidden”
only temporarily to the naïve, but necessary and inescapable.
********************
Snake
imagery in horror and fantasy has been featured in numerous earlier posts. Interested readers may want to investigate
the following:
Lord
Dunsany
Robert
E. Howard
H.P.
Lovecraft
Clark
Ashton Smith
Other
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