Symbolic Serpents

The symbolic serpents in the poems of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore provide a basis for understanding how each poet relates to personal power and to the power structures that surround her life. Through an understanding of these two poems, and of how Freud's Oedipus complex and Jung's Electra complex relate to the lives of Dickinson and Moore, the reader is able to appreciate how living in fear of oppressive, masculine power structures can influence the expression of a person's...
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The symbolic serpents in the poems of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore provide a basis for understanding how each poet relates to personal power and to the power structures that surround her life. Through an understanding of these two poems, and of how Freud's Oedipus complex and Jung's Electra complex relate to the lives of Dickinson and Moore, the reader is able to appreciate how living in fear of oppressive, masculine power structures can influence the expression of a person's unconscious desires and fears. Dickinson encounters power as something to be feared; Moore embraces power as something to be sought in life. The snake in the grass and the mighty dragon are two sides of a single coin, with incapacitating fear on one side and wondrous possibilities on the other side. A serpent may be a snake, or it may be a dragon. Just as Dickinson and Moore each respond differently to the serpent, each person is free to choose whether to be powerless with fear or to be empowered by wisdom and courage.