The Snake Trying Summary and Detailed Explanation

The Snake Trying is a poem in the Class 9 English textbook Beehive. The poem is written by W.W.E.Ross. In this poem, the poet is telling us about a snake. A snake that is feared by humans and categorized as a symbol of death is actually a victim in the poem. The snake is trying to save himself from a man who is trying to kill him. Through this poem, the poet wants to send a message to the world that every creature is beautiful. We destroy or kill them based on our assumptions. The snake, whom we fear, is actually feared of us. Let us dive into the poem and read the summary.

Summary of the Poem- The Snake Trying

The poem is all about the situation of a snake. In this poem, the difficulty of a snake is described in a very beautiful manner. One fine day, a snake was resting near a water body. A man was also there at that time. Seeing the snake, he immediately got afraid. He ran with a stick towards the snake to kill him, assuming that the snake would harm him. The snake, on the other hand, was afraid and tried to save himself. 

To save himself, the snake made curves in his body and glided through the water. The poet here tried to show the beauty of nature's creation. The snake looks very beautiful and fascinating to the poet when it moves its long and thin body through the water. 

The snake tries to save himself. He tries to hide its green body behind the bushes. Anyone, be it humans or animals will try to save them from possible harm. The snake also tried to do the same. The poet here is sympathetic towards the snake. He tries to stop the man from harming the snake and requests the man to let the snake escape. A poet is a soft-hearted man who is affectionate towards the animals. He here tries to give a message that we, human beings, should be affectionate towards the animals. Not every animal is harmful. 

The man, in turn, does not pay any attention to the poet’s plea and continues to chase the snake. The man here symbolizes an evil person. How much you try to stop the evil person, he is not going to stop. They keep on doing their evil act. But somehow, the snake was able to escape the danger and disappeared. The chase ended with this and the snake was able to save himself. 

About the Author

The poem The Snake Trying has been written by a famous writer William Wrighton Eustace Ross also known in short as W. W. E. Ross. Ross was born on 14 June 1894 in the Peterborough city of Ontario which is located in Canada, to his parents Ralph and Ella Louise Ross (née Wrighton). Ross grew up in Pembroke, Ontario. In support of his studies, he also did summer work on the geological surveys in Northern Ontario and also studied geophysics at the University of Toronto.

He is known as the "First Modern Canadian Poet" because of his significant contribution to Canadian literature, particularly poetry. He was the first Canadian poet to flourish in surrealism and Imagist poetry. Imagism was a 20th-century poetry movement that began in Anglo-American poetry. It prepared the path for Anglo-American literature to embrace Modernism. Imagists emphasized free verse and focused on bringing back ancient traditional styles of poetry. 

A poem, written in free verse, does not have to follow any rhyme, rhythm, or meter. It was delivered in a typical day-to-day manner. Imagism emphasized the use of physical imagery in poetry, as well as purity of speech and simplicity. Surrealism, on the other hand, was concerned with bringing the beauty and enchantment that can be found in even the most ordinary and non-traditional objects to the attention of the public. W.W.E. Ross was the first person in Canada to publish surrealist poems and Imagist poetry.

Ross was a well-known geophysicist other than being a poet. Geophysics is a natural science branch that studies or researches the physical properties of the surroundings of the earth in space. As a result, Ross’s poetry comprises a sense of the land and its inhabitants.

"Laconic," his first collection of poetry, had some of his most well-known poems, including "The Fish," "The Diver," and "The Snake Trying." His writings reflected the influence of imagist poets such as Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings.

Structure of the Poem 

W.W.E. Ross' poem 'The Snake Trying' comprises a total of 16 lines in it. The other thing about the poem is that it does not have a set rhyming scheme. It has been written in the form of free poetry, and the flow has been maintained by the poet's internal rhythm. On the other hand, slant rhymes have been used by the poet in a few situations. For example, "Green" and "children have a rhyming relationship. Furthermore, "ripples" inadequately rhymes with "reeds" in the last two lines. The anapestic and iambic meters are used throughout the poem. It doesn't have a traditional meter scheme because it's a modern poem. Aside from that, the poem's line contractions signify a shift in ideas and pictures.

Conclusion

Through the poem, The Snake Trying, the poet W.W.E.Ross wants to deliver a message that we should be empathetic towards the animals. We should not run behind innocent animals to kill them just because they are in front of our eyes. They may be venomous as the snake, but they don't harm us all the time. Rather, we, humans, try to kill these innocent animals just because we assume that they will harm us. We should respect each and every creature of the world and praise their beauty rather than trying to harm or kill them.