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About this quote

What does it mean?
The snake represents evil that stands upright in the Garden, suggesting a bold, visible presence of wrongdoing.
In plain terms
Evil is shown as a snake standing tall in the Garden.
What can you take from it?
Recognize when wrongdoing is openly displayed.

Where it applies

  • reading literature
  • analyzing symbolism

Putting it to work

  • interpret poetic imagery
  • discuss moral themes

Questions to consider

  • What does the snake symbolize for you?
  • How does its posture affect its meaning?

Another view

The metaphor may be too vague for concrete analysis.

More from Robert Frost

  1. Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So da…

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  2. Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid…

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  3. The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight; New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.

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