The Serpent King

“Dill’s father was tall and gaunt, rawboned. He had deep-set dark eyes; a handlebar mustache; and long, greasy black hair streaked with gray and tied in a ponytail. Every time Dill saw him, he appeared harder. More cunning. More feral and serpentine. Prison was whittling him down, carving away what little softness and gentleness he had. He was almost exactly 10 years older than Dill’s mother, but he looked 20 years older.”

Dill’s father is a dark figure, a man of wiliness and perversion, and his physical description in this quote underscores these characteristics. Zentner depicts him as a character from a horror novel or urban fantasy comic book. The epithet “serpentine” is a clear allusion to the snake handling that lies at the root of the man’s religion and the symbol of the serpent that is present through the novel; prison brings out his fearsome qualities. His aging appearance does not inspire the idea of wisdom but of rottenness of character. 

“There was silence as his father returned his attention to the game. Travis stood for a second, watching him, the TV reflected in his father’s eyes. He hoped that if he waited for a second or two more, his father would offer some words of encouragement or wisdom for the start of school; that he would say something that let Travis know he believed in him. Like Matt used to do.”

Travis’s father is in some ways similar to Dill’s, primarily because both boys learn they cannot expect any affection or gentleness from their fathers. This quote emphasizes Travis’s teenage desire to have his father’s approval or reassurance, yet his father’s eyes only reflect the images from the TV set, indicating he is empty on the inside. The author juxtaposes the father’s appearance and lack of action with a brief mention of Travis’s dead brother, Matt, who used to offer support to his younger brother. 

“‘And Lydia’s not from church,’ his mom said.

‘Yeah, but I told you that she’s Episcopalian or Presbyterian or something. She’s Christian.’

Dill’s mom snorted. ‘Love to see an Episcopalian take up the serpent or speak in tongues. Signs follow the faithful.’

‘I can’t choose my friends according to who’s willing to pick up a copperhead.’

‘Sure you can. It’s that you won’t.’”

The conversation between Dill and his mother reveals her fundamentalist attitude towards religion and what constitutes belief. Dill’s mother dismisses Lydia as unworthy because her family does not handle snakes or speak in tongues, which are significant aspects of Pentecostalism, and she sees her son’s choice of friends as an essential rejection of the ways of their religion. 

“‘It sucks when your friends have a look that’s off-brand and you can’t talk about them or show them on the blog. It’s so awkward to explain. What? Are you going to say ‘Hey, sorry, but your style sucks so I can’t tell people I hang out with you?’ But that’s the reality,’ a 13-year-old from Johannesburg said with a world-weary air, the others nodding sagely.

Lydia had just sat and listened. Oh, I could tell you a thing or two about having friends who are off-brand.”

This quote depicts one way in which some young people see the world: People are acceptable or not, based on whether they represent an approved set of values or an aesthetic. The Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube generations of influencers depicted here have developed their identities according to strict rules of exclusivity, usually formed around personal “style,” especially of clothing or behavior. Those who do not fit with their narrow parameters are “off brand” and therefore unacceptable as a feature on their blogs or posts.

“I ain’t never seen anything like the way grief rotted that man from the inside out. Chewed him up. That’s when folks started calling him the Serpent King. They wasn’t trying to be ugly or funny. They was just trying to make some sense of it, I guess. Folks do that when they scared. Look out, they’d say. Here come the Serpent King. Folks is afraid of grief. Think it’s catching, like a disease.”

These words from an ordinary lumberyard worker, Lamar, offer a glimpse into an eternal truth: People fear overwhelming sorrow because they are afraid it might visit them. When the first Dillard loses his mind from grief over his daughter’s death, he stops belonging to the society and becomes unacceptable because he cannot contain his grief. The author uses a metaphor of snakeskins to emphasize how Dillard’s grief is embodied in his appearance, and the appellation of the Serpent King becomes both a way of distancing from the crazy, grief-stricken man and of honoring his pain and his sadness.  

“‘You’re turning me into a project,’ he said, his voice lowered. ‘It’s not enough to dress me anymore. Now you need to chart out my life for me.’

‘Are you kidding me? You think I see you as a project?’

‘That’s how you’re making me feel. Like a craft project. Like a photo series for your blog. Except not for your blog because obviously I’d never actually be on your blog.’”

Dill reacts to Lydia’s attempts to change his outlook defensively, primarily because he feels she does not accept him the way he is, which stems from his own feelings of inadequacy and unacceptability. He projects his own insecurities onto her and sees everything she does as threatening because he does want to change, but hasn’t found the courage yet. Additionally, he refuses to admit that he is in love with her, both to himself and to her, creating another layer of defensiveness. He feels hurt that Lydia does not register his affection without Dill having to tell her.

“‘So are you and your mom attending services somewhere now?’

‘We both work a lot, but we go to services at the Original Church of God when we can.’

Sister McKinnon nodded politely. ‘Oh, okay. Do they practice the signs gospel there?’

‘No, not really. Just healing and speaking tongues.’

She nodded politely again. ‘Oh, well, God’s word is God’s word, wherever you hear it.’”

Dill’s encounter with members of his father’s former congregation depicts how narrow the understanding of religious observance can be. Although Sister McKinnon is obviously disappointed that Dill and his mother do not attend a church that uses snake handling and poison drinking as a show of faith, she attempts to accept the change by broadening her idea of where one can hear God’s word. Her example is one of the rare instances in the novel where a member of the Pentecostal church offers understanding to Dill and shows a more expansive vision of God’s gospel.  

“Dill thought for a second. He looked out at the river, at its eddies and swirls, the patterns forming on its surface and disappearing. He listened to the ordered chaos of its sounds. The moon ascended, Venus beside it. On the horizon below, a radio tower rose into the indigo sky, its red lights blinking lazily. A warm evening wind carried a breath of honeysuckle and linden from the banks. A train whistled in the distance; it would soon rumble over them with a sound like waking up to a thunderstorm. He was a tuning fork, made to resonate at the frequency of this place, at this time.”

The author employs a distinctive descriptive style in this passage, utilizing a number of unusual epithets (ordered chaos, indigo sky, lights blinking lazily) to create imagery not previously used in the novel. He creates a special tone and an atmosphere of contemplation and meditation for Dill as the boy struggles to understand significant concepts including love, the passing of time, and the temporary nature of things. The moon symbolizes distance, the radio tower civilized society, and the passing of the train the fleeting nature of moments in life. Using a metaphor of a tuning fork, the author underlines Dill’s absorption of all these images, sounds and feelings, which create his understanding of life and find their way into his music.

“Her dad picked up the remote control and muted the TV. ‘Hang on. You’d never have made friends with Dill and Travis if we didn’t live here. Let me ask you this: do you like who you are?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you really think living here hasn’t had a big hand in who you’ve turned out to be? Do you think you’d have had the same drive to create Dollywould if we’d laid the world out for you at your doorstep?’

‘Are you seriously saying that living in this shitty town was part of some grand strategy to make me a go-getter?’”

Lydia, like many young people living in small towns, does not yet appreciate that growing up in such an environment has many benefits. Her father, portrayed as a caring, compassionate, and understanding character, assumes a somewhat strict tone in making her realize that she has been shaped by where she has grown up. She has found friendships she probably never would have in a big city, and her ambition to leave the small town is a big part of her drive to succeed in life. In this way, he justifies to his daughter (and himself) his own decision to return to his hometown after college. 

“So, when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it’s gone.”

In describing the movement of the train, Dill uses metaphor to express his view of the interconnectedness of things, within every person’s existence and throughout the world at large. Individuals are just a small part of the whole, and just as the smallest part of the car helps move the train, so every person supports the movement of the world. Dill displays wisdom beyond his years as he recognizes the various cycles that comprise these movements, from the life cycle to the planets orbiting their suns. Observing trains brings Dill into trance state that allows him to feel like a part of something bigger and more significant. 

“‘It’d be like’—Dill racked his brain for some Bible analogy that would encompass the idea of short-term loss in favor of long-term gain—‘how we sacrifice the opportunity to do certain sinful things, so that we can live in heaven with Jesus.’

‘Sin is not an opportunity. Following Jesus isn’t a sacrifice. He did all the sacrificing.’

‘I was trying to come up with something to compare it to.’

‘Come up with something else.’”

This quote shows Dill’s attempt to talk to his mom using examples she may relate to, all in the effort to make himself understood. The fact that Dill does this instinctively shows that he is maturing, because this is the best approach to a conversation in which people hold discordant beliefs. His mother, however, uses her beliefs and Dill’s examples to negate his attempts at real communication. In this way, the author signals that Dill cannot count on his mother’s support in his decision to go to college because she cannot see past her own perspective in an attempt to understand her son. 

“‘I want more.’

‘That’s greed and pride talking.’

‘I’m tired of this town. Do you know what it’s like? To have his name? To wear that millstone around your neck? The stares and whispers? The weight of this blood?’

Her eyes blazed. She stabbed the last pieces of her cake with her fork. ‘Do I know what it’s like? Of course I do. You think people don’t whisper about me?’”

Dill’s attempt to make his mother understand his feelings fails because she focuses on her own experience and her idea of religious belief, which she uses as a weapon. For the first time, Dill verbalizes his feelings for his father and his fears he will become like Dill Sr. Instead of comforting him or showing empathy, his mother selfishly counters his confession with her own troubles. Even though he is not yet aware of it, Dill is becoming more mature, making choices that stem not from fear but from respect for his feelings, which is something his mother is unable to do. This new power foreshadows his choice to leave town and go to college. 

“Whatever else he had inherited from his father, he had inherited a dark charisma. The sort that makes people want to follow and confess. The sort that makes people feel saved. The sort that makes people want to pick up venomous snakes and drink poison to be nearer to their God. He sang like a river of fire flowed in him, like music was the only beautiful thing he owned. His songs made her heart ache.”

Lydia notes a connection between his father’s charisma and Dill’s brooding personality, understanding that Dill is unconscious of his power over people while his father abuses his own power. Dill’s talent captivates precisely because he is unaware of its influence on others. Lydia also begins to realize that she is in love with Dill. The author uses repetition (“The sort that”) to emphasize the crescendo of her feelings, along with unusual comparisons (“he sang like a river of fire”) to underscore the effect Dill’s music has on Lydia. 

“Her eyes seared, ferocious and condemning. ‘I think we’re all sinners. We wouldn’t need Jesus if we weren’t. But the serpents never lied. If your father hadn’t been pure of spirit, he wouldn’t be in jail now—he’d be dead. The serpents would’ve taken him. Or the poison. But you never passed that test. You never took up the serpent. So you ask me, between you and your father, who I think Lucifer ensnared? God has given me that answer. I don’t need to guess.’”

Dill’s mother chooses to believe in his father’s innocence, and she finds justification for this belief in her religion. She is brainwashed into accepting the “truth” of signs like snake handling and poison drinking as a mark of God’s favor. Even without Dill Sr.’s direct influence, she refuses to acknowledge the feelings and experiences of her son, continuing instead to cling to her religion. Such radical religious movements can have enormous sway over people; it is difficult to remove oneself from such beliefs.

“‘You will visit your father. You will give him comfort for what you’ve done. You owe him and you owe me. You’ve got your own debts.’

‘This has destroyed my life. Even having to deny that it was mine destroyed my life. It made me look guilty. I’ve lived with this. Nobody will let me forget it.’

His mother glared at him. Grim, unblinking. ‘You keep forgetting that this life is nothing. The next is the only one that matters. I wish you’d remember that.’ And she left.”

Dill’s mom would rather hold Dill responsible both for testifying against his father and for the child porn that the police found in his father’s possession. Dill’s mother insists that by speaking the truth, Dill incurred a debt to his family that he must now pay by being subservient and by living according to his parents’ wishes. She fails to understand that, precisely through what he has done, he has shown himself a true possessor of moral values. In this way, she unwittingly helps Dill both to reject the church and his upbringing and to permit himself to strive for a better life.  

“His father exhaled slowly, as though waiting for a wave of rage to subside. He spoke in measured tones. ‘Do you not see God’s hand in guiding me here to minister among the imprisoned?’

‘No. I don’t see that. I see a man who’s let my mother think I got her husband locked up. I see a man who tried to save himself by destroying his own son’s reputation. I see a man who seems to be doing fine in here while Mom and I work our asses off to repay your debts.’”

For the first time, Dill openly rebels against his father, an act that is necessary to free him from his family and their negative influence. Dill again shows his maturity by opposing his charismatic and authoritarian father openly because he understands that truth is on his side. He exposes his father’s self-justification for what it is, not because this will change his father’s behavior but because it will help release his father’s hold on him. 

“Some fall in glorious ways. On green fields of battle as old warriors, surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty. Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone, for no good reason at all.”

The author utilizes a coda (an additional passage that brings a chapter or a book to an end) in the chapter that finishes Travis’s story; it’s a motif reminiscent of the heroic fantasy novels that Travis liked to read. This coda deliberately departs from the novel’s style, signaling an event of tremendous importance: A young life full of goodness and promise is abruptly and senselessly over. 

“‘When I think about it, sometimes I drive myself into a complete panic. Wondering if he’s falling through space right now. Falling and falling and falling and it never ends. This empty black void, but he’s aware. Of it. Of himself. He still has all of his memories.’

‘As long as he has his imagination.’

‘Yeah. I also wonder if heaven is maybe whatever you most wanted it to be.’”

Dill and Lydia try to make sense of Travis’s death by speaking about the fear and sorrow that encapsulate them. They envision death as an “empty black void” through which Travis will forever be falling. When a young person dies, their death often disturbs what people consider the “natural order” of things, highlighting the randomness of life. Dill and Lydia try to come to terms with their loss and their new fear of mortality by hoping that heaven is “what you most want it to be.” By combining an atheist’s idea of death (nothingness) with an almost religious, adolescent hope (heaven as wish fulfillment), the young protagonists walk a difficult tightrope between faith and realism.

“He put his face in his hands and wept. ‘It’s in my blood. It’s like each of my cells has this poison inside it, and the grief chemical from my brain dissolved whatever kept the poison bound up. So now it’s starting to flow free and poison me. Like it did my grandpa and dad.’

Lydia took Dill’s hand and pulled it to her. ‘I want you to listen to me. They surrendered to their darkness. You don’t have to, and I want you to promise me that you never will.’ 

‘I can’t promise that.’”

Dill fears that he carries the same genes as his father and grandfather, and that he will become like them, regardless of how much he tries to be different. This fear motivates his behavior toward Lydia and his family, because, for the most part, it rules his thoughts, although it is a testament to Dill’s strength of character that he never stops battling his inner demons. Another sign of his growing maturity is that he understands he cannot make a blanket promise to Lydia—that he will not succumb to the temptation of his family history—but he will do everything he can to prevail in the fight.

“One time—Travis must have been about six—we drove to visit my sister in Louisville. And we passed a shoe lying on the highway. Travis goes ‘Mama, won’t that shoe be lonely?’ He got himself so worked up about it, he started to cry. Well, of course Clint and Matt thought that was just the funniest thing they’d ever heard. They laughed and laughed. Not in an ugly way. Clint was nicer then. They just didn’t understand. But that was my Travis. I have so many stories like that living in me.”

The recollection by Travis’s mother, of how Travis was so uniquely different that he would ever fully belong in the family, is one of the most powerful moments in the novel. The terrible fate of losing both sons has finally motivated her to leave her abusive husband. The metaphor of the lonely shoe also shows how Travis was like an unpaired half. As she tells this to Dill, the author implies that Travis’s friends were his other half and that those relationships completed him.  

“I get out of bed every day because I never know where I’ll meet with one of God’s small graces. Maybe I’ll be cleaning a room and find a dollar bill. Maybe I’ll be at the gas station on a slow night, and I’ll get to sit and be paid to watch the sun set. Or maybe I just won’t hurt much that day. What a miracle each day is. To see the spirit of God move across the face of our lives like he did the waters in the darkness of creation.”

Tragically, Dill’s mother cannot support Dill’s dreams because they are altogether unimaginably grand compared to “small graces” that are all she has come to expect from life; she interprets Dill’s ambition as sinful pride. She accepts the lot that she gets, and her religion has cemented the belief that her circumscribed existence is a sequence of miracles just because she can manage to bear the pain of it. She needs to see her life like this because otherwise, it wouldn’t have meaning, and she would be left without a reason to live.

“Everything seemed muted and colorless. Every sound reached his ears as though through a thick wool blanket. He had no music in him. On the few occasions when he would sit to write, he ended up with a blank page in front of him. His fingers couldn’t form chords on his guitar strings. His voice left him. Lydia would show him the mounting likes and views of his videos in an effort to break through, but it never worked.”

Dill’s depression after Travis’s murder and his sense of doom over the harsh realities of his family life leave him temporarily unable to create music. Lydia’s attempts to help pull him out of the cocoon within which he has enclosed himself are unsuccessful because Dill fails to see the connection between his self-worth and the way the people respond to his music. This disjunct implies he is a true artist: His inspiration comes from deep within himself and not as a response to popularity.

“She thought about the things she would miss. She loved the way he cocked his head when he talked to her, to keep his hair out of his eyes; the way he sat, cross-legged, leaning on his hands. He didn’t always look at her when he talked, but when it was important, he looked her right in the eyes, and it made her tingle. And then there were his eyes; incandescent and dark all at the same time. Lightning illuminating a thunderhead.”

Lydia describes the depth of her feelings for Dill through her focus on little physical characteristics that symbolize the whole of Dill’s personality. The powerful metaphor of lightning and thunder gives profound insight into how Lydia experiences Dill’s eyes and the way she feels when he looks at her. His eyes contain both his aliveness and creativity, and his depression and brooding, an encapsulation of Dill’s whole character.