“How Snake Got its Poison”- Questions 1-5 pg. 1002 11/15/11
1. In this situation I would have decided to tell the snake to move to a different bush and I would not have given him the poison because I think he would have still hurt the other varmints.
1. In this situation I would have decided to tell the snake to move to a different bush and I would not have given him the poison because I think he would have still hurt the other varmints.
OR
Not have given the snake the poison because he would kill all the varmints
OR
I would have given the poison to protect the snake so he would not be killed.
OR
I would have given him fangs and the rattle to sound like he was about to bite the other varmints.
2. I think Hurston chose to tell the story in dialect because she wanted to make the story sound more realistic, instead of making it sound boring to use authentic language from someone who may not have gone to school. Maybe she chose to write the way she speaks. She wanted to honor the culture and social group it came from – southern African Americans. Honoring oral story telling tradition by helping the reader “hear” how it was first told.
2. I think Hurston chose to tell the story in dialect because she wanted to make the story sound more realistic, instead of making it sound boring to use authentic language from someone who may not have gone to school. Maybe she chose to write the way she speaks. She wanted to honor the culture and social group it came from – southern African Americans. Honoring oral story telling tradition by helping the reader “hear” how it was first told.
3. The two arguments that the snake makes in the story are: he is helpless against all creatures
and he can’t see who he is biting- he can’t tell friend from enemy. Yes, his arguments are
reasonable. The snake can’t help that this is the way God created him so he has a legitimate
reason for protection and for why he has killed off so many varmints.
OR -No- the snake does not have a legitimate argument, he should be more patient. He should have been more responsible with his poison.
4. God’s final decision is to give the snake a rattle and allow him to keep his poison so he doesn’t
kill everyone. This decision affects both the snake and the varmints positively because the snake
won’t kill off all the varmints if they hear his rattle, so their generations are protected and the snake
is also protected because he still has his poison.
5. The varmints and the snake did not work out their problems together because they are enemies.
They seek help from God as a mediator to help negotiate a solution. This reveals that people also
do the same thing when they have a conflict with an enemy. People seek out someone neutral to
tell their problems to and find a compromise. The “balance of nature” means that everything in the
natural world is harmonious and works together – that no one person or animal should have more
power than the other. Because the snake did not have protection, God gave him poison; but when
this “power” was hurting too many varmints, God balanced it by giving the snake a “rattle” to save
the lives of the varmints.
