38 pages • 1-hour read
A Snake Falls to Earth
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Symbols & Motifs
Disguises
Many characters within A Snake Falls to Earth disguise their true identity. The motif reflects these characters’ adaptation to the world around them while also symbolizing the power imbalance between humans and the animal people. Nina’s grandmother tells her, “When humans became the most dangerous species on Earth, the false forms adapted. Like butterfly spots resemble owl eyes, to mimic a dangerous hunter” (49). The animal people use their disguises from a position of disadvantage, hiding among creatures who wish to kill them.
It isn’t just animal people who wear disguises. Paul, the Nightmare Knight who pretends to be an ordinary person, also wears a disguise. Animal people’s false forms have traits that mark them as not human; the coyote sisters have furry hands and claws, Brightest has wings for ears, and Oli has scaly brows. However, Paul’s “false form,” that of a harmless neighbor, looks exactly like his “true form,” a murderer. When Nina’s grandmother tells her why animal people assume the forms of humans, Nina remarks, “That’s an iffy solution, considering how often we hurt each other” (49). This is what makes humans so dangerous compared to the animal people; their ability to camouflage their true intentions.
Mockingbird’s ability to take on any disguise flawlessly is unique among the animal people. However, where Paul’s disguise is airtight and deadly, Mockingbird uses hers for good (when she is not pranking her friends), saving the Dallas toads and Ami. Mockingbird represents a use of disguises for good end goals, whereas Paul’s disguise symbolizes human deceit and brutality.
Dreams
Nina conceptualizes the Reflecting World as a dreamlike place. For her, the Reflecting World is “governed by dreamlike laws” (160), and when she meets the animal people the encounter is “distinctly dreamlike” (200). The Reflecting World is dreamy to Nina because of her inability to go there or interact with it; the animal people do not think of Earth as dreamy. The Reflecting World is a space that humans cannot enter without the help of animal people, which lends it an air of mystery.
However, the Reflecting World isn’t an idyllic dream to the people living there. When Oli is chased into the tree by the monster, he dreams of a “happy little home” that is “somewhere safe” (41). In the harsh world of Robin-kept Forest, home and safety seem dreamy and out of reach. Nevertheless, it is this dream that summons the path to anywhere-you-please, bringing Oli to the bottomless lake.
The King is also called the Nightmare, a kind of negative dream. The Nightmare kills every spirit that comes to Earth because he wishes to rule it himself as a despot. If the Reflecting world is dreamlike, the King makes Earth a nightmare for animal people. This nightmarish world of Earth has been made that way through the conscious actions of human spirits (and their human followers like Paul). Dreams work as symbols throughout the novel to indicate home and safety or, alternatively, dangerous human-made environments for the animal people.
Waterways
Water is always present in A Snake Falls to Earth. Grandma’s property is built around an endless well and stream, which the bottomless lake in the Reflecting World feeds. The bottomless lake branches out into many streams, rivers, and other lakes, one of which leads to the dammed town and, beyond that, to Oli’s childhood home.
Water is an incredibly important and sometimes scarce resource in the Western part of what is now called the United States and Mexico. Before colonization, the region’s various Indigenous cultures had intricate systems for dispersing water, often grounded in what was most important for the thriving of the community as a whole. In Nina’s present-day Texas, water laws value legal concepts of private property over the communal sharing of water. Any groundwater in Texas (water below the Earth’s surface, like Grandma’s well) is treated as private property of the person who owns the land. This water can be used for any purpose the owner pleases, regardless of the needs of the community (“Texas Water Law.” Texas Water, Texas A&M University, 2014). This is why Nina fears Paul wants Grandma’s land—to sell the water off to “cola-bottling monopolies” (122). Paul’s desire for the land and his legal threats represent a colonialist relationship to water and its ownership. The catfish cultists of the Reflecting World mirror Paul’s behavior, as they police the lake and attack others who threaten their sense of superiority.
Water in the novel symbolizes connection to the land and responsibility for the environment. Nina’s family has watched over their plot of land since Rosita’s time and uses the land as a sanctuary for the critically endangered Dallas toad, which can only thrive there because of the water. Risk and Reign choose a completely harmless Earth bottle that will evaporate to deliver their message to the lake monsters, demonstrating their commitment to caring for their waterways (61).
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