Desert Solitaire: The Serpents of Paradise Summary & Analysis

April is an especially windy month in the desert. Dust storms constantly flare up and make the terrain feel uninhabitable. But after prolonged exposure, one learns to appreciate—and even to love—the harsh wind as part of a greater environmental whole.

Each dawn—his favorite hour—Abbey admires the sunrise while seated on his trailer’s stoop, his bare feet on the bare earth. The jays and ravens, he feels, agree that this is the best time of day. Taking in the birds’ songs and aimless games, Abbey imagines what they might be saying to each other. He reminds himself that on one hand, it’s foolish to personify animals—but the emotion in their chirping is undeniable.

Abbey doesn’t often see the mice in his trailer, but the fact that they might attract rattlesnakes makes him uneasy. He confirms his fear one morning when he finds one such rattler sleeping beneath his stoop. After debating whether to shoot it, Abbey decides that it’s his job, as a ranger, to protect it. Afraid to wake the snake with movement, Abbey sits still, studying its shape, and he describes the dangers this species of snake presents to human beings. As he carefully removes the rattler with a shovel, it awakens and tries to strike. Abbey warns the snake to stay away, under pain of death.

The warning is useless, as Abbey soon discovers more rattlesnakes near his trailer. But at the same time, he also finds a harmless gopher snake nearby. He domesticates it in his trailer and trains it to eat the mice that attract the unwanted rattlers. Soon, the gopher snake is so well-trained that it’s content to spend afternoons wrapped around Abbey’s waist as he makes his ranger rounds, to the delight of tourists. A cold-blooded creature, the snake absorbs Abbey’s body temperature; they are “compatible.”

Though the snake eventually leaves him, Abbey discovers it one last time a month later, engaged in what seems to be a mating dance with another snake. On all fours, Abbey sneaks up on the two “lovers,” imagining the “passion” in their strange “ballet.” They see Abbey and chase him off, and Abbey chides himself for intruding.

As Abbey ruminates on the “sympathy” and “mutual aid” of these snakes, he stops himself in the midst of his human-centric thinking. He reminds himself that the language of human beings cannot be applied to the natural world; human and animal realms are completely different. And yet, the snakes’ emotions are obvious—Abbey thinks that to deny this is the same as a Muslim denying that women have souls. Coyotes, dolphins, and all animals on Earth have a mystic truth to their actions and language. Though inaccessible to Abbey, this language is nonetheless real. He quotes a couplet which praises animals for not complaining or “weep[ing] for their sins.” Though human beings often claim equality only among one another, Abbey concludes that all living things on Earth are kindred.