The Serpent King

“He felt burdened as he stepped into the bright summer morning, shielding his eyes against the sun. The humidity mounted an assault even at nine-twenty in the morning—like a hot, wet towel wrapped around his face. He glanced at the peeling white Calvary Baptist Church up the street from his house. He squinted to read the sign out of habit. NO JESUS, NO PEACE. KNOW JESUS, KNOW PEACE. What if you know Jesus but have no peace? Does that mean the sign is wrong, or does that mean you don’t know Jesus quite as well as you think? Dill hadn’t been raised to consider either a particularly good outcome.”

Dill feels conflict around his family background, especially when it comes to religion and crime. The blinding sun and the oppressive air in this quote emphasize this burden, as he cannot enjoy the beauty of summer. The closeness of the church embodies his fears; to Dill’s congregation, his father, despite his imprisonment, still represents a man of God. 

“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.