Free Reading Response Essay Example

First of all, it is significant to mentioned, what the story is about. The topic of “The Serpents of Paradise” is quite unusual, and cannot be completely explained. At first, one may see a wonderful description of an early spring’s day, than the reader may understand who the narrator is, what is he doing and where is he living. The narration also plays very important role, as at the beginning one may say that it is a simple third person narration, but in the middle of the story, it is possible to say that the narrations looks like a journal, where actions and events are told from day to day.
Nevertheless, in the middle of the story, one may understand that the narrator and the only character in “The Serpents of Paradise” is a forest ranger that lives deep inside a forest, protecting and guarding flora and fauna of the woods. One may see that he has no one near, no friends and no family; however it is impossible to feel that he is lonely. It is safe to say, that nature has replaced his friends and family, as he lives with “a family of mice”, he has been feeding them and did not mind their being in his trailer. Here one can see how the character merged with the nature.
However, later he meets a snake, and not common one, but very useful gopher snake – snake that “has a reputation as the enemy of rattlesnakes, destroying or driving them away whenever encountered”. After some time, he gets used to it, and it becomes his domestic pet. Nevertheless, some time later, the snake gets lost, and only about a month after disappearance of the snake, the serpent comes back with a mate.In the end of the story, one may see supernatural behavior from the snakes, as they stared directly and judiciously into narrator’s face – truly a human’s behavior.
The best part of the story, for me, was the perfect and masterful usage of different literary devices as epithets, zoosemy, simile etc. First of all, one may observe abundance of devices at the very beginning of the story: funnel-shaped twisters, dust-devils, the voice of the desert, smug satisfaction etc. With the help of such amount of literary devices, the story feels alive, one may feel a breath of wind, a smell of forest, a sound of birds the warmth of spring’s summer and tang of April’s wind. Nowadays, it is possible to say that there are very small amount of writers who can such sharply, clearly, and masterfully describe such simple things as nature, animals etc. That is why is it perfectly safe to say that this author should stand out from other writers.
At the very end of the story, a very serious topic is touched on – a topic on animals, their emotions and in general their intellect. I think that the author succeeded in making us think, making us wonder and analyze. Hence, one can come to the conclusion that “The Serpents of Paradise” is a masterful piece of writing and personally I really enjoyed reading this story.