C.G. Jung: On Snakes and Instinct

From Symbols of Transformation

This is what happens to the hero Chiwantopel, who personifies Miss Miller’s otherworldliness: he falls foul of the green snake.

Green is the colour of the vegetation numen (“ green is life’s golden tree”), and the snake is the representative of the world of instinct, especially of those vital processes which are psychologically the least accessible of all.

Snake dreams always indicate a discrepancy between the attitude of the conscious mind and instinct, the snake being a personification of the threatening aspect of that conflict.

The appearance of the green viper therefore means: “Look out! Danger ahead!” .

We know from the rest of the story that Chiwantopelis is eliminated very thoroughly indeed: first he is fatally bitten by the snake, then the snake kills his horse, his animal vitality, and finally he is engulfed in a volcanic eruption.

This solution of the problem represents an attempt on the part of the unconscious to compensate and help the dangerous situation of the conscious mind.

So far this situation has only been hinted at.

But if it requires so drastic an annihilation of the hero, in contradiction to his usual mythological role, we may justifiably conclude that the human personality of the author is threatened in the highest degree by an invasion from the unconscious (euphemistically conceived as a “creative fantasy”).

C.G. Jung

Collected Works V

Symbols of Transformation

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