The most prominent motif in the novel is snakes. They or their images appear repeatedly in the book. The snakes have different meanings at differing times. For example, when Ren and his friend catch snakes to have races, they are a simple and natural source of joy to the boys; no one fears them. At one point, Vaylie sends Reesa a postcard with a picture of a viper on it, having learned that rattlesnakes are a kind of viper. This postcard foreshadows the rattlesnake that corners Maybelle, Vaylie’s great-aunt, in the post office. Though the snake is evil to Maybelle, who fears the snake, to Ren the snake is just one of God’s creatures that has lost its way. After he captures the snake, he releases it into the wild.

Unlike the benign snake imagery described above, the water moccasin that Warren and Robert encounter after leaving the Klan’s headquarters stands for the dangerous, deadly poison and hatred of the Klan. When Reesa says that the Klan members can shed their skin but not their nature, she is clearly using the snake, as the Bible does, as a symbol of evil and the fallen nature of man.