Desert Solitaire

The gopher snakes that Abbey meets are a symbol of the natural world’s inhuman, unfathomable intelligence, as well as the mysterious, unknowable intentions of nonhuman animals. Abbey wonders if the gopher snakes are really there to protect and befriend him. He senses their presence even after they are gone, as he continues to see fewer rattlesnakes and fewer mice in and about his trailer house home. The gopher snakes, which pose him no harm, and which he tries to come close to, represent for him the benevolence with which nature occasionally expresses itself. The fact that they do not let him come very close, but slither away from him, symbolizes the fact that an unbridgeable distance must remain between himself and the mysterious elements of nature with which he yearns to commune.

Moon Eye the horse symbolizes, in a sense, nature gone wrong. This wayward animal is the result of unfortunate circumstances, both natural and human-caused. The birth defect in Moon Eye’s eye was created by nature, but Moon Eye’s agitated and fearful disposition was, we can infer, at least partially caused by the overwork that Roy Scobie subjected the horse to. Here again, Abbey’s inability to come close to the animal symbolizes the essential inaccessibility of the deep natural world that Abbey wants to know far more intimately than any human is truly capable of.