59 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff ZentnerThe Serpent King
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-13
Chapter 7 Summary: “Dill”
Dill and Lydia arrive at school early, where they bump into Tyson Reed and his girlfriend, Madison. Tyson is a bully who picks on them; he calls Dill “Dildo” and Lydia, “Chlamydia,” to which Lydia retorts, “You’ll die an idiot” (58). Travis approaches, and Tyson is intimidated by both Travis’s size and his reputation.
Everybody in school is angry because Lydia gave an interview to The New York Times in which she called Forrestville a “fashion wasteland.” Lydia’s supposition, that most of the students will still be in the same small town in 10 years, hurts Dill because he believes he will be one of those people. As they go into class, Dill smells the cleaning chemicals and remembers helping to clean his father’s church when he was 12, and how his father’s approval meant “that he’s pleased his father and God” (64).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Travis”
Travis works in the lumberyard, lost in thought about his fantasy hero, Raynar Northbrook, with whom he identifies. He exchanges messages with Amelia, who sends him a picture of herself. He attempts to flirt and sends back one of the photos Lydia took, with Travis displaying his staff. His father’s employee, Lamar, tells the story of Dill’s grandfather, “the Serpent King.”
The elder Dillard Early worked as an auto mechanic. He had a daughter who died after snakebite. Dillard went crazy—“he quits bathing and shaving and cutting his hair and he stinks like something dead” (70)—and started collecting and wearing snakeskins, which is how he earned his nickname. One day, he killed himself, drinking rat poison by his daughter’s grave: “One snake did all this to one family” (71).
Chapter 9 Summary: “Dill”
Dill and Lydia do their homework at a Christian-themed café called Good News Coffee. Lydia asks Dill about the snake verses from the Bible, which Dillard Sr. has tattooed on his knuckles; Dill hates it, but he humors her by repeating them. Lydia surprises him by telling him she wants him to apply for college because she knows he’s miserable in Forrestville. Dill again feels hurt, as if he is Lydia’s craft project, and they get into an argument.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Lydia”
Lydia remembers first seeing Dillard in ninth grade English class. Dill was a quiet boy with a notorious father, and teachers rarely asked him questions. One day, when they were studying Lord of the Flies, Dill made a thoughtful, mature observation; later, in the cafeteria, Lydia sat next to him and started a conversation. He told her he wrote songs, and she invited him to her house for a movie night.
Travis joins them at the café. Dahlia messages Lydia that a budding actress and fashion designer, Chloe Savignon, would like to room with them in New York, which thrills Lydia. She begins drafting her college admission essay, juxtaposing the rural community of her hometown with her aspirations, playing up the stereotypes. Dahlia agrees to ask her mom to write a recommendation for Lydia.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Dill”
On Friday, after his shift at the grocery store, Dill heads to Lydia’s for dinner and movie night. Along the way, he bumps into a former member of his father’s congregation, Sister McKinnon, whom he has not seen in three years, since his father went to jail. The woman greets him kindly and asks about his father. She tells him that her family now travels 100 miles to Flat Rock, Alabama, to go to a “signs church.”
Her husband, Brother McKinnon, reacts to Dill badly, calling him a traitor; because Dill testified against his father, the McKinnon family now has to spend a lot of money just traveling to church. Dill leaves the fray with his head held low, and even though he enjoys the dinner and the lightness of Lydia’s family, he keeps thinking, “This will be gone by this time next year” (97).
Chapter 12 Summary: “Travis”
Lydia, Dill, and Travis watch a documentary about cave paintings in France. Travis says he would like to leave something for which people would remember him. Lydia likes the idea, and Travis suggests they write something at The Column, which is a support for a local bridge. They go to buy permanent markers at Walmart, where their schoolmates make fun of them, and then to a gravel road near Steerkiller River.
The smell reminds Travis of a day in church when he was 14 and he first met Dill, who looked “friendless and forsaken” (102). Travis understood the look because, a year before, his brother Matt had died in Afghanistan, so he approached Dill.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Dill”
The three friends reach the railroad bridge support column, which is in the middle of the river. Climbing up and down ladders, they take turns writing on the metallic surface. They also discuss how they want to die. Travis has written a passage from Bloodfall because the books make him “feel brave.” Dill writes a list of things he likes, and Lydia adds several quotes by Dolly Parton. As they lay on their backs, Dill thinks, “This might be the best your life ever is” (112).
Chapters 7-13 Analysis
In Chapter 7, the author introduces one of the important themes in the novel: school and peer bullying. The flat, one-dimensional characters of Tyson Reed and Madison Lucas illustrate the pressures the three protagonists face on a daily basis. Additionally, through Dill, Lydia, and Travis’s reactions to bulling and teasing, the author reveals how their different family experiences have equipped each to cope. Lydia’s family stability has produced a young woman of firm character, who is secure in her identity and not easily hurt by people who do not matter; she is able to recognize that taunting comes from a primitive place of jealousy. Travis, although sensitive, has the advantage of height and strength, and a formidable reputation after his attack on Alex Jimenez. Dill feels the most exposed and insecure because his identity is in crisis. The bullying, especially when connected to his father, is something he finds hard to endure or forget, even though he does not wish to fight.
When Lydia comes to his aid, Dill shows resentment because he feels unable to defend himself. He interprets Lydia’s condescension as being directed toward himself as well; he imagines he will never leave town and will eventually become like Tyson or Madison. His complex feelings toward Lydia are comprised of unexpressed love for her, the frustration this causes, and a sense that Lydia treats him like a pet project without seeing his full personality. Dill would like Lydia to register how he feels without his having to show or verbalize his emotions, since he is still not mature enough to gather express himself openly to her.
Dill’s unresolved feelings toward his father contribute to his struggles with self-expression. In a scene when he remembers helping his father clean the church, Dill sees how “his father looks at him and smiles and tells him that God is happy with him” (63). Dill understands that his need to please his father still lives on inside of him despite everything that has happened. Dill will have to balance out the good against the bad in relation to his father, and only this will allow him to learn who he really is: not a shadow or a copy of his ancestors, but an independent personality with free will.
In Chapter 7, the author utilizes Travis’s perspective to introduce the tragic story of Dill’s grandfather. In the story of the first Dillard Early, Dill’s grandfather loses his mind due to unbearable sorrow: He becomes the Serpent King because of his hatred of snakes, since one caused the death of his beloved daughter. The symbolic wearing of snakeskins represented his atonement, the redemption his insane mind sought through constant reminder of his grief. His son, Dillard Sr., became the Serpent King in a wholly different way: by becoming Pastor of a church that treats snake handling as a sign of God’s grace, using his charm and charisma for immoral purposes and carrying another form of madness.
The concept of the “Serpent King” is central to understanding Dill’s character and the novel in its entirety. The baggage of Dill’s family reputation represents everything he must conquer in order to become his fully realized self. Dill is justifiably terrified that he will inherit the madness in some form; for this reason, he must learn how to recognize which parts of himself are his own personality, and which are beliefs or superstitions instilled by his parents from childhood. His character’s journey is to understand the he will not become the next Serpent King.
With support from Lydia, whose help Dill both requires and resents (in Chapter 9, he sees her initiative in getting him to consider college as both helpful and meddlesome, which stems from his insecurities), Dill’s awareness of his family’s reputation pushes him toward self-discovery. In Chapter 11, when he meets the McKinnon family, he is both welcomed (by the wife) and denounced as traitor (by the husband), which compounds his confusion over what he should have done as a child when asked to testify against his father. Dill is too young to face all these hardships, yet getting through them is his character’s primary conflict.
In Chapters 12 and 13, Travis’s idea to leave some permanent mark acquires symbolic weight: Not just Dill, but all three protagonists, feel the encroachment of adulthood and struggle to find the meaning of life, each in their own way. The different messages they leave on The Column reflect their characters and the way each approaches life: Travis through fantasy, Lydia through practical advice, and Dill through endlessly contemplating his likes and dislikes in an attempt to create order out of the chaos in his young mind.
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By Jeff Zentner
