The Essex Serpent

“If I wanted to cry, I would. If I wanted to do anything, I would.”

Even from the earliest stages of the book, it is clear that Francis is not like most children. While most children might express emotions in a very clear and raw manner, Francis possesses both an emotional disconnect and a self-awareness that ostracizes him from his peers. The matter-of-fact way he makes this statement, for example, demonstrates an acute awareness of his emotional position: He knows that most people in his position would feel sad, and he knows that he does not. This occurs on the morning of his father’s funeral, with his pockets full of strange but carefully selected items. While other children deal with these emotions by weeping, Francis has curated treasures that are appropriate for the situation. The collection of items becomes a means of expressing emotion and—to Francis—this seems no more or less valid and suitable than any conventional emotional response. Francis is a precocious and sure-minded child, though not arrogant or ill-meaning. Indeed, when his mother tells him that he is allowed to cry, this is not her telling this to Francis so much as it is Cora telling it to herself. Neither mother nor son seem particularly distraught at the loss of Michael, though Francis has a unique way of processing the loss.

“Spencer withdrew a banknote from his pocket, set is silently on the floor, where his friend might mistake it for one he himself had dropped and forgotten.”

The friendship between Spencer and Garrett is revealing. Unlike many of the other relationships in the text, it is purely platonic, though the two men steadily develop a refined appreciation of one another. Spencer is the less brilliant, though more successful and better-adjusted. Garrett may be a genius, but he lacks the faculties required to be accepted in society and struggles to relate himself to others. Perpetually broke, Garrett does not know how to turn his genius into financial success. Spencer leaves behind money, relying on his friend’s absentmindedness to ensure that Garrett thinks that he has simply dropped the note. It is a practiced move, one that Spencer seems to have done before. Based on their recollections, it is likely something he has been doing for years. More importantly, however, it foreshadows Spencer’s development. By the end of the novel, he will have turned his political activism into a reality by buying a series of homes and ensuring that the rents in an impoverished area of East London remain affordable. Spencer will also help to rehabilitate Garrett following his accident, performing the surgeries that Garrett’s hands prevent him from carrying out. This selflessness and devotion to his friend will mark Spencer as one of the most sympathetic characters in the novel.

“Well: I can do what I like now, can’t I?”

Following the death of her husband, the gradual realization by Cora that she is free to do as she pleases is one of the central narrative strands of the novel. Her hobbies, her interests, her relationships, her clothing, and even her switch to a rural environment are all made possible by Cora’s realization that she can “do what I like” (41). However, there are still moments when Cora feels the need to justify her actions. Here, for instance, she makes a defense of her interest in the natural sciences. After a marriage in which Michael wanted her to be more ladylike and “normal,” she is rebuking his control by following her own interests. Cora rebukes society by following her dreams, rebuking her husband at the same time. Because he was so negative and monstrous, any move against Michael is positive and sympathetic. Cora is ambitious, determined, and knows what she wants, but this might not be what society has in mind for her.

“It is a foreign shore, mind: you might require a phrase book.”

The tension between the urban and the rural becomes an important theme in the novel. The two different environments are painted as different worlds, almost alien to one another. Even though it is only a few miles away from the outskirts of London, the small Essex village of Aldwinter is considered foreign. Though there are many sarcastic and ironic overtones of the above quote, there is nevertheless the implication that the countryside is an entirely different world from the city, one that needs a different language in order to explore. As if to further this point, there are many characters who express a distaste for the difference between the two worlds: Martha is uncomfortable in the rural areas, for instance, while Charles deplores the lack of available luxuries when he visits Colchester and Aldwinter. However, Cora loves the rural areas for their link to an ancient, unknown world. This idea of the small towns being home to an “other” place adds a sense of mystery and intrigue, even if the distant land is within walking distance of the Thames river. Though the urban and rural areas are alien to one another, Cora—an urban person—is fascinated by the strange and unknown nature of the countryside, which forms part of her attraction to Aldwinter.

“I’ve never known her happier, though sometimes she remembers she ought not to be, and puts on her black dress, and sits in the window looking like an artist’s idea of grief.”

Cora’s recent turn to widowhood is suiting her well. She has struggled to come to terms with not liking her husband and only stayed with him because of Francis and his strange ways. Now, following Michael’s death, she is allowed to be free. However, the quote demonstrates the societal expectation placed on women in Cora’s predicament. Widows are expected to grieve for their husbands and to have this grief dominate their lives. Queen Victoria, who lent her name to this epoch in British history, famously wore black every day in the decades following her husband’s death. Thus, happiness is not necessarily permitted, certainly not so recently after the husband’s death. Cora occasionally is reminded of this and succumbs to a kind of performative grief. She wants to demonstrate her sadness to the outside world, so visibly weeps and wears black. Even though this grief is sincere only in fleeting moments, it is important that it is seen as sincere. This teaches the audience more about the society than it does about Cora. It also tells the audience about Martha, who knows Cora well enough to discern the truth. Though Cora is technically her employer, Martha is extremely close to Cora and her view of the woman transcends societal expectations. Martha can see Cora as she truly is, which becomes a reflection of Martha’s own character and a demonstration of the closeness of their relationship.

“‘We both speak of illuminating the world, but we have different sources of light, you and I.’

Will, unaccountably elated, feeling he ought to be piqued at this odd woman’s grey gaze challenging him at his own table, instead smiled, and went on smiling, and said: ‘Then we shall see who first blows out the other’s candle,’ and raised his cup in a toast.”

The meeting between Cora and Will becomes the center of attention. Though there are other guests present at the dinner table, this interaction between the widow and the priest becomes a philosophical battleground. Here, Will and Cora set up the ideological paradigm that will define their relationship and kindle their mutual lust. Will against Cora becomes a battle of reason versus faith. Just as in the dinner party, the narrative will gradually push other characters into the background as this paradigm becomes all-consuming. The existence of the Essex Serpent becomes just one of the ways that this battle is fought; there is also the mirage the pair see on the horizon, which prompts Will to research obscure natural phenomena and write to Cora in the hope of dissuading her of the idea that it was in any way supernatural. Though the pair might seem diametrically opposed with their “different sources of light” (97), this mutual intellectual exercise will stoke romantic feelings. Will finds himself intellectually challenged and stirred by Cora’s belief, while Cora finds in Will a person with whom she can finally talk about all of the matters that have interested her, matters that she could not discuss with Michael, Martha, or Francis. The conversation over the dinner table establishes the framework and the dynamic for the novel’s most important relationship.

“Outcast London! The phrase appealed to her ready pity.”

Throughout the novel, there are many allusions to ideology and politics. At one point, for example, Martha attends a speech by Eleanor Marx Aveling. Though Martha is a sincere conduit for these social issues, and she makes a strident effort to combat them, other characters enjoy a more fleeting relationship with political issues. In the above quote, for example, socialism is introduced by a vicar’s pamphlet and is passed around a social occasion as a kind of entertainment. The village of Aldwinter is so far removed from the political issues discussed in the pamphlet that there is no way that the characters can relate this introduction of political ideology to their lives. Stella, for example, is one of the most emotionally intelligent characters in the text, ready to offer her pity and her sympathy to anyone. However, she lacks an understanding of the social issues that concern characters like Martha. Therefore, tales of “Outcast London” (124) become little more than idle small talk. This is a representation of the tension between urban and rural concerns: An overbearing issue in the former becomes little more than a throwaway comment in the latter.

“If I let him love me, and pretend I might return it, and it makes him do something good—is it really so bad? Is a broken heart too high a price to pay for a better city?”

While Martha might be one of the most politically engaged characters in the text, she lacks the societal collateral to affect change. As a working-class woman, she is unrepresented among the political classes in a time when women’s suffrage was still a distant dream. This will be touched upon later in the book, when Charles smiles wryly at someone’s suggestion that Martha herself might become involved in politics in an elected position. It is simply not a career path open to a working-class woman. Therefore, Martha needs to enact praxis in a different way. She is well-aware of Spencer’s romantic interest in her, and she parlays this romantic interest into political engagement. For all of her strength and independence, she needs to use a man like Spencer as a conduit for any kind of change or reform. It is only through Spencer (and through Spencer’s interest in her) that Martha can hope to achieve her political aims. She slowly begins to inform him of the troubles of social housing in London and experiences success in doing do, but this comes at a cost. Martha feels guilt about using Spencer in such a manner. Though she should loathe Spencer from an ideological perspective, she does see some good in him.

“They wore each other like hand-me-down coats.”

Though Martha has experienced guilt over the way she has treated Spencer’s romantic interest, she finds herself caught in an even stranger situation. Throughout the novel, she has treated Garrett with little more than an irritated indifference. She is wary of his interest in Cora; it is a love that she shares. However, Cora is well-aware that neither of them will ever be able to fully realize this love and, as Garrett spends more time in the company of Will, he has begun to realize that his intentions are equally as doomed. Thus, they become allies in a war that neither of them can win. When they find themselves alone together after a party, they find solace in one another’s failure. When they have sex, they wear each other “like hand-me-down coats” (188). The coats are a metaphor, representing the way their lust for one another has been passed down via Cora. Their romance is secondhand, a discard from the person with whom both of them are truly fixated. The bond between Garrett and Martha is not one that will occupy either for much longer than a night. Like the secondhand coats, it is a utilitarian, scruffy love, one that performs a function before it’s discarded. Just as the characters might not have a lasting emotional connection to a secondhand coat (but will nevertheless be kept warm in the moment), neither will have a lasting emotional connection to one another but will find a brief romantic solace for a single evening.

“And how else to account for the longing I have for you?”

After the party at Cora’s house, the dynamic of the relationship between Will and Cora changes forever. The truth becomes apparent: There is something more to their bond than simply friendship. Even though the moment seems relatively benign—two people standing next to one another, about to dance—it is so charged with sexual energy that even Francis can discern a change in the atmosphere that falls over the room. After this moment, the party quickly breaks up and the effects are immediately felt. Cora writes to Will after a sleepless night and announces that she is going back to London. Will spends the night angrily stalking along the country lanes. Neither of them seem able to reconcile the importance of the moment they shared. To do so, however, Will begins to write letters to Cora. These letters are strange, rambling amalgamations of his feelings and his duties. In the same letter, he provides updates on the health of his incredibly sick wife and declares his “longing” (201) for Cora. These two items seem impossible to reconcile, especially for a vicar in a small village. Indeed, Will provides no plan of action other than a declaration of his love. This is because there is no action that he can envisage or imagine. He is in an impossible position, caught between two women that he loves in seemingly equal measure.

“Martha looked at Spencer, and saw that he was appalled, and despised him for it: perhaps he imagined they ought to be decently miserable in their lot, and not snatch pleasure wherever they saw it.”

Over the course of the novel, Martha has been trying to inform Spencer of the plight of the working-class communities in the East End of London. During this time, he has seemed open to the issue and has even set political machinations in motion through his friendship with Charles. Despite his actions, Spencer will never truly be an ally of the working class. In the above quote, Martha realizes that this is the truth. Together with Garrett and Charles, Martha and Spencer are taking a tour of one of the city’s more impoverished neighborhoods. Though these are the communities that Spencer says he wants to save, he cannot help but be “appalled” (221). On a fundamental level, Spencer simply does not understand the plight of these communities and will never be able to empathize with them; they remain a distant blemish, though one that he sincerely wishes to address. In this moment, Martha realizes that Spencer can regurgitate the literature and ideological material that she has given to him, but still misunderstands the issue on a basic level. She knows that she will never be able to truly love him because she knows this to be true and resents herself for parlaying his romantic interest into political action. The more divorced Spencer is from the political reality, the more Martha will despise him, as it demonstrates that he is not truly an ally, only trying to impress her.

“All the years of what ought to have been her youth she’d been in someone’s possession, and now, with hardly a few months’ freedom to her name, someone wanted to put their mark on her again.”

If the novel has been the journey of Cora coming to terms with her newfound freedom in the wake of her husband’s death, she finds herself in a seemingly impossible position and one that she had never expected to encounter. By this stage in the novel, Cora has two suitors clamoring for her love: Will and Garrett. In truth, however, she is enjoying the independence and the lack of male commitment that she never enjoyed when she was young. She may well spend time with Garrett in a platonic setting, or she may spend hours conversing with Will, but she does so without the expectation of romantic involvement. She has never had the freedom to exist as an independent entity and has only been able to enjoy this for a few months before her relationships with both men have become overcomplicated and almost impossible. Both men want “to put their mark on her” (227), which may possibly return Cora to the situation that she had previously been confined. She may love both Garrett and Will in different ways, but her experience with marriage has taught her to value independence over everything else. As the inexperienced Cora is beginning to find, however, this is not always possible.

“Of them all, only Stella is happy. It is the spes phthisica, which confers on the tubercular patient a light heart, a hopeful spirit.”

Throughout the novel, each of the characters has found a very particular way to be unhappy. Whether it is the utter despair of Garrett, who has lost his purpose in life and the functionality of his hand, or Cora, who finds herself forever bound by male attention that limits her freedom, there are very few characters who are happy or even content. Stella may be the only one. Stella is dying, but this has not impinged on her ability to experience joy or contentment. This is because she knows who she is and what she wants; she has come to terms with her reality while others cannot. Even though her husband flits about, unsure of himself and unable to tend to his flock, his dying wife collects blue objects with a purpose that would be envied by every other character, even Francis. However, there is a tragedy to the way this happiness is portrayed. In the above quote, for example, it is made clear that this happiness is experienced in relation to a potentially-terminal medical condition. The happiness is a symptom of the consumption, rather than true happiness; it is a delusion as much as anything else.

“Don’t we do all right together, you and I?”

Though most of the text is concerned with Cora and her romantic predicament with two men lusting after her attention, there is a subplot that mirrors this. Martha’s predicament is purposefully like Cora’s situation, in that people keep proposing to her when all she wants is companionship. At this stage in the novel, she has been aware of Spencer’s infatuation for a while and, after spending more time with Burton, she receives a marriage proposal via letter. Martha is aware that she is using these men to further her political goals and feels guilty about doing so. Burton’s proposal forces her to act, to come to terms with what she really wants from her love life. The tragic aspect is that Burton’s only justification for marriage is that the pair of them “do all right together” (244). As true as this may be, it is hardly a resounding declaration of love. It is a desperate plea, a hope that Burton can offer Martha what she wants while also functioning as an acknowledgement that he has very little to offer. Like every declaration of love via letter, it is offered in couched terms. It is presented with a lack of self-confidence, all too aware of its flaws and impossibility. That Martha eventually accepts the offer is also a demonstration of the pervasive nature of class struggles; Spencer, as a member of the middle classes, could never truly form a bond with someone as class-conscious as Martha. When she replies to Burton, she seems to accept this, asking whether he would be happier with a companion or a comrade, rather than just a wife. She frames the proposal in class terms, something that Spencer would never understand.

“We’re not in the Dark Ages—not children kept in line with tales of ghouls and demons—the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light!”

Though Will is a man of faith, a representative of the spiritual institution that is the Church of England, he finds himself compelled to stand for logic and reason. Unlike the rest of his congregation, he refuses to believe in the existence of the Serpent. This is one of the key tensions in the novel; the battle between faith and reason, though they have taken on unexpected dimensions. Here, faith is a defender of normalcy and a disbeliever in the spectacular Serpent. Reason, however—both Cora’s natural sciences and the supposed evidence the villagers put forward—seems to point toward the existence of a strange and mystical creature. Will finds himself caught in the difficult hinterland between the two, worried that there may be a malevolent force out in the Blackwater that he does not understand. This worry only ratifies his determination to say the monster does not exist, however, and he compels his congregation to understand that they are no longer in the “Dark Ages” (249), a time when people might have believed in such monsters (and, ironically enough, a time when the church was central to every local community in England).

“‘Cora,’ he said, aloud, appalled at his own voice, which had the inflexion of a man blaspheming.”

At the time when Will’s faith is called into question and he starts to wonder what he might actually see on the beach, it is not Stella—his sickly wife—who crosses his mind. Rather, it is the woman he has fallen in love with. Will recognizes that this is an issue, and he is appalled at his own voice, experiencing the deep shame of calling out the wrong name in a time of emotional extremes. This is the level of self-loathing that the village priest has reached, wherein he knows what he feels is wrong but cannot bring himself to feel any other way. His feelings are almost blasphemous, going against everything he is meant to represent. The battle over the existence of the Essex Serpent has become marginalized and unimportant. Far more important to Will is the battle raging in his mind as he tries to determine the course of the rest of his life: He contemplates whether he should remain with his dying wife or run to the woman with whom he has become obsessed. The former becomes more difficult by the day, and the latter is an act of blasphemy that would contravene Will’s entire self-identity.

“Nothing now moved.”

The reveal of the huge creature is a moment of clarity for the villagers. The creature they have feared for all this time is revealed to be a harmless dead fish, starved from the inside by a huge tapeworm. There is no pervading malevolent force and no winged dragon that is taking away their children. There is just this stinking, rotting carcass that will be taken by the tide and disappear forever. Nothing moves now as the villagers (and Will) must realign their internal compasses and figure out how to move forward. The Serpent has come to play such an important and domineering role in their lives that the reveal has left them all feeling foolish and confused. Will cannot even enjoy the moment of vindication, as he knows inside that he was tempted by the idea of the Serpent, just as Cora has tempted him. His moment of validation is compromised by the fact that he himself began to doubt. There is no victory in a validation of Will’s world view if he himself has begun to challenge that world view on a regular basis. Already, his victory seems hollow and unfulfilling.

“Dying, one rather assumes, though aren’t we all in our fashion?”

The way Katherine treats the slow, painful death of Stella in this letter is somewhat flippant. Though she is little more than a side character, most defined by her role as Charles’ wife, this provides a small insight into Katherine’s character that was not previously available. As has been evidenced thus far in the book, Stella is a person whom Katherine would consider a close friend. To use Stella’s seemingly terminal condition to make a flippant, offhand point about the nature of mortality seems distasteful. Furthermore, it is used in the wider context of admonishing Cora for not keeping up her contact with Will. After the display in Aldwinter, where it became apparent that Will and Cora had feelings for one another, the flippant way that Katherine treats Stella’s illness while imploring Cora to reach out to Stella’s husband seems strange. Perhaps Katherine does not treat death or social institutions (such as marriage) with much reverence.

“Last week I took myself off to the Natural History Museum and stood counting the bones of the fossils there, and tried to summon up the wonder it once gave me, and there was nothing.”

After facing the numerous complications in her life, Cora has begun to lose interest in those hobbies that propelled her through the death of her husband. Cora’s interest in the natural world was a way of giving her life order while she dealt with the death of her husband and the sudden freedom this brought. It allowed her to process her feelings and make sense of the world; she appreciated the careful cataloguing and indexing of the unknown and seemed to apply these natural categorizations to her new feelings. With everything that is happening with Garrett and Will, she no longer gets that same sense of satisfaction. Not even the natural world can impose an order or apply a classification to her complicated life. Thus, she loses interest in such matters. As a result, Cora loses interest in the existence of the Essex Serpent.

“I think she has the Essex Serpent muddled up with Bible stories, and doesn’t really believe it has gone.”

The conflation of the Essex Serpent and the nature of the Christian faith has been playing on Will’s mind ever since he met Cora. As a persistent disbeliever in the existence of the Serpent, he has called on his congregation and his friends to dismiss the creature and the worries it brings. Cora, always keen to question Will’s assumptions, needles away at his faith. If he is willing to believe in God and miracles, she asks him, could the existence of such a Serpent really be that absurd? The above quote demonstrates the extent to which the two worlds have become joined together by this stage in the novel. Stella, her condition growing worse, believes the Serpent and the stories of Christianity to be the same. For Will, this is another blow. Both his dying wife and the woman who has become his obsession are interrogating his faith in the same manner. It should be no surprise that he loves them both, as Cora and Stella are alike in many ways.

“All the intimacy she’d sought by letter was unbearable out there under the black forest canopy; she wanted to be back in their safe territory of ink and paper and not here, where her color rose and she thought she could smell, above the sweetness of a distant fire, the scent of his body under his shirt.”

Though Cora has come a long way since the initial hours after the death of her husband, there are still situations in which she remains inexperienced and unprepared. In the above quote, she has reconciled with Will, and the two have walked out into the forest where they are alone. Physical intimacy seems inevitable, and both parties are aware of this. At a moment when her love is beginning to manifest itself in physical form, Cora is hesitant. She has not been with a man since her husband died, her lack of familiarity with sexual situations is becoming apparent. She is nervous, and the self-assured, determined Cora from earlier in the novel vanishes. She suddenly wishes she was writing letters. The act of writing a letter is controlled; if a mistake is made, the process can begin again; a letter can be proofread and edited; a letter does not even have to be sent. In this moment, she does not have that layer of abstraction. Cora has her feelings and the man she loves right in front of her. Though this seems to be everything she wants, it is suddenly very real. Cora gives herself over to the moment and all the regrets that it may entail.

“If he could, he’d have walked clean out of his own skin.”

Garrett is one of the most tragic figures in the novel. As well as losing out on the woman he loves, the sudden, random attack in Bethnal Green means that he is left with an injured hand. The injuries are so extreme that it is likely that he will never be able to perform surgery ever again. Throughout the text, Garrett’s obsession with surgery has been made clear. He has been collecting medical paraphernalia his entire life, he devises experimental new surgeries, and he can even lull himself into a hypnotic trance by repeating medical textbooks from memory. Without medicine, he cannot see what purpose he has in life. Without Cora, he cannot see any hope for a romantic future. Even Spencer has betrayed him, deliberately contravening Garrett’s order not to use anesthetic. As a result, Garrett slips into a deep and dark depression. On one walk around the countryside, he is so filled with self-loathing—as evidenced in the above quote—that he attempts suicide. However, this is not yet Garrett’s nadir. If he was depressed before he unties his belt, he is even more distraught when he finds himself unable to follow through on the act. Even in suicide, Garrett regards himself as a failure.

“To think we had two Essex Serpents, and neither of them fit to harm a fly.”

By this point in the novel, the question of the Essex Serpent’s existence has been completely answered. The first Serpent was a fish washed up on the shore of the Blackwater that sent a horrid smell across the village as it died. The second was Banks’ boat, lost long ago and doomed to an existence of floating over the estuary and tricking people into thinking they had seen a monster. After the boat is found by Joanna and Naomi and revealed to Will, he allows himself to see the humorous side of the issue. Earlier in the text, the existence of the Serpent was a far more important issue. It was a matter of faith, one that threatened his position as the village’s spiritual leader, and one that defined his relationship with Cora. With Stella sick and Cora recently returned, Will has relented from the forthright way he tackled the question of the Essex Serpent. Even though he has been proven right and he has had his views and beliefs validated, he tosses aside the nature of the Serpent as a humorous anecdote. There is no great desire to reveal the truth any longer and no question of gloating over what has happened. Instead, Will has learned what is truly valuable in life.