Snakes

The author uses the incessant reappearance of the Burmese pythons in Palm Beach throughout the novel, to create a motif; the more snakes that show up in the elite community, the more symbolically charged their presence becomes. Not long after Angie encounters "one of the largest pythons she'd ever seen" on the Lipid House grounds, the first lady's motorcade spots the same dead creature in the middle of the road (20). While the other characters attempt to explain away the snake's confounding appearance on the island, and Keith insists the reason for the snake is because they are in Florida, Mockingbird suggests: "Maybe it's more. Maybe it's an omen" (74). This moment from chapter six is placed early on in the novel, and infuses a sense of tension, possibility, and foreshadowing into the pages of the narrative to come. So when the characters, and the reader along with...