Pap’s self-destructiveness is exemplified in this scene: he hurts himself, but, rather than tend to his injury, he, rather hypocritically, only exacerbates it by lashing out and, in lashing out, hurting himself even more This resembles how he refuses the new judge’s help in being reformed and, falling back into drunkenness, literally hurts himself after falling out of his window. As for Pap’s hallucinations, the first may draw on Pap’s religious beliefs. In the Bible, the snake is a figure for the Devil and sin, which Pap is haunted by. Pap’s hallucination of the dead touching him foreshadows his own death by drowning chapters later.