The Mark/Snail Symbol Analysis

The mysterious mark on the wall, which turns out to be a snail, shows that familiar spaces can become mysterious again, and symbolizes the uncertainty of rational knowledge. Throughout the story, the mark grounds the narrator by bringing her back from her unpleasant thoughts. The mark thereby stands for a desire to stay anchored in reality and seek protection from the dangers of drifting too far into abstract thoughts—which aligns with the narrator’s skepticism about knowledge and “learned men”, whom she associates with superstition, and her preference for “the impersonal world which is a proof of some existence other than ours.” The mark belongs to that impersonal world.

Additionally, the symbolic nature of the snail resonates with the tone of the narrator’s reflections. Snails move at a slow pace, counter to the current of modernity—this image stands in stark contrast to the narrator’s descriptions of modern civilization, such as being “blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour” and “tumbling head over heels…like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office!” Additionally, the snail symbolizes both the narrator’s failures as a housekeeper, which ties into her resentment towards that feminine role. It also demonstrates humanity’s inability to completely bar nature from their homes, which suggests that the borders drawn between nature and civilization are less impermeable than one might think. This in turn suggests the hubris of human endeavors to achieve dominion over nature, indicating that the final outcome of the great acts of civilization—city-building, new technologies, and even war—will be the inevitable return to the nature from which humans come.

Furthermore, though the narrator and her husband have vastly different reactions to the intruder, it catches both of their attention. This underlines the paradoxical ways that the objects and spaces can impact people—in essence, it reveals how different people can see the same thing in entirely different ways.