What Does The Snail Symbolize

I’d like you to imagine a snail. Imagine how it looks; how it moves; how it feeds. Chances are the mental image you conjured up wasn’t too flattering. And who could blame you: snails are slimy and gross. Despite this repulsion, I find myself wondering, like the high school english teacher trying to grade the “artsy” kid’s creative writing piece; “What, in the hell, does this ugly thing mean?”. The idea of the snail has captivated my attention in a way that its physical counterpart never could. I find myself asking what the snail could possibly represent in the greater scheme of existence. In effect, what does the snail symbolize? The answer to this question is surprisingly complicated. Over the centuries, various cultures have developed their own
The Christians, particularly, are the harshest, using it as a metaphorical punishment of the wicked. The bible says; “May they [the wicked] be like a slug that melts away as it moves along, like a stillborn child that never sees the sun” (New International Version, 58:8). The Christians equate the snail to a form of divine punishment, an interpretation which reappears in many other cultures. In the story of “Keong Emas”, the Indonesians similarly employ that human to snail transformation, though not in such graphic terms. The popular folktale tells the story of Dewi Sekartaji, a Javanese princess who is sought after by a lustful king. To hide her, the gods transformed her into a golden snail, but inadvertently trapped her in that form until her shell was broken by a kind old lady. The story is supposed to be a lesson in not judging a book by its cover and all that nonsense, but the snail really gets the short end of the stick in this tale. Imagine if generations of children were told the bedtime story of how the beautiful princess was cursed to look like you until an old lady was nice enough to break her spine. Not the most flattering, is