This is page one from the childrens book The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Here the child's drawing of a snake eating an elephant has to be explained to the adults, who perceive it as a hat. How we perceive things can change just by aging, a completely different outlook from a generation difference. So think how many differences in semiotics can happen just to one creature over the course of thousands of years? And can anything have one fixed meaning with all these changes or will it constantly differ as culture moves on around us?
Inborn phobias, mythology, personal experience all vary our outlook on this magnificent creature.
Ferdinand de Saussure said, "Everything is a sign, language is a system of signs."
To me though it seems that the snake can be a sign, a symbol, for just about everything.
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