Chapter summaries Death in the Mouth: Original Horror by People of Color Sloane Leong and Cassie Hart

Chapter 2: They Will Take Up Serpents — Summary & Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with seven-year-old Charity being dragged to the bathroom by her father, a pastor, who fills the tub and forces her underwater in what he calls a baptism. Her mother bangs on the door and siblings scream. Charity is dunked repeatedly, held under while her father recites Bible verses. When he brings her up, he demands she confess that Jesus is her savior and that she is a sinner. She complies. During one dunk, her head hits the tub, causing a bleeding wound. Charity fantasizes about a gentler, river baptism but receives only violence.

Years later, as an adult, Charity visits her aging father. She brings up the baptism; he denies any violence, claiming he never laid a hand on his children. She then recalls the summer when she was fifteen, when her father took the family to Alabama for a revival. He was a renowned snake handler, keeping three snakes: Shadrach (copperhead), Meshach (pit viper), and Abednego (king cobra). During the service, he wrapped the snakes around Charity’s neck as a demonstration of faith. Abednego bit her, leaving a permanent scar. Her mother drove her to the hospital while her father continued preaching.

Back in the present, Charity confronts her father about the snake bite. He vehemently denies it ever happened, accusing her of lying and blaming her mother for turning her against him. He prays for her soul. At dinner, her sister Prudence silently apologizes. Before leaving, her father condescendingly forgives her. Driving home, Charity weeps, doubting her own memory despite the scar on her collarbone. She passes a billboard of her father holding snakes with the slogan "GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL."

Key Events

  • Charity’s father performs a violent “baptism” when she is seven, repeatedly dunking her in a bathtub and demanding she confess her sins.
  • Charity’s head hits the tub, causing a bleeding wound that later requires stitches.
  • As an adult, Charity visits her father and recalls the baptism; he denies it and claims he never hurt his children.
  • Charity recounts a revival in Alabama when she was fifteen: her father wraps three venomous snakes around her neck as a demonstration of faith.
  • Abednego, the king cobra, bites Charity, leaving a permanent scar on her collarbone.
  • Her mother drives her to the hospital while the father continues preaching.
  • In the present, her father denies the snake bite ever happened and calls her a liar. He vows to pray for her wayward soul.
  • Charity weeps on the drive home, passing a billboard of her father with snakes that reads “GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL.”

Character Development

  • Charity: Grows from a compliant, terrified child into an adult who confronts her father about past trauma. She struggles with self-doubt after his denial, weeping, but her physical scars anchor her memory and give her a quiet resolve (“I press a hand to my clavicle, and I do not flinch”).
  • Daddy (father): Portrayed as a charismatic but abusive pastor who uses religion to justify violence. He is unable or unwilling to acknowledge his actions, rewriting history to maintain his self-image as a loving, divinely guided patriarch. His memory is “rose-colored, set to trumpets and harps.”
  • Momma: Present but largely helpless during the baptism; she later drives Charity to the hospital after the snake bite. She eventually leaves the family, and her absence is a “gaping hole.”
  • Prudence: The younger sister, now caring for their father, silently apologizes to Charity during dinner, suggesting she knows the truth but remains complicit.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

  • Religious trauma: The chapter examines how faith can be weaponized to inflict physical and psychological harm, especially within a family. The father uses scripture to justify near-drowning and snake handling.
  • Memory and denial: The story contrasts Charity’s vivid, scar-marked memory with her father’s revisionist version. The billboard slogan “GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL” underscores his need to believe in his own righteousness and control the narrative.
  • Snakes as symbols: The serpents represent both the father’s power and the danger of blind faith. They also evoke original sin, with Charity made to carry the burden of her father’s actions.
  • Water and baptism: The forced baptism subverts the sacrament of cleansing, turning it into an act of drowning and coercion, foreshadowing later themes of suffocation and control.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter establishes the core trauma that shapes Charity’s identity and her fraught relationship with her father. It introduces the motif of snake handling, which recurs in the novel, and lays the groundwork for Charity’s eventual break from her family and faith. The clash over memory foreshadows larger questions about truth, storytelling, and how the past is negotiated.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Charity’s father deny that he wrapped snakes around her neck and that she was bitten?
He denies it to protect his self-image as a loving, divinely guided patriarch. He accuses Charity of lying and blames her mother for poisoning her mind, refusing to accept any version of events that makes him look abusive. His memory is shaped by his need to remain “in control.”

2. What does the bathroom baptism scene reveal about the father’s character?
The scene shows him as a man who loses himself in religious fervor, using scripture to justify violence. He is more concerned with performing spiritual authority than with his daughter’s safety, and he treats her as a vessel for his own spiritual display. The contrast between the gentle baptism Charity imagined and the violent reality highlights his cruelty.

3. How does Charity’s physical scar function in the chapter?
The scar from Abednego’s bite is tangible proof of the snake-handling incident. It serves as a counterweight to her father’s denial and becomes a source of strength for Charity. When she presses her hand to her clavicle, she does not flinch, indicating that the scar grounds her memory and resists gaslighting. It also connects the past to the present, a “permanent splotch” of truth.

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