In the article ‘Words to Grow On”, Iron Eyes Cody tells a passionate story, by using symbolism, to tell everyone how bad things can happen to you when you use drugs. The story is about how a dangerous rattlesnake with beautiful markings persuades a young Indian youth to take him down the steep mountain. The snakes says that he will die in the snow because it’s too cold for him to survive on his own. At first the young lad doesn’t believe him and says he has been forewarned about such things and believes the snake will bite him. Then the sly snake’s markings mesmerize him, and force him into taking the snake down the mountain. So the boy does as he is told, and carries the snake down the mountain.
Once they reach the bottom of the mountain, the snake bites the boy and tells him it is the boy’s fault – that he knew he was dangerous from the start. In the story, the youth represents people of all ages. When the boy says he has been forewarned, he is speaking of all the warnings he had been given in the past, like the warnings people are given every day about the dangers of drugs. The snake symbolizes the drugs. Finally, the markings on the snake represent temptation and peer pressure. When the boy was bitten, the symbolic message was taught that bad and dangerous things, such as death or injury, will happen when people give in to temptation and use drugs..
