Stranger in a Strange Land

When Gillian offers Smith water early in the narrative, she has no idea she’s initiating a sacred ritual among Martians, one that will bind them forever as “water brothers.” In the arid Martian environment, water represents life, purification, and transformation. Gillian is metaphorically offering Smith life, which he regards as a promise of friendship, obligation, and mutual responsibility. When Smith offers water to Patricia, Gillian cautions her not to take the ritual lightly. It requires a lifetime commitment. For her part, Gillian lives up to the promise regardless of the innocence of her initial offer. Water is also an important symbol in religious rituals, signifying baptism and the cleansing of the soul. Anyone who agrees to share water with Smith is symbolically cleansed of their old life, entering into a new one free of guilt and unhappiness. Nowhere does Smith feel more at peace than at the bottom of Harshaw’s pool. He is, in a sense, back in the womb, nurtured and protected, free to contemplate the nature of existence.

While Patricia’s boa constrictors and cobras are merely props for her sideshow act, they symbolize religion’s inherent duality, its good and evil. The serpent in the Garden of Eden—the evil one, according to institutionalized religion—is vilified for bringing knowledge to humankind.