This is in some ways a very depressing, hopeless play, and in other important ways, it is the exact opposite. In the selfless, unconditional love of the mother, a symbolic reference is found that transforms the play from mere story-telling into something new and altogether more powerful. Just as in the Biblical creation myth, woman is pitted against snake for the sake of her son, this mother is also pitted in that sacred battle, and we see that although she sometimes feels like a failure, she is a hero.
Her heroism stems from her unconditional love for her family which makes her willing to lay her life down for her beloved children. This makes the story seem epic, because the symbolism of the problem and its solution are so similar to the ancient myths of world mythology that within the story, the reader finds a deep well of psychological meaning that extends past the stage and into the daily realities of life. In other words, the theme of the play is religious, because it is a mythic response to the problems of human death (symbolized by the snake's venom) with unconditional love (symbolized by the fighting mother).
Beyond that religious interpretation, other interpretations are available as well. For instance, the dilemma of the mother considering whether it would be better to take her family and relocate, even without a specific hope for the future, instead of staying where she knows the rain has not fallen in a long time. The question of whether rain will come to save the property from wildfire and famine raises important thematic questions. It is also a masterful examination of paranoia, because the mother must constantly recalculate her opinions and decisions based on new information, and she is wildly attuned to new information because the snake has come too close to her home for her to rest. In a word, the play is an expose of the hope for preservation under extreme duress.
