Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Starting way back in the Garden of Eden when the infamous serpent convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, snakes have kind of gotten a bad rap in literature, and Stolen is no exception. Ty's property is literally crawling with them, and even though he says that there's nothing to worry about, we're not really buying it. Think about it: Ty doesn't actually say a snake isn't dangerous—he tells Gemma that "it's harmless […] Pretty much" (40.64) and to "just wear boots, okay?" (13.15). Dude, that's not very reassuring.
Anyway, it's par for the course in fiction that when a snake shows up, bad things happen. Still, we think there's a chance the symbolism might go deeper than that. Ty tries to get Gemma to believe that the snake poses no real threat … and yet, when it bites her, she almost dies. Similarly, Ty tries to get her to believe that he isn't going to hurt her, and yet he puts her in grave danger. It may be mostly because of literary allusions from the past, but just the presence of a snake indicates that stuff's going to go bad.
To dig just a bit deeper, there's one more thing we'd like to point out. In the Bible, the serpent leads to Eve and Adam getting booted from Paradise. And in Stolen, getting bitten by the snake leads to Gemma finally being freed from Ty's kidnapping compound. Which leaves us with a couple of questions: Is the snake actually bad news? Is Lucy Christopher suggesting that the knowledge Adam and Eve gained at the serpent's urging was totally worth it? Is Christopher implying that life with Ty is somehow similar to Paradise? Over to you, Shmoopers. Have fun.