The snake spirit
In literature, snakes are often responsible for pushing humans into the next stage of their evolution (usually by confronting their sense of shame). This is certainly the case in the story of Adam and Eve, but it also shows up in various forms all around the earth. In this novel, the snake spirit comes to provide spiritual and sexual enlightenment to a frustrated housewife, just like the Hindu snake spirit in the kundalini yoga and tantric yoga.
The politician husband
The husband in this novel is a classic case of a man obsessed with success, to the detriment of his family. There is a rift between the husband and his wife, but instead of finding intimacy, the husband keeps his wife at bay with unspoken rejection, leaving the wife alone and frustrated. The husband's career choice is no surprise: he's a politician, which might explain why everything seems fine on the surface of his home life.
The symbolic astral projections
In the Yoga Sutra, there is a verse that says that when a person's spinal "snake spirit" reaches their sixth chakra, the Third Eye, that the person can project their spirit out of their body to explore the universe. That happens to the wife in this story when the spirit takes her on adventures in other dimensions to parts of the universe she could never have imagined. This serves as a metaphor for her supernatural experience of female sexuality, since she didn't experience orgasm until she found it with the snake.
The motif of entering holes
The snake enters the house through a hole in the wall. Female sexuality is functionally similar to this, and also, the spiritual process of the wife's development involves her passing through a portal to travel the universe with her snake friend. The motif of "entering a forbidden place" makes the wife realize the shame and fear that rule her daily life. This is not unlike the snake convincing Eve to eat the forbidden fruit to make her "realize her nakedness."
The allegory of unhealthy marriage
By the end of the novel, the wife has broaden her focus, but at the beginning, she is primarily concerned by her unhappy marriage. She isn't unhappy because her husband is failing in life—after all, he's a successful politician. She isn't unhappy because her husband is evil—he seems as good or bad as the rest of us. No, she is unhappy because the marriage is leaving her unfulfilled emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. Therefore, the novel could be seen as an allegory for the downfall of a marriage, as the wife (typically oppressed) realizes her true potential. By giving herself what she wanted from her husband, the marriage might be on the rocks, since there isn't much preventing the husband from getting what he wants: isolation.
