This painting incorporates imagery from a range of sources. The serpent was a symbol in Mesoamerican and Native American art, and in the work of Mexican muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, all of which Pollock was studying. The painting's round format, may relate to the theories of the psychotherapist Carl Jung, passed to the artist by therapists who treated his alcoholism. Circle resembles a mandala, which in Jungian terms, is a universe symbol for psyche and can be a means to access the unconscious