The beetle plays a large part in Marsh’s titular novel, The Beetle. However, there may be more to the beetle than we receive on the surface level. In Egyptian mythology, the Scarbaeus sacer is a species of dung beetle that was worshipped for their dung rolling ability. Their activity was linked with the sun god, Khepri who was said to roll the sun over the horizon in the morning. Therefore, the dung beetle was seen as Khepri’s nocturnal counterpart who rolled during the night. So, with this in mind how does this play into the bigger themes of the novel?