Night of Scorpion

Night of the scorpion written by Nissim Ezkiel is an interesting poem and the poet brings about a very appealing contrast between good and evil in it; altogether giving the poem an essence of equality. The poet makes it a trouble-free task for the readers to visualize the scenes with the appropriate use of various imageries. He has also done a marvelous work of adding various different senses into the poem.

All the senses, visual, smell, internal feelings and sound have been included.

In this poem we can see the scenes vividly with the help of lines like,” …to crawl beneath a sack of rice,” and,” Peasants came like swarm of flies. Nissim Ezekiel is able to keep are mind alive and engaged the entire duration of the poem with the help of lines like,” Peasants came like swarm of flies. ”

When we read this line, we know that it is a simile and it help us to see how the peasants came along.

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But when think deeper we realize that it also shows us that the narrator does not admire the kind of care that the villagers are showing, he just wants them to leave him and his family alone. The reason the villagers are compared to flies is to show exactly how exasperating they are and that they are not welcome, just like flies.

The poet has made this poem complex, which is always a good thing. This can be proved because to describe the scorpion he uses words like “diabolical” and “The Evil One” which show it as a demonic creature.

On the other hand he also used lines like,“ driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice” and “… risked the rain again,” which brings about a contradiction as this line shows that the scorpion is not at all the villain, it is simply scared. Among the many figures of speech used in this poem onomatopoeia is one of them.

He has used this figure of speech efficiently, enabling us to hear the constant noises that were made. The poet write that the villagers “buzzed the name of god” which again stresses on the point that the noise and commotion being made by the villagers was not at all welcome. The poet further draws the interest of the reader by using a figure of speech to convey this message and not doing it directly. He has also written “They clicked their tongues,” which is another instance of onomatopoeia. The element of smell is brought about because the poet has introduced candles and burning oil in lanterns in his poem as well.

Nissim Ezekiel has made the mother’s experience of getting bitten by the scorpion sound excruciating and eternal. He has conveyed this by using some very descriptive writing, example, “May the poison purify your flesh of desire, and your spirit of ambition,” Nissim Ezekiel successfully built the tense atmosphere by using just a short sentence,“ My father, sceptic, rationalist, trying every curse and blessing,” There is also an instance in which the poet uses alliteration,“ I watched the flame feeding on my mother.

This line has also been able to build up the complex nature of the poem because of its dual meaning. We can simply say that the ‘flame’ refers to flame of the paraffin or we can also say that ‘flame’ refers to the scorpion’s poison. The poem ends sanguinely, with the mother surviving and being thankful to god for making her suffer and not her children. After all the tense moments of pain, suffering, torture and fear, the poem has a very touching and warm ending which proves the mother’s love for her children.