Summary&Analysis
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| Night Of The Scorpion |
The famous poem "Night Of The Scorpion" was composed by the popular writer Nissim Ezekiel. It was first published in 1965 in his work "The Exact Name". It is a narrative poem. In this poem, the poet narrates an incident in which a scorpion bites a lady. The lady lives in a village. After this incident, the villagers come there to show their sympathy to the lady.
They come with their lamps to search for the scorpion. The villagers are superstitious. So they believe that the poison will spread with the movement of the scorpion. Therefore they search for the scorpion immediately. Some villagers believe that the pain of the lady is the result of her sins done in the previous birth. And some others believe that the pain of the lady will reduce the sufferings of her next birth. Thus everyone had their own opinions about it. But at last, after twenty hours, the woman gets well. She prays thanks to god to save her children from the scorpion.
Analysis
Stanza--1
In this stanza, the poet describes an incident in which a woman was stung by a scorpion. The poet remembers the night on which his mother was stung by a scorpion. The poet says that the incident is still fresh in his memory. He says that it was a rainy season when a scorpion stung his mother because there was no suitable place for him to hide. So he sat under a rice bag. Unconsciously when his mother lifted the rice bag, at that time the scorpion stung her.
According to the poet, the scorpion did not want to bite her but he did it in fear. After it, the poison moved quickly in the body of her mother. After hearing the incident villagers came there with lanterns in their hand to help the lady. According to the villagers, the poison will spread in her body with the movement of the scorpion.
Stanza--2
Here the poet describes the pain of his mother after biting of the scorpion. The poison spreads rapidly in the body of her mother. The villagers are superstitious. They believe that the pain of lady is the punishment of her sins done in the previous birth. Some other villagers say that it may reduce the pain of her next birth in advance. Some villagers have an opinion that the poison will purify her blood from worldly desires. Thus many villagers came to help her but none could reduce her pain. They came to show their sympathy for the lady. It was all useless for the pain of the lady. She was still crying in pain.
Stanza--3
The poet describes the incident further by saying that the lady is still crying with pain. The poet says that the villagers had applied their home remedies and other methods to cure her mother. But all were useless. Now his father was trying to cure her mother. His father was not a superstitious person. He tries to cure his mother by some medicines. For it, he applies different types of powder and mixture on her toe.
He also uses many types of herbs to reduce her pain. He also uses paraffin on her toe to reduce her pain but all efforts prove ineffective. All treatment given by his father proves useless. At last, after twenty hours of pain, she gets well. She shows her love to her children and says thanks to God because the scorpion did not sting her children in place of her. She was thankful for it.
Thus the poem shows the superstitious belief of villagers. It creates a sensuous word picture around the readers. The poet narrates the whole incident in an impressive way. It is a highly imaginative poem. The language of the poem is very simple. The poem is written in narrative style. The poem passes a satire on the superstitious villagers. At last, we can say that the poem is the masterpiece of the poet.
