Night of the Scorpion Poem Analysis

I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.

Parting with his poison - flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room -
he risked the rain again.

The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.

With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said.

May he sit still, they said
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world

against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh

of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.

My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.

                                                                 Nissim Ezekiel

Ezekiel's poem Night of the Scorpion narrates the incident of a mother being stung by a scorpion in a night of a heavy rain in India. The incident has left an unforgettable impression on the mind of the poet. Probably he was a young boy yet. He begins the poem saying: I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion. The sentence looks like a very ordinary declarative in the language. But as we read the poem we find that it is packed with meaning. The poet remembers every detail of the mother's suffering., the circumstances in which it happened, the reaction of the neighbors; how they came in large numbers but were useless except to sit round and announce superstitions and above all the mother's suffering. The father's off hand treatment added to that suffering.

The mother's motherly love comes out in her words:'' Thank God the scorpion pricked on me and spared my children.''

In the poem Ezekiel also reveals his alienation from the Indian culture. The poet talks of the neighbors' flocking round the victim of the scorpion as'' like swarms of flies.'' When we use this phrase we use it to mean the flies as a nuisance, even a menace. The poet trained in his western individual-centered culture could not understand this Indian reaction. In Indian villages peasants are highly communitarian. They flock to support each other in their woes.

The peasants had their superstitious beliefs. They said the scorpion bit the lady because of the sins of her previous birth. They wished that her  sins would be burned out or her suffering in the next life would be diminished. They also said that the poison would cleanse her of her passions in this world. The holy man's efforts also failed. These are naïve superstitions beliefs certainly.

What is significant about Ezekiel's report is that he reports these events in the indirect speech as'' They said'' this or that. ''His blood moved in mother's blood, they said.'' May the sins of your previous birth be burned away tonight, they said.'' ''May your suffering decrease the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.'' ''May the sum of evil balanced in his unreal world against the sum of good become diminished by your pain, they said.'' This repetition of ''They said'' is the poet's technique to distance himself from these superstitions and attribute them to the local people. He is not part of the scene. He is an alien to the scene.

worksheet link for this poem

https://www.liveworksheets.com/tr3007187yn