Question

Read the following poem and write an appreciation of it with the help of the given points in paragraph format.

Night of the Scorpion 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 darkroom –  he risked the rain again The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the name of God a hundred times to paralyze 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 center,  the peace of understanding on each face.  More candles, more lanterns, more neighbors,  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

you can use the following points while appreciating the given poem:

1. Title
2. Poet
3. Theme/Central idea
4. Rhyme scheme
5. Figures of speech
6. Special features (type the poem, imagery, implied meaning if any, etc.)
7. Favorite lines
8. Why I like/don’t like the poem. 

Write an appreciation of the poem ‘Night of the Scorpion’ in a paragraph format.

Answer 1

Appreciation of the poem ‘The Night of the Scorpion.’

The poem ‘The Night of the Scorpion’ by Nissim Ezekiel revolves around the sting of a scorpion that the poet’s mother experienced on a rainy night. The poem follows a narrative style, with an incident recounted in free verse with no fixed rhyme scheme. The poem is enriched with various figures of speech, such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Hyperbole, Inversion, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron, Repetition, Simile, and transferred Epithet. An example of personification from the poem is ‘I watched the flame feeding on my mother’ as the flame is given the human quality of ‘feeding’. The poem is a first-person account of how a son(the poet) watches helplessly as his mother suffers from a scorpion’s sting. The villagers’ blessings and curses, a holy man’s chants and the rational husband’s experiments cannot bring relief to the poet’s mother. It shows how the behaviour of the villages is characterised by their illiteracy and lack of medical facilities, which result in blind beliefs and superstitions. Nissim Ezekiel's ‘Night of the Scorpion’ is a strong yet simple statement on the power of self-effacing love. The ironic twist in the poem comes when, in the end, the mother who suffered in silence opens her mouth and says ‘Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children.’ Yes, I like this poem because it mentions the bond between the mother and son.

Answer 2

         The poem Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel depicts the selflessness and unconditional love of a mother who is stung by a scorpion. It also conveys the villagers’ care, affection, and efforts to ease the mother’s pain. 
        The poem is written in free verse, with no rhyme scheme or metre. There are many figures of speech, e.g., onomatopoeia and buzzed the name of God a hundred times. Here, we feel we can actually hear the buzzing of the prayers of the many peasants. The other figures of speech are Metaphor, Alliteration, Simile, Antithesis, etc.
        The poem’s special feature is its imagery. We get a clear and vivid picture of what is happening in the house. In the end, the poet depicts the selfless and unconditional love of a mother who, even in intense pain, first thinks of her children. The poem is a narrative poem. The use of the first person gives the feeling that it is told from personal experience. My favourite line is: ‘Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children’. I like the line because it shows the mother’s selflessness and unconditional love for her children.
          I like the poem for its imagery and sensitive ending.