Preview

A Summary of Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2467 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Summary of Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel
Summary of poem “night of the scorpion”

The poet 's mother was stung by a scorpion on that night when it was pouring very heavily, thousands of villagers on hearing the news came in 'like swarms of flies ' trying to do their bit in saving the mother. They came with lanterns, candles and crowded round her chanting the name of God 'a thousand times ', they first tried to search for the scorpion for they felt as much as the scorpion moved the poison of the mother would spread but there was no trace of the scorpion, they wanted the scorpion to sit still,the scorpion had stung her mother on the toeand the villagers hoped that this sting would purify the mother of her earlier sins and purify the mother of her desires and ambitions. though they were sad of her pain yet the thought that it was doing good to her body adn soul gave them peace.Although the poet 's father was sceptic he did all that was told to him by others in order to relieve his wife of the pain, this shows that human beings when they are helpless they do anything told to them to relieve others of their pain.The father even poured paraffin on the toe and lit a match to stop the poison from entering and the poet helplessly watched the flame. After twenty hours the poison was brought down, and all that the mother said was 'thank god the scorpion stung me not my children ' suggesting the sacrifice that a mother would do for the sake of her children.

In the poem The Night of the Scorpion the poet depicts the selfless love of a mother who is stung by a scorpion. She suffers a lot because of the pain but still she is happy that the scorpion did not bite her children. The poet goes back to the night when his mother is bitten by a scorpion. By hearing this incident the villagers came into the poet’s house like swarms of flies to console the family. They prayed to God countless times to immobilize the evil creature. The villagers with lights and lanterns started to search for the scorpion but in vain. They



Bibliography: Novels The Golden Gate (1986)[14] A Suitable Boy (1993) An Equal Music (1999)[15] A Suitable Girl (2013) Poetry Mappings (1980) The Humble Administrator 's Garden (1985) All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990) Beastly Tales (1991) Three Chinese Poets (1992) The Frog and the Nightingale (1994) Children 's book Beastly Tales (1991) Libretto Arion and the Dolphin (1994) for the English National Opera

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The author has a not so serious tone while writing this passage, he uses a lot of sarcasm when describing or referring to scorpions. I believe this passage was only to entertain…

    • 138 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The second part of the poem ‘Nightfall’ continues the story of the child forty years from ‘Barn owl’, where she had lost her innocence by shooting an owl and this had resulted in a heavy hearted guilt which was caused by her unknowing and stubborn actions. The poem represents death closing in on the father, and the limitations of time on their relationship that was never experienced before in her younger years. The father, who in the first poem is depicted as an “old no-sayer”, is now held in high esteem, he is admired and respected as an “old king”. The extended metaphor “Since there is no more to taste ripeness is plainly all. Father we pick our last fruits of the temporal.” Appeals to our senses and is now an aural metaphor, it illustrates the father’s life becoming fulfilled or ripe, it has come near to its end and the father and child will now spend or pick the last moments of the father’s life together. Over time her appreciation of her father has changed, this is shown through “Who can be what you were?” and “Old King, your marvellous journey’s done.” She has realised the valuable life her father has led and the great loss that will be felt after he is gone. The child, now a grown woman learns another lesson about death, it can be quiet and peaceful, and “Your night and day…

    • 1245 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem “Father and Child” by Gwen Harwood shows Harwood’s father teaching her the concepts of life and death, from when she is a young child in “Barn Owl” up to when she is around forty at the time of his death in “Nightfall”, coming to accept the idea that life is not never-ending. In part one called “Barn Owl”; she has learnt to accept death as a component of life. The persona of the poem experiences a loss of innocence with the discovery of the tragedy of death. Before shooting the owl, the child believes they are the “master of life and death,” with the noun, “master,” reflecting the power that the child feels and the ignorance that the child has about the nature of death. This description of the child is later contrasted in the fourth stanza, “I watched, afraid by the fallen gun, a lonely child who believed death clean and final, not this obscene bundle of stuff.” The emotive term, “afraid,” represents the change in the persona’s attitude after being exposed to the harsh reality that is mortality. However, the rhyme and last line “what sorrows in the end, no words, no tears can mend” releases an element of inexpressible sadness that she has towards the death of her father showing that although she accepts death, it still upsets her as it did in “Barn Owl”. Father and Child” Nightfall” is more metaphorical and symbolic suggesting a more mature persona like an adult. The poem represents a human’s journey over time of learning to mature and accept death.…

    • 610 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. When Lord Acton, an 1800s English historian, spoke these words he was warning others that if one person is given too much power, there will likely be consequences. He also stated when someone is given absolute power, there is not a doubt that person will become corrupted. In the same fashion, characters in The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, abuse power or are affected by the abuse of power. In the beginning of the book, Matt, a young boy, leaves the confinement of his home for the first time only to realize he is a clone, which causes him to be isolated and treated like a wild beast by Rosa, a maid of the Alacran Estate. After six months, El Patron takes Matt under his wing and provides…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A man thinking about one specific event in his life and the regret he has always felt about that night, is the poem Apology to My Father. Back when the male, whos point of view the poems from, was a teenage boy, his father had just come back from war deathly wounded. They are sitting by the fireplace listening to a storm, almost falling asleep, the father tells the son to go to bed and as hes leaving the room, the son goes to kiss his father on the forehead, but hesitates. This hurts his father and the son leans down, but only giving a half-hearted kiss. In the morning his father is dead and that is the regret that will follow the son for the rest of his life. On the Birth of a Son however, is about a father fearing fatherhood and if the child will get along with him, be nice and whether he will be good at fatherhood or a failure, but then he sees his son and…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flannery O’Connor short story entitled “Revelation” was swayed by her personal upbringing in the South. She lived in the time where people from the South were very intolerant and narrow-minded towards people who had a different lifestyle and who were of a different race. Because Southerners believed people who did not live up to their wealth or status were inferior, it offered O’Connor the exact descriptions she wanted for the characters in this story.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The passage evokes feelings of sympathy by providing details about the man's feelings and thoughts. A scene in which the passage evokes feeling is when the man is out for a walk and he unexpectedly comes upon the snake in middle of the path. The speaker's first instinct "was to let him [the snake] go on his way," and he would go his. This scene serves to vindicate the man from the notion that he went looking for a snake to kill as a hunter would. The passage goes on describe the indecision of the man about whether he should let the snake go or kill it. The man finally decides that "there were children, ...men and women lightly shod at the ranch ...[and his duty] was to kill the snake." Description of the man's indecision coaxes the reader to look upon the man with more sympathy because he had made the decision only because he felt it was his duty; if it weren't for his sense of duty, he might have let the snake go. The passage also arouses sympathy for the man by describing his regrets after he kills the snake. The man buries "him near the close guardianship of the bush. Then for a moment [he] could see him as [he] might have let him go." The man's regret arouses pity in the reader's heart since his genuine regret questions his decision by demanding whether a precious life or one's duty is more important.…

    • 823 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While reading The House of the Scorpion the reader sees that this book’s moral dilemma is being hated because he is different. The House of the Scorpion is about a boy clone named Matteo Alacran. In the book Matt faces numerous issues in his life do to the fact that he’s a clone.…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Children 's Books --Rootabaga Stories (1922) --Rootabaga Pigeons (1923) --Potato Face (1930) --Early Moon (1930) --Prairie-Town Boy (1955) --Wind Song (1960)…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The House of the Scorpion

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The term extraordinary can apply to many things. The definition of extraordinary is an object that is “very unusual and deserving attention”. The House of the Scorpion deserves to be called extraordinary because it spins a masterful literary web that will not set you free until you finish the last page with a satisfied sigh. Because of the moralistic issues she cunningly weaves into the book, the excellent literary language, and her cautionary take on the future, Farmer will never disappoint her readers as she spins her dispute between right and wrong.…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Night” focuses on how evil is born when darkness rises. In the first stanza the speaker reveals that the day is ending and night is beginning. The moon and the sun are personified when the speaker says “the sun descending in the west” and “sits and smiles on the night.” Throughout the beginning of the poem the speaker’s tone is comforting. For example, he mentions “warm, sleep, and bed”; then towards the end of the poem the tone changes drastically. William Blake is famous for mentioning a guardian angel in his poems, and he does so in the second stanza.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Time to Kill Outline

    • 50814 Words
    • 204 Pages

    ©2000-2007 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The following sections of this BookRags Premium Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources. ©1998-2002; ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design® and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license. The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". © 1994-2005, by Walton Beacham. The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". © 1994-2005, by Walton Beacham. All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copywritten by BookRags, Inc. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher.…

    • 50814 Words
    • 204 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This book is about a kid named Jamal Hicks, and his best friend named Tito Cruz. Jamal have a brother that is in jail, because he stabbed another person, so Jamal’s mama need to get the money to get him out of jail. Jamal has a bad time at school, because he doesn’t do his homework, and he is always getting in trouble, and he is always on Mr. Davidson office {the principal of the school}. He also has a young sister named Sassy.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem “Nighttime Fires” the speaker of the poem is remembering the speaker father’s wild obsession with burning houses at night and how the speaker had to go with the father to these burning houses with the family. The father is a casualty of the rough economy and this anger toward his bad luck is the reason he loves seeing these macabre scenes. The speaker in “Nighttime Fires” vividly illustrates the lasting impression that the fires and his father’s fascination with them, had on his childhood and the relationship with the father.…

    • 1242 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first 39 books of the larger work called the Bible, is called the Old Testament. The Bible itself is arguably the best selling and most read book of all time, yet it’s well known to be quite challenging to read through and understand. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, notably the most difficult portion of the Bible for most to study and follow, yields 39 books from multiple authors, and spans over 4000 years of crucial world and church history. If that were not enough to take on, the Old Testament comes our way through multiple styles of authorship and formats, including but not limited to, books of history, law, proverbs, ethics, philosophy, treatises, dramas, songs, epics, biographies, and letters. There have been many books written and published to survey, explain, and/or bring to light the Old Testament, but none more helpful to me than the review subject of this paper, the work of Dr. Elmer L. Towns, entitled “A Journey Through the Old Testament”.…

    • 2696 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays