Questions and Answers: “The Night of the Scorpion” by Nissim Ezekiel

Target Audience: Polytechnic Teachers and Students in Tamilnadu
Subject: English-1, II YEAR MOP, M SCHEME
Objective: Students should be able to interpret and explain a poem in English. 
Question Pattern in Exam: IV. Answer any THREE questions in a paragraph  each in 100 words : (3 x 5=15)
Four questions from 4 poems will be given in the exam and students should answer three questions in 100 words.
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1. How was the mother bitten by the scorpion?

The poet and his family lived in a village.  It was night time.  There was continuous rain for 10 hours.  Due to rain, a scorpion entered the poet’s house.  It stung the poet’s mother and crawled under a sack of rice.  The poison was spreading through the body of the mother.  The scorpion may have foreseen that the villagers will search for it and kill it.  So, it risked the rain again and escaped from the house.  Who bit the mother?  Is it the scorpion or the evil deed of the mother in the past?  It is mysterious.

2.  How did the villagers come to the aid of the woman?

The farmers in the village came to know that the mother was bitten by a scorpion.  They rushed to her house like “swarms of flies.”  They had candles and lanterns in their hand.  They threw giant sized scorpion shadows on the wall.  They searched for the scorpion but they could not find it.  They were uneducated and they had their own village gods.  They uttered the name of the God to paralyze the Evil One that had entered the mother’s body.  The poet indirectly makes a contrast between the selfishness of the city people and the villagers’ concern for others.

3. How did the peasants view the stinging in a positive manner?

The peasants of the village believe in Karma theory.  They believe that the sins committed in the previous birth will be purified if only the concerned person suffers in this birth.  They say that the mother’s suffering by the scorpion burns away her sins in the previous birth.  They also say that the mother’s suffering decreases the misfortunes in her next birth.  According to them, the mother’s flesh and spirit are purified from desire because of this suffering.  The writer does not say whether their belief at this critical moment is right or wrong.  He just presents it to be decided over by the readers.

4. What type of man was the father?  How did he treat his wife?

The father was a sceptic .  He was a rationalist.  So he did not compromise with the beliefs of the villagers.  He applied different kinds of medicinal herbs and a certain curative powder.  He also melted paraffin and poured it on the bitten toe and set fire to it.  The father tested every scientific way to find the recovery.  After twenty hours, the mother was saved.  Again the writer keeps a neutral position.  He doesn’t say whether the father’s treatment cured the mother or the belief and rites of the villagers.

5. How did the mother respond after the recovery?

The mother found recovery after 20 hours of treatment.  We don’t know whether the father’s treatment cured the mother or the belief and rites of the villagers.  But the poet implies that it is the mother’s love for her children that saved her.  She thanks God because the scorpion has bitten her, not her children.  The mother is a typical Indian mother who always cares for her children.  Her whole world is her children.  It is this response of the mother that gives a heart-touching end, a solution to human problems, the true love.

Click below to watch the video of Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel