Poetry Ananlysis/Comparative Analysis

Kaye Antonette F. Uba                                                                      Contemporary Literature

BSED-English 3                                                                                 Prof. Emperatriz Rabat

Poetry Analysis

“Night of the Scorpion”

            The poem “Night of the Scorpion” is written by Nissim Ezekiel. The poem tells us about the extreme love of a mother towards her children. It is an interesting thing about the poem because the author narrates it from the point of view of a child who was purely an observer. First person is used (I remember) at the start as it is told from a personal reflection-something that really happened. However he does not give his own feelings or reactions to what happens. He is merely the narrator. Most of the poem is in the third person as Ezekiel reports on what other people do and say. The focus of the poem keeps shifting thus emphasizing the role of the narrator as the observer/viewer of what is happening.

            The situation of the poem is in the author’s personal account of his memory of his mother being stung by a scorpion when he was a child. It represents an incident in the past when the poet’s mother was bitten by a scorpion. It was a rainy night when the scorpion was found beneath a sack of rice in their house. This poem shows a typical Indian mother, rural superstition and practice.

            There are conflicts about the poem, it is to tame or to cure the poison from the bitten part of his mother and to look for the scorpion because the Indian people believed that whenever the scorpion moved, it’s poison moved in his mother’s blood.

            The extended image of comparing the neighbors to pests/flies suggests that the poet sees the neighbors as an annoyance more than anything else. It highlights a negative attitude towards them. The neighbor’s candles and lanterns throw giant scorpion shadows on the walls. Again Ezekiel is suggesting that the neighbors are like the scorpion- predators that prey on other people’s misfortune. There is a contrast between the neighbor’s peace of understanding in the line 31 and the mother who is twisted…groaning on a mat in line 35. It is ironic that they are at peace while she is in discomfort.

            It is a narrative poem because it is told as a story. It is a free verse, with lines of varying lengths and no rhyme scheme, one long stanza and one very short stanza. The final stanza is a comment from the mother. In the line 3 he uses personification, “steady rain had driven him” describing the scorpion; the scorpion is given human characteristics. In line 17, 18, 20 and 22 “they said” repetition of the phrase ‘they said’ undermines/makes little of the neighbor’s comments, as it implies that all of them are making different comments that mean nothing and are of no help. It makes fun of their views. In line 34 and 35 “twisted through and through” mother’s suffering emphasized by use of alliteration.

            Within the poem he also uses alliteration in the second stanza to describe the moment of the sting: Parting with his poison, he alludes to evil in the phrase”diabolic tail”, comparing the scorpion to the devil. Ezekiel uses simile, like “swarms of flies” to describe the number and behavior. He states that they “buzzed” the name of the God repeatedly, the onomatopoeia enabling us to “hear” the constant noise they made. Onomatopoeia is use again as the poet says that these people “clicked their tongues” when they did not found the scorpion. He included a form of repetitive pattern in which he remembers the arrival of “more candles, more lanterns, more neighbors and more insects”, and the endless rain in the seventh stanza. He also describes how “I watched the flame feeding on my mother”, personifying the fire and the word flame feeding uses alliteration. Throughout the poem Ezekiel has used simple, common language in exact place.

            Night of the Scorpion is the title of the poem because it is an interpretation of the author when his mother was stung by a scorpion in rainy evening. Its significance is to help the readers identify what the poem all about and uses this title to show the power and influence of the scorpion on the villagers (peasants), mother, father and himself during this one night. It has the characteristic of irony and even a hint but what catches our attention is the vivacity or the liveliness of the description. The title gives us the idea of having the scorpion a big role in the poem. The scorpion symbolizes the belief of the Indian people and how they undergo with the situation. It opens the poem that makes the people go around and focus on the scorpion. Here is a  paragraph in which I briefly summarize the poem.

            It was a rainy night. The nonstop ten hours rains have driven a scorpion to creel beneath a sack of rice to keep itself dry. The scorpion after stinging at the toe of the poet’s mother with its poisonous tale left the place quickly and went again into the pouring rain. At the cries of his mother on that rainy night the neighboring peasants flocked to the poet’s house like a swarm of bees with lanterns and candles. They started to look for the scorpion but they did not find it. They felt deep concern for the old lady suffering from the scorpion bite. They now clicked their tongues and prayed to God to make the scorpion paralyzed. It was the belief that every movement made by the scorpion will lead the poison to his mother’s blood.

            The superstitious peasants believed that the previous activities of scene is to be burnt away by the sufferings of the peasants or the present suffering will free one to feel no pain the next birth. The pain is the equalizer of the hope in this temporal world. So the ignorant peasants wished that the poison must purify the poet’s mother’s body and soul. They wished that her body should be free from all material desires and should be placed above all ambitions. The poet’s father believed in reason and logic. He applied his ability to relieve his wife’s pain. He poured some paraffin upon the bitten toe and put a flash of match-stick to it. Even a holy man was called but everything is in vain; nothing happens or likes to be happened. After twenty hours the old lady got relief from the pain and she thanked God that the scorpion did not sting her children.

            The Night of the Scorpion is not a poem of a simple incident in the life of poet’s mother; rather it is the author’s purpose of writing a poem of Indian culture, belief, attitude, view point and superstition. It presents brilliantly the inner relationship between individual families to the neighboring community and how a mother loved her children unconditionally. It is a poem showing how a mother would sacrifice her own sake for the goodness of her children and the sweetest part in the poem is generally acknowledged that a mother is ready to suffer all types of pain and tortures with a smiling face, but she will not bear any pain imposed on her children.

“My mother only said

Thank God the scorpion picked on me

And spare my children”

“Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan”

            The poem “Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan”, is written by Moniza Alvi, a poem is about how the writer is torn between her Pakistani and British culture. It is written in the first person point of view which helps give it a confessional. The poem is written in the past as the poet is remembering the memories. When people are remembering things their minds often drift from one image to another in the way that the poem does.

             The poem is written to express how she is confused about her identity and how she has seemed to have lost it. This poem expresses her confusion in her search for her identity. The traditional clothes that her aunts sent her from Pakistan are a symbol of a part of her, but only a part of her, and one that she does not feel entirely comfortable with. It happens when the young girl in the poem is describing gifts that were sent to her in England from Pakistan.

             There are conflicts in the poem this is where the girl's two cultures begin to clash in the poem. As the girl tries on "stain-silken top" at home, she notices how the Pakistani style of the clothes seems out of place in her English "sitting room". She uses the word "alien" to emphasize how strange the clothes look and feel in these surroundings. She also feels slightly intimidated by the gorgeous clothes saying she: "could never be as lovely /as those clothes," the clothes also seem the make the girl embarrassed so that she blushes: "my costume clung to me /and I was a flame”.

            The opening line of this poem, “They sent me a salwar kameez”, sets up an image of detachment and distance from her aunts, who are referenced in the title, and the other family members who still live in her homeland. In the first line “They” refers back to her aunts and shows how they must send her items from her native culture because she is too far away to visit and is becoming detached from her Pakistani culture by living and growing up in England.

            The glass bangle that “drew blood” is an image used to show that the speaker feels uncomfortable trying on her presents from Pakistan. She also mentions feeling ‘‘alien’’, ‘half-English’ and having no fixed nationality which are direct statements about the poet’s conflict of identity.

            The poem has a narrative structure and tells a story of living in an alien culture which means that the author has no fixed nationality. The poet has chosen to write in free verse and without a rhyming scheme in order to give the poem its natural feeling.

             The poet uses both similes and metaphors in the poem to describe both the clothes, the narrator’s feelings when she tries them on.  The lines “Candy - striped glass bangles snapped, drew blood”, is symbolic of how her tradition harms the poet. The clothes and jewellery are not practical for life in the West. “I tried each satin-silken top - was alien in the sitting-room”, the clothes represent paradox or contradiction. She admires the clothes but feel they are too exotic for her. “My costume clung to me and I was aflame” is a metaphor for the discomfort she is feeling. She wants to wear the clothes but as she is half-English, she feels she can not. “My mother cherished her jewellery - Indian gold, dangling, filigree.   But it was stolen from our car”, this event is symbolic of the difficulties of changing from one culture to another. “no fixed nationality”, the poet has no real sense of belongingness.

            This is a poem specifically about the poet's feelings and attitudes. Moniza Alvi, as a young girl, felt a mixture of emotions about her cultural identity: Wonder, excitement, failure, guilt, confusion, attraction, fear, discomfort, and alienation there are many emotions common to teenagers. The tone of the poem throughout is between her positive thoughts and her negative thoughts about her Pakistani background. She is confused about the two cultures. Her first comment about her gift from her Aunts, her clothing received, is used through a simile to emphasize the beauty of the clothes.

            The poem uses a lot of visual detail to make us see the brightness and color of Pakistan. The use of visual detail is appropriate in a poem about how someone sees themselves. The personal nature of the poem is shown by the number of times the poet uses the pronouns “I”, or “my”. The form of the poem is irregular, with lines starting at different places, and being of different lengths. This creates a slightly unsettled, fluid feel to the poem, reflecting the poet's feelings about her identity.

            The significance of the poem’s title is that the author wanted to convey a meaning about the presents that her aunt had brought. It is showing that she was uncomfortable about the things that her aunt gave to her. It symbolizes the author’s confusions about her identity and how she will face these two cultures. Here is a paragraph in which I briefly summarize the poem.

            The author receives a present from her beloved aunt living in Pakistan.  She expected to have a denim and corduroy but unfortunately they sent her a salwar kameez, peacock-blue and glistening like an orange split open, embossed slippers, gold and black points curling. At the school she feels that the fashion in Pakistan has change. Her aunt chooses an apple green- sari silver-bordered for her. She tried each satin-silken top but she was uncomfortable with it, the presents do not fit with the surroundings and thought that she was never as lovely as those clothes she longed for. Thinking that the clothes are wonderful but inadequate or she is not enough for them. Her costume clung to her and aflame, a feeling of extreme embarrassment. In wearing these clothes she feels English more than Pakistani. She wanted to have her parent’s camel-skin lamp-switching on her bedroom because she is both attracted by the aspects of Pakistani culture. Marvel at the colors of beauty and she does know which affects her more powerfully.  Her salwar kammez didn’t impress her school friend and makes her feel different from her peers. Trying to glimpse her or to work out who really she is, finding her true identity because she is unsure about these things.

            There was a conflict, a fractured land and she only knows about her home/ country and she was there of no fixed nationality. She doesn’t feel she belongs entirely too either culture. She stares through fret which separated her from connecting with Pakistan. Sometimes, she saw “Lahore-my aunts shaded rooms screened from male visitors” knowing that the women are treated very differently in Pakistan, but doesn’t know what to feel about. In the end it opens the memories linked with poverty and feels that she does not belong to any one country. She is behind the screen looking out at the Shalimar Gardens. This echoes the image of trying to see herself in the mirror of Pakistani and both instances a complete picture would have been hard to see.

            The author’s purpose of writing this poem is to help readers know and love their own culture to avoid from being uncomfortable or confused about the culture they belong. The poem is about cultural identity and it explores the issue of being torn between two cultures by the poet’s experience of receiving clothing from her aunt in Pakistan. The traditional clothes are described carefully in order to express their difference from British clothing. Another purpose is for us readers to identify our own culture and for those who are in a similar position of the author may find comfort in sharing their own experiences. The most affecting aspect of the poem is the poet's apparent helplessness, for the author seems to give up all hope of changing her situation. It might be helpful to reflect specific events that may have heightened the author’s feeling.

Comparative Analysis

            The two poems that I compared are “Night of the Scorpion” by Nissim Ezekiel and ‘‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’’ by Moniza Alvi. Both poems are in a first person point of view this makes it a lot more personal and makes the reader feel more involved with the author or the poet. The reader feels closer to the action as well and it will make them feel as if they were there and they begin to feel the things that the poet’s felt. It generally makes the
poem seem more intimate. All of these poets have mixed-race backgrounds and all of these poems are linked in with the difficulties arising from having different cultural backgrounds. Both poems I have chosen are about identity and both use first person narrator to talk about autobiographical experiences.

            “Night of the Scorpion” is a poem based on Indian scenario of superstition and poet’s Indian feeling. It represents an incident in the past when the poet’s mother was stung by a scorpion. It is a poetic expression and observation.  The author presents brightly the inner relationship between individual families to the neighboring community and it focus merely in the superstitious belief of the Indian people. The speaker, an adult now in fear of his mother’s love for her children, remembers the time in his childhood. The skill of the poet in this poem is in making it so evocative. It has his characteristic irony, and even a hint of satire. But what catches our attention is the liveliness of the description.

                On the other hand “Presents from my aunts in Pakistan” is a childhood experiences of being separated and confused from two different cultures.  It is a poem consisting emotions. In the first stanza, the author expresses excitement as she lists all of the wonderful things that her aunts have sent her from Pakistan. In the second stanza, she seems down heartened about everything and says, “Never be as lonely as those clothes”. For the rest of the poem she seems confused about her background and unsure about which culture she prefers.

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