Analysis
The poem deals with the memory of the writer’s mother being ‘stung by a scorpion’. The story is told, quite simply.
The speed and power of the scorpion’s strike is emphasised by the dash on line 5 followed by ‘flash of diabolic tail in the dark gloom’ with the word ‘diabolic’ associated with terrible and evil actions, such as those performed by the devil. The scorpion is often associated with evil.
The reaction to the stinging of his mother is great, with peasants coming ‘like swarms of flies’ showing the speed and sheer number of the locals arriving. The superstition of the locals is shown by the fact that they ‘buzzed the name of God a hundred times’ as if they thought prayer would help her and ‘paralyse the Evil One’, which is given capital letters to show the importance and power of the devil/ scorpion to them.
There is a great search for the scorpion, with no joy. They believe that every movement the scorpion makes causes the poison to move around in the mother’s blood, thus more movement may cause death quickly. The onomatopoeia of clicked’ shows the noises their tongues made as they tried to find the scorpion and the sound of disappointment when they could not. There is also a belief that ‘the sins of your previous birth’ can be burned away.
There is a clear belief in reincarnation. There is also the belief that her suffering will decrease the misfortunes of your next birth, as if the suffering now will make things better in the long run. The prayer seems to be in the hope that there will be better in the world ahead and that the woman will be purified of desire and ambition by the poison in her body.
It seems they are doing little to help his mother physically, but mainly praying for better things for her instead. They are all calmly sitting around her whilst she is ‘twisted through and through groaning on a mat’ clearly in pain. The list of ‘more candles, more lanterns, more neighbours’ builds a sense of the overwhelming gathering of people, but not much practically is being done to help her. Even his father is trying ‘every curse and blessing…’ to help her recover. He tries a remedy of putting paraffin on the burning toe and setting a match to it, which seems to hurt the mother further ‘I watched the flame feeding on my mother’ as if she is a helpless victim.
The holy man also comes to perform rites on her to tame the poison. It is a long time ‘twenty hours’ before the pain goes. She survives and thanks God that the scorpion picked her and not her children, showing a selfless attitude, even after such an unpleasant situation and emphasising the protective nature of a mother for her children.
