Vultures by chinua achebe and night of the scorpion by nissim ezekie essay

The essence of the poem is the extended metaphor; evil is represented by repulsive imagery. Descriptions like ‘bashed-in’, ‘swollen corpse’, ‘gross feathers’, ‘charnal house’ , ‘human roast’ create the horrific atmosphere. The opposite, love and goodness, are represented by the ‘glow-worm tenderness’ and especially ‘Daddy’s return’.

The poem opens in a way that recommends reflection—the speaker recollects the night his own mother was stung by a scorpion, which bit his mother as a result of its savage drive, while stowing away underneath a sack of rice to escape from the rain.

Night of the Scorpion Summary by Nissim Ezekiel • The poem Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel is about an incident that the poet has not forgotten in his life. It was a night when a scorpion bit his mother and all the superstitious villagers did irrational things rather than helping her.

In ‘Night of the Scorpion’, the scorpion causes pain to the speaker’s mother and it is this pain, and the people in the poem’s reactions to the pain, that is dealt with. In ‘Vultures’ however, the vultures are used as metaphors to show that even evil things can love.