oc blessing and night of the scorpion (3)

8/6/2019 OC Blessing and Night of the Scorpion (3)

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Pick out and write down five

lines you could compare


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BBC Presentations

Blessing

Night of

TheScorpion


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BlessingThe skin cracks like a pod.There never is enough water.

Imagine the drip of it,the small splash, echo

5 in a tin mug,the voice of a kindly god.

Sometimes, the sudden rushof fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,silver crashes to the ground

10 and the flow has founda roar of tongues. From the huts,a congregation: every man and womanchild for streets aroundbutts in, with pots,

15 brass, copper, aluminium,plastic buckets,frantic hands,

and naked childrenscreaming in the liquid sun,

20 their highlights polished to perfection,flashing light,as the blessing singsover their small bones.

Imtiaz Dharker

Night of the Scorpion

I remember the night my motherwas stung by a scorpion. Ten hoursof steady rain had driven himto crawl beneath a sack of rice.

5 Parting with his poison - flashof diabolic tail in the dark room -he risked the rain again.

The peasants came like swarms of fliesand buzzed the name of God a hundred times

10 to paralyse the Evil One.With candles and with lanternsthrowing giant scorpion shadowson the mud-baked wallsthey searched for him: he was not found.

15 They cl icked their tongues.With every movement that the scorpion madehis poison moved in Mothers blood, they said.May he sit still, they said.May the sins of your previous birth

20 be burned away tonight, they said.May your suffering decreasethe misfortunes of your next birth, they said.May the sum of evilbalanced in this unreal world

25 against the sum of goodbecome diminished by your pain.May the poison purify your fleshof desire, and your spirit of ambition,they said, and they sat around

30 on the floor with my mother in the centre,the peace of understanding on each face.More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,more insects, and the endless rain.My mother twisted through and through,

35 groaning on a mat.My father, sceptic, rationalist,trying every curse and blessing,powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.He even poured a little paraffin

40 upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.I watched the flame feeding on my mother.I watched the holy man perform his ritesto tame the poison with an incantation.After twenty hours

45 it lost its sting.

My mother only saidThank God the scorpion picked on me

and spared my children.

Nissim Ezekiel


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Objectives

By the end of todays lesson you will be able to:

C

ompare keyideas in Blessing

and Night of TheScorpion.


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Exam Question

Compare the ways an

event is described in

Blessing (page 7) with the

ways an event is

described in one otherpoem.


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BBCAudio


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Exam Question

Compare the ways an

event is described in

Blessing (page 7) with the

ways an event is

described in one otherpoem.

oc blessing and night of the scorpion (3)

Documents