CU-BA-Eng-SEM-IV-English literature-IV

UNIT 6: POETRY BY NISSIM EZEKIEL: NIGHT OF THE SCORPION STRUCTURE 6.0 Learning Objective 6.1 Introduction 6.2 About the Poet 6.3 Analysis of ‘Night of the Scorpion’ 6.4 Theme 6.5 Literary Devices 6.6 Summary 6.7 Keywords 6.8 Learning Activity 6.9 Unit End Questions 6.10 References 6.0LEARNING OBJECTIVE After studying this unit, you will be able to  Explain the themes of the poem 'Night of the Scorpion'.  Describe the poem 'Night of the Scorpion'.  Illustrate Ezekiel's contribution to Indian English poetry. 6.1INTRODUCTION The Indo - Anglian poetry is said to be essentially Indian and everything else afterwards. It expresses the essence of Indian personality and is also very sensitive to the changes of its national climate and it voices the aspirations and the joys and sorrows of Indians. It has been opined, that the Indo - Anglian poets are of two factions. The neo-modernists and the neo- symbolists. The outlook of the former is coloured by humanism and irony and that of the latter is imbued with mysticism and sublimity, but a perfect blend is achieved by the two groups in the realms of beauty. A perfect example, of a lndo - Anglian poet, who was able to arrive at a synthesis between the two factions of poetry, is none other than Sarojini Naidu, for she took her stance in the neutral, middle ground, between the sacred and profane sphere of 151 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

poetry4 she was at home in both the worlds and found them united in the realms of poetry. It’s possible to gain a proper perspective of the development of Indian feminine poetic tradition, only if it is considered with reference to the changing position of women in India. The very term Women poets implies an attempt to isolate women poets from men poets and consider them in a group only on the basis of sex, some critics have wondered as to whether there is This watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com 3 anything like feminine sensibility, feminine experiences and feminine ways of expression. The feminine character is made up of certain psychological traits as well as certain socially conditioned ones. All these features set them apart as a group. They moreover do not accept the duties which are traditionally allotted to women, in the male dominated society, and assert their new identity as independent, individualistic and conscious participants in experience. Thus, these women poets do mark' the evolution of the Indian feminine Psyche from the tradition to modernity. Nissim Ezekiel occupies an important place in post-Independence Indian English literature. He has wielded a great influence as a leading poet, editor and an occasional playwright. Besides, he is a well-known critic. Sometimes he also emerges as a politician in the guise of a fighter for cultural freedom in India. Ezekiel held many important positions. He was for many years a Professor of English in Bombay University. He is a noted name in the field of journalism. In this capacity he was editor of many journals including Poetry India (1966-67), Quest (1955-57) and Imprint (1961-70), He was an Associate Editor to the Indian P.E.N., Bombay. Ezekiel is a dedicated person to the rhyme, the extremes and pitfalls. No other Indian-English poet has today shown the ability to organise his experience into words as competently as Ezekiel. The remarkable aspect of his poetry is his sincerity and individuality. His poems generalise his own felt experience. It is neither repetitive nor shocking, but 'simple, introspective and analytical. He treats poetry as a first-hand record of the growth of his mind. He loves simplicity. His love of the genuine is explicit in the following: Life in the city, sexuality, the problems of marriage, the need to overcome alienation and to create integration among the various aspects of his character are Ezekiel's early and continuing themes there is a distinct personality expressed in the voice, themes and style. Life is seen as a quest for wholeness, for intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, for maturity. Ezekiel showed that it was possible to write about oneself without-being self-consciously Indian and that an Indian poetry could express the experiences of the educated and urbanized and need not be obsessed with mythology, peasants and nationalist slogans with him a post- colonial poetry started which reflects the lives and identities that an increasing number of educated Indians knew or would seek. Ezekiel is a poet of many a theme and one finds wider range of subjects and variety in his poetry. His poetry is not born out of dogma, and he does not confine himself to a particular type, theme or technique in his poetry. He has an open mind and therefore he changes the subject matter of his poetry from time to time. He makes 152 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

this clear in his poem ‘Theological’: Ezekiel's poetry is marked by a natural sense of Indianness. And an even. Level of language and craft the real source of creative tension in his poetry is between his pervasive philosophic preoccupation and an insistent awareness of the ties stemming from the surrounding milieu. Ezekiel never postulates a truth but works out, in terms of irony, an answer which is purely tentative. In effect, even in regard to ostensibly philosophic issues, the residue of significance lies not in the validity of the speculation but in the ironic stance of the contemplation. 6.2ABOUT THE POET As a man of letters Nissim Ezekiel is a 'Protean' figure. His achievements as a poet and playwright are considerable. K. Balachandran writes, ‘The post-Independence Indian poetry saw its new poetry in the fifties. Among the new poets A.K. Ramanujan, R. Parthasarathy, Shiv K. Kumar, Kamala Das, Monica Verma, O.P. Bhatnagar, Gauri Deshpande, Adil Jussawalla, Ezekiel occupies a prominent place. His versatile genius can be found in his poetry, plays, criticism, journalism and translation.’ Ezekiel is an editor of several journals encouraging writing poetry, plays and criticism He also asked many writers for translation, affecting the theory and practice of the young poets. The writers like Rilke and W.B. Yeats influenced Ezekiel. Like Yeats, he treated poetry as the 'record of the mind's growth.' His poetic bulk indicates his growth as a poet-critic and shows his personal importance. Chetan Karnani states, ‘At the centre was that sincere devoted mind that wanted to discover itself. In the process, he managed to forge a unique achievement of his own.’ The poet Ezekiel has already published several volumes of poems. A Time to Change (1952) was his first book of poems. For him poetry-writing was a lofty vocation, a way of life. He treated life as a journey where poesy would be the main source of discovering and organising one's own self. In a sense, poetry to Ezekiel became a way for self-realisation. He calls life a texture of poetry. He identifies himself with poetry. So, all of his volumes of verse are well-knit, and they are in the poet's view, a continuation of each other. Ezekiel's experiments in prose rhythms and his fine sense of structure and metrical ability. The verse rhythms of T.S. Eliot seem to haunt his mind. Ezekiel's Sixty Poems (1953), his second volume of poems was published in 1953. But these poems are loose in structure, and they are less appealing. Nissim Ezekial speaks about his contemporaries and the types of poetry appeared during that age. He expects that a poet must keep up the moral, ethics of the age and people. If a poet cannot keep up that moral, then it shows that the poet has a minor talent in writing poetry. This cannot be called a greater curse but having no talent. Just like - ring refers to the groups of poets who write poems. Millions of people fine happiness in writing poetry. He is also one among the poets, who enjoys writing poetry. Ezekiel feels that poets are mixing up metaphors and common thoughts. But poetry is not simply miring up put an expression of deeper thoughts. Ezekiel, here, tries to condemn out rightly those who just min metaphors and 153 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

statements and produce bogus poetry. These unfortunate beings exploit others skill and parade themselves as poets. He curses all those who use other's talents for their own selfish purpose. He also includes the publishers of small magazines and broadcasters of small weather woes. The poet in his indignant mood calls them as seducers of experience. By doing so these men show their letter lack of imaginative power. He also condemns such practice as saying that they are the victims of their own spontaneous fraud. Ezekiel asks them their last composition of a real poem. He himself answers that they are in hell, and they do not know it. But instead, they will answer that they have been reviewing as compensation. He asserts that he himself belonged once to as advertising offence. Ezekiel finds faults of not knowing the secret of writing and becoming this watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com 5 thoughts which cause a variety of disasters to the mind of people through their poems. This practice is nothing but making the most out of borrowed intelligence, imagination and skill. They really contribute nothing to the world of literature. The occasional rhyme or two coming from such people cannot be a thing of justification at all. This activity is described by the poet as a trail of smoke that just irritates the people by its small and continuous suffocation. Thus, the poet gives a warning here of such people. 6.3ANALYSIS OF ‘NIGHT OF THE SCORPION’ Night of the Scorpion I remember the night my mother Was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours Of steady rain had driven him To crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison-flash Of diabolic tail in the dark room- He risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of flies 154 And buzzed the name of God a hundred times To paralyze the Evil One. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

With candles and with lanterns Throwing giant scorpion shadows They searched for him; he was not found. They clicked their tongues. With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said. May he sit still, they said May the sins of your previous birth Be burned away tonight they said. May your suffering decrease? The misfortunes of your next birth, they said. May the sum of all evil Balanced in this unreal world Against the sum of god Become diminished by your pain. May the poison purify your flesh? Of desire, and your spirit of ambition, 155 They said, and they sat around On the floor with my mother in the centre, The peace of understanding on each face. More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, Moreinsects and the endless rain. My mother twisted through and through, Groaning on a mat. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

My father, sceptic, rationalist, Trying every curse and blessing, Powder, mixture, herb and hybrid. He even poured a little paraffin Upon the bitten toe and put a match to it. I watched the flame feeding on my mother. I watched the holy man performs his rites to tame the poison with an incantation. After twenty hours it lost its sting. My mother only said Thank God the scorpion picked on me And spared my children. Stanza 1 In stanza 1, the poet says that he remembers well that night when her mother was stung by a scorpion. The poet is of the views that the heavy rain which lasted for 10 hours made the scorpion crawl beneath a sack of rice. The last phrase shows the poet’s sympathy towards the scorpion. Stanza 2 In stanza 2, the poet says that after biting his mother with its diabolic (monstrous tail), the scorpion went back to rain outside again. The poet here shows sympathy as well as anger towards the scorpion. He is angry when he talks about its biting and sympathetic when he talks about its going to rain again. Stanza 3 Hearing about the incident, the villagers rush to the poet’s home. However, he is not happy with them and calls them swarms of flies who buzz the name of God a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One. Stanza 4 156 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The poet then explains how the villagers searched for the scorpion. According to him, the villagers began searching for the scorpion and their shadows themselves seemed to be like a giant scorpion on the mud-baked walls. The villagers begin searching for the scorpion because they believe that the poison spreads across the body with the movement of scorpion so if the latter is stopped and paralyzed, the poison effect can also be controlled. This is a superstition and Nissim knows that well. This is why he hates the coming of villagers to his home. The stanza also depicts the Indianness that prevails in a number of other poems as well. Stanza 5 Having failed in finding the scorpion, they begin giving their own interpretation to the biting of the scorpion. Some of them said that his mother’s sins which she committed in her previous birth (as believed in Hinduism) have been forgiven. The others assumed that she is going to die and said that the pain that she is suffering from will decrease the troubles in her next birth. Some others put forward that her good deeds will be balanced against her bad deeds because of the bite of the scorpion. Stanza 6 Some others said that the poison will purify and refresh her flesh of desire and her spirit of ambition. All of them seemed to be in peace because of their thoughts. Stanza 7 More and more people come with candles & lanterns. His mother is however crying and rolling on the mat with severe pain, but nobody cares for her except for his father who is a sceptic, rationalist. He leaves no stone unturned to cure her. He uses powder, mixture, herb and hybrid to help her recover from the pain. He even poured a little paraffin upon the bitten toe and then fires it up. The poet watches the flames of fire burning on the skin of his mother. He also watches the holy man perform his rites to tame the poison with an incantation. The phrase again refers to superstitious people of his village who believe in irrational measures to cure a person. His mother ultimately recovers from the poison after 24 hours. Stanza 8 The last line is quite emotional and heart touching. It reflects the motherhood of a lady. The poet says that after recovering from the poison, his mother’s words were Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children. Even in such condition, his mother remains more concerned about the safety and health of her children. 157 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

‘Night of the Scorpion', in which Ezekiel recalls the behavior of 'the peasants', his father, his mother and a holy man when his mother was poisoned by a scorpion's sting. Here the aim is to find poetry in ordinary reality as observed, known, felt, experienced rather than as the intellect thinks it should be. While the peasants pray and speak of incarnations, his father, 'sceptic, rationalist', tries 'every curse and blessing, powder, mixture, herb and hybrid' and a holy man performs a rite. After a day the poison is no longer felt and, in a final irony, his mother, in contrast to the previous feverish activity centred upon her, makes a typical motherly comment: My mother only said Thank God the scorpion picked on me and spared my children. The 'Thank God' is doubly ironic as it is a commonplace expression of speech in contrast to all the previous religious and superstitious activity. Ezekiel's purpose is not, however, an expression of scepticism but rather the exact notation of what he saw as a child. The aim is not to explain but to make real by naming, by saying 'common things'. The poem is a new direction, a vision of ordinary reality, especially of Indian life, unmediated by cold intellect. The new purpose is seen in the poem's style, unrhymed, with line lengths shaped by natural syntactical units and rhythm created by the cadences of the speaking voice into a long verse paragraph, rather than the stanza structure used in earlier poems. In his poetry there is the truth of acknowledging what is felt and experienced in its complexity, contradictions, pleasures, fears and disillusionments without preconceived ideas of what poetry should say about the poet and life. Nissim Ezekiel’s ‘Night of The Scorpion’ is much appreciated by the critics and it has found place in many anthologies for as excellence, Critics, commenting on its aesthetic beauty expressed different views. In their critical sweep, they brought everything from superstitious ritualism to modern rationalism. One can find that in the poem superstitious ritualism or sceptic rationalism or even the balance of the both with expression of Indian ethos through maternal love in the Indian way, is nothing but scratching the surface. The poem has something more gigantic than its face value, which as I find is the symbolic juxtaposition of the forces of darkness and light that is intrinsically centripetal in the poem. It is ‘Night’ of The Scorpion’ with the first word absorbing accent. It seems to have been implicitly contrived here that ‘Night should stand as a symbol of darkness with the ‘Scorpion’ as the symbol of evil. Such ingenuity in craftsmanship takes the poem to the higher level of understanding. Prof. Birje Patil is right in putting that in ‘Night of The Scorpion’, where evil is symbolized by the scorpion, The reader made to participate in the ritual as well as suffering through’ a vivid evocation of the poison moving in the mother’s blood’. And evil has always been associated with darkness, the seamy side of our life, in human psyche. It has always been an integral part of theology, in whatever form it has manifested that suffering helps in removing that darker patch in human mind, he patch that has been a besetting sin of man’s existence. 158 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

May the sum of evil Balanced in this unreal world Against the sum of good Become diminished by your pain, they said These lines amply testify that the poem aims at achieving something higher than its narrative simplicity. The choric refrain ‘they said’ in the chain of reactions made by the village peasants is undoubtedly ironic, but the poet hasn’t as much to stress the concept of sin, redemption or rebirth as he has to insinuate the indomitable force of darkness gripping the minds of the unenlightened. Going through the poem attentively more than once, it can’t fail catching our notice that modern rationalism is also equally shallow and perverse. It is also a road leading to confusion where through emerges scepticism, the other darker patch on our modernized existence. The image of the father in this poem speaks volumes for this capsizing modernism which This watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com 10 sandwiches in its arm- space the primitive and the perverted. The ‘sceptic rationalist’ father trying ‘powder, mixture, herb and hybrid’ bears upon human primitivism and when he experiments with ‘a little paraffin upon a bitten toe and put a match to it he becomes a symbol of perversion in the modern man’s psyche. Christopher Wiseman puts it, ‘...a fascinating tension between personal crisis and mocking social observation’’; neither there is any personal crisis. On the other hand, there is spiritual compassion and an intense urge for getting rid of this psychological syndrome that the whole modern world has been caught, the slow-moving poison of this syndromic scorpion into the very veins of creation, the image of the mother in agony nullifying the clear vision of human thought and enveloping the whole of humanity In the darker shades of confusion more chaotic, troubles the poet as much sharply as the sting of the poisonous worm. There is crisis, but it is the crisis of human existence that needs to be overcome. The poet, though a distant observer, doesn’t take a stance of detachment. On the exact opposite, he watches with curiosity ‘the flame feeding on my mother’ but being uncertain whether the paraffin flame would cleanse her of the agony of the absorbing poison, he loses himself in a thoughtful trance. The whole poem abounds with these two symbols of darkness and light. In the very beginning the poet has ushered in this symbolic juxta position and then as the poem advanced, built upon it the whole structure of his fascinating architecture in the lines. Ten hours of steady rain had driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice parting with his poison - flash of diabolic tail in the dark room he risked the rain again. The incessant rain stands for the hope and regeneration where with is juxtaposed the destructive hurdles to fruitily that hope. But the constructive, life-giving rain continues and the evil, having fulfilled its parts, departs. Then afterwards other hurdles more preying than 159 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

the first, come in. More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours more insects, and the endless rain My mother twisted through and through groaning on a mat. The symbols of light and darkness, candles lanterns, neighbours and insects and rain again are not worthy. But the force of light gains a width handover the evil force and life is restored once again in its joyous stride and this life long struggle between forces of darkness and light reaches a crescendo when - after twenty hours It lost its sting. Here, In the above lines, lies the beauty of the poem, when the ascending steps of darkness, being chased by the force of following light are ripped down, when at last on the peak the chaser wins and the chased slips down. The man who has not understood what motherhood is. Might be taken in by such expression of motherly love. But I convincingly feel that any woman would have exclaimed the same thing as the mother in this poem did. In my view, it would have been truly Indian had the mother in her tortures remembered her children and though helplessly, had she desired to protect them lest the scorpion might catch them unawares. Anyway, the beauty of the poem remains- unmarred by such revision. The poem is a thing of beauty par excellence. The poem ‘Night of the Scorpion’ can be classified as poetry of situation - an art in which Browning and Robert Frost excelled. It presents a critical situation in which a mother is bitten by a scorpion. It involves a typical Indian Situation in which an entire village community identifies itself with a sad domestic happening. It pictures the traditional Indian society steeped in ignorance and superstition. The poem is set against the backdrop of Indian rural setting. The rural habit of storing rice in gunny bags is referred to in the phrase, ‘a sack of rice’. The rural practice of building huts with mud walks is captured in the phrase ‘mud backed walks’. The absence of rural electrification in Indian villages before independence is hinted at in a string of images, ‘dark room’ and ‘Candles and linters’. ‘Darkness’ has the extended meaning of Indian villages being steeped in ignorance. The situation of a scorpion-stung mother is encountered in different ways of prayer, incantation and science. Not one stays at home when the peasants hear of a mother bitten by a scorpion. They rush buzzing the name of God times without number. With candles and lanterns, they search for him. He is not found. They sit on the floor with the mother in the centre and try to comfort her with words of philosophy. Their prayer brings out their genuine concern for the suffering mother. The father, through a sceptic and a rationalist, does not differ in the least from the ignorant peasants. He tries both medicine and ‘mantra’ drugs and chants as seen in the phrase ‘trying every were and blessing’. A holy man is brought to tame the poison with an incantation. It is the belief of the village community that buzzing ‘the name of God a hundred times’ will bring about relief to the mother stung by the scorpion. The action of the rural folk brings out their firm faith in God and in the efficiency of prayer. It is the belief of the rural community that the faster the scorpion moves, the faster the poison 160 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

in the mother's blood will move. In equating the movement of the scorpion and that of the poison in the blood stream, the peasant betray their superstition. The peasants sit around the mother groaning in pain, and they try to console her offering remedial advice of a strong ritualistic and faith - healing kind. Some peasants say that as she has suffered now, in the rent birth she will experience less troubles. She will now be in a balanced state whereby her body is ridden of device and her spirit of ambition. The incantatory utterances made by the peasants smack of their belief in the Hindu law of ‘Karina’, in the Hindu doctrine of rebirth and in the 13 Hindu concept of the world as one of illusion and the physical suffering bringing about spiritual rejuvenation. The poem is remembered particularly for its 'memorable close' - me last three lines: My Mother only said Thank God the scorpion picked on me And spared my children. The use of the restricted adverb 'only' distinguishes the mother from the peasants, the father and the holy man. The other does not blame God but she thanks God because the scorpion stung her and spared her children. Her agony would have been greater if any of her children were bitten. Ultimately, it assumes universal dimensions. The poet throws light on the selfless lore of the Indian mother. The new poetry (i.e., Indian English poetry after Independence) demanded a new use of language and called for the use of everyday speech rhythm in poetry. Thus, there is a demand as it were, for the creation of an Indian English idiom, to give an identity to modern Indian English Poetry independent of and different from the world literatures written in English including Anglo-American literatures. Ezekiel has succeeded in creating a new Indian English idiom to a great extent. Nizzim Ezekiel accepts the established linguistic framework, but his art lies in so changing a unit of expression as to make it expressive of a state of mind. He is capable of turning words into a metaphor, image or symbols as the situation demands. It is only rarely that we come across poetic counters of expression but there is a strong undercurrent of poetry in the seemingly prosiac words. This is his characteristic mode which demonstrates his command over language and saves his poetry from degenerating into bare statement. Ezekiel is fond of using’ paradoxical language in his poetry for greater poetic effect. Ezekiel is a conscious poet ‘looking before and after’. To him poetry is not a gift to be adorned but a craft to be studied seriously. He believes in the revision of a poem and works hard on it, till it achieves a kind of perfection. A poet like a woman ‘must labour to be beautiful’. Ezekiel’s clarity of thought, clinical precision of words and phrases and employment of imagery make his poetry distinctly Indian. 161 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The poet in Nissim Ezekiel is too self-conscious of artistic excellence while the man in him strives to explore the real meaning of existence through art. The poet, as a result, does not cither get prolix or make poetry the text of his aesthetic vision. Metaphorically speaking, every doctrine, dream or ideal, whether realised or not, is analogous to the invention of a right poem or the writing of a real poem amounts to the discovery of a metaphysical truth. Poetry does not merely extenuate the pains of living in the poet but much more than that, his search for the real idiom as expressed therein. Ezekiel brought a sense of discipline, self-criticism and mastery to Indian English poetry. He was the first Indian poet to have such a professional attitude. Ezekiel's poetry is centred on a study of his conscious craftsmanship, his mastery of rhythm and diction and his treatment of modern urban life and the existential questions it generates. These I have dwelt upon, listening to rain, And turning in, resoled That I must wait and train myself To recognise the real thing, And in the verse or friends I make To have no trunk with what is fake. Ezekiel's greatness lies in his effort to avoid the mistakes, which his fellow poets committed. He is a serious poet. His originality lies in his typical poems, which are firmly rooted in Indian soil. Ezekiel's impersonalize is another landmark. Indeed, David McCutchion's observation is a tribute to this great Indian poet: ‘Ezekiel belongs with Thom Gunn, R.S. Thomas, Elizabeth Jennings, Anthony Thwaite, and others like them. He has their cautious, discriminating style, precise and analytical, with its conscious rejection of the heroic and passionate as also of the sentimental and cosy. The technique is immaculate: rhymes, and carefully varied yet regular rhythms, lines that run over with a poised deliberateness. But behind the casual assurance one senses the clenched first, the wounded tenderness.’ Ezekiel's concept is that writing poetry is not just a matter of inspiration but studying the skill of writing carefully. This study demands a lot of patience from the poet. Only when unskilled poets try their hands in poetry, poetry turns out to be self-advertisement. Many of Ezekiel's poems express his view that poetry can be built in resolving the tension between two opposite forces and trying to maintain an equipoise. About this aspect Linda Hess remarks, Every mature poet finds his art demanding again and again that he synthesises certain powerful and apparently opposite forces within himself. Reflection of Superstition in the Poem 162 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Through the poem, he emphasizes the hold of superstition on the Indian social psyche with rare insight and sensitivity. The poem conveys the typical superstitious attitude of the Indian peasants to life through an ordinary happening in which a scorpion stings the speaker's mother, and the neighbours respond impulsively. The neighbours even in the dark are equipped with candles and lanterns to locate the culprit scorpion as they want to kill it. They believe that the death of the scorpion would nullify the effect of the poison in the victim's body. At the same time, the villagers were continuously chanting the name of God to paralyze the scorpion. They feel that the mother is suffering because of the sins of her previous birth or is reducing the sufferings of her next birth. They also believe that her suffering will reduce the sum of evil and add to the sum of the good in this world. It is believed that the poison will purify her soul from the material desires and her spirit of its ambitions. A holy man is also summoned to perform various rites to tame the poison with his incantations. Thus, the poem is a lovely picture of a typical Indian scenario of a trivial incident like a scorpion bite and its post effects. Traditional Approach Versus Modern Approach The poem shows the traditions and beliefs that the villagers possess at a scorpion bite. As mentioned earlier, the poem moves around the traditional approaches of the villagers to cure the mother of the poison of a scorpion bite. They try every possible traditional remedy like holy incantations, hunting the scorpion for killing it, prayers and so on. On the other hand, we find only one rational figure amidst the chaos around, that is, the poet's father. He is sceptic and a rational person. Rather than believing in the curses and the blessings, he feels practical efforts are more fruitful. He tried every available powder, mixture, herbs and hybrid. He performed an experiment to cure his wife of the bitter poison. He poured a little paraffin upon her bitten toe and lighted it with a match. The toe was in flames, and he expected the poisoned blood to burn up thereby curing her. Somehow after several efforts, she finally was cured after twenty long painful hours. The poem keeps moving between the traditional and modern approach for curing a victim of a poisonous scorpion bite. Indian Philosophy Followed by the Villagers The poem depicts many beliefs prevalent in the Indian philosophy. One of the dominant ideologies of Indian philosophy is the 'karma' theory which believes in rewards or punishments inflicted upon an individual are the result of his own 'karma' or deeds. The villagers in the poem believe that the mother was suffering due to the scorpion bite because of the sins of her past birth or maybe she was reducing her sufferings of the next birth. They also feel that her suffering will balance the sum of good against that of the sum of the evil. The Indian philosophy of purification in suffering is highlighted in the poem. The villagers say that the suffering of the victim will purify her of her material bodily desires and ambitions. It will thereby bring her soul close to that of the Almighty God. Paraphrase of the Poem 163 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The poem is written in a typical Indian convention using Indian English and Indian culture. It shows the reactions of a typical lower middle-class peasant family upon a scorpion bite. The poem highlights the superstitions and beliefs that an average Indian possesses. The poet uses flashback technique to recall the incident. He remembers the night when as a child he witnesses the entire drama of scorpion bite. We find a variety of responses by the family and the neighbours. Most of the responses are irrational but at the same time they depict the concern and fellow - feeling amongst each other. The poem highlights the helping nature of Indians. The poem begins with the recalling of the poet of the incident of his mother being stung by a scorpion. The night was dark and dreary accompanied by the rains. It had been raining steadily for ten long hours. It was at this time that the scorpion had crawled near the sack of rice. The poet compares the scorpion to the Devil who has a devilish or diabolic tail. The scorpion comes out of his hiding and his devilish tale flashes in the dark. He risks the rain by coming out and bites his mother. Swiftly the scorpion moves out in the rain. At the very next moment, the neighbourhood peasants gather like swarms of flies into the poet's hut. The peasants are chanting the prayers to God to relieve his mother from the torturous pain. They had a belief that by doing so they could paralyze the scorpion poison. They also attempt together to find out the evil scorpion in the dark. The peasants are holding lanterns and candles and casting their giant scorpion shadows on the sun - baked walls. Unfortunately, their efforts are in vain. They were clicking their tongues in disappointment. Actually, they believed in the superstition that if the scorpion is found and killed, it will kill the poison in the body of his mother. But since it's not found, they believe that as the scorpion is moving around alive, its poison is moving in his mother's blood. They start praying to God that the scorpion should remain still. For his mother, the peasants say that his mother is suffering due to the sins of her previous birth, and they wish that these sins get burnt with her suffering that night. Also, they believe that since she is suffering in this birth that will decrease the misfortunes of her next birth. They pray that her pain should balance the sum of evil balance in this world with the sum of the good. They firmly believe that the poison will purify her body and mind from the various desires and ambitions. The peasants had seated around the mother in pain, and she was lying at the centre. Their faces were serene with peace and understanding. As the number of people visiting increased, the number of candles, lanterns, insects and rain increased in torrents. The mother was twisting on the mat with endless pain. The poet's father was sceptic and rationalist, but he tried every available herb, hybrid, powders, mixtures and also curses and blessings. He experimented scientifically on the bitten toe by pouring a little paraffin and lighting it. A holy man was ushered in to perform rites and rituals to nullify the effect of the poison with his holy incantations. Trying every possible remedy, everyone was incessantly engaged in saving the life of the mother. Finally, their efforts did bear fruits after twenty hours and the effect of the poison disappeared. When the mother was back to life, she didn't curse or regret the disastrous scorpion - bite. Instead, she thanked God for spacing her children from the deadly pain for she felt she could tolerate any pain to rescue her children from it. This shows the universal 164 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

loving and caring nature of a mother towards her children. In short, the poem depicts the Indian temperament in its lively tone. The use of present tense highlights the typical Indian manner of narration. The poem is a truthful representation of India in its true colours. Nissim Ezekiel a prolific poet, playwright, critic, broadcaster and social commentator, is considered to be the Father of post-independence Indian verse in English. He was born on 24 December 1924 in a Jew family. His father was a Professor of Botany and mother was Principal of her own school. Since schooling, Ezekiel studied the poets such as T.S. Eliot, Y.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and continued to study further. The influence of all these poets was apparent in his early works. Nissim Ezekiel worked as an Advertising Copywriter and General Manager of a picture frame company. He was the Art Critic of The Times of India from 1964 to 66 and Editor of The Poetry India from 1966 to 67. He launched the literary monthly the Imprint as the cofounder. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983. In 1988, he received another civil honour, Padma Shri for his contribution to the Indian Writings in English. After a prolonged illness, he passed away on 9 January 2004 in Mumbai. Nissim Ezekiel made a great contribution to the field of Indian English poetry. Some of his major works are: • Time To Change (1952) • Sixty Poems (1953) • Night of the Scorpion (1953) • The Third (1959) • The Unfinished Man (1960) • The Exact Name (1965) • Hymns In Darkness (1976) • Latter-Day Psalms (1982) • Collected Poems 1952-88 (1989) Introduction to ‘The Night of the Scorpion’ The Night of the Scorpion is a poignant poem by one of India’s foremost modern-day poets, Nissim Ezekiel. In this poem, the poet describes the selfless love of a mother who is stung by a scorpion. To portray the motherly affections, he used imagery relating to the senses of sight, smell, touch and hearing. Even though the scorpion parted poison in her toe, yet she is thankful to the God that the scorpion had chosen her and spared her children. Here the poet remains as a helpless spectator and expresses his feeling. He also comments on the Indian culture where superstitions still play a significant role. The poem ‘The Night of the Scorpion’ can be interpreted in two different ways. First, the poet describes how, on a rainy day, the narrator's mother is bitten by a scorpion and what are the chain reactions to it. Second, the poem depicts the Indian ethos, superstitions and cultural richness through a simple incident and symbolizes the typical Indian motherhood which depicts her sacrifice and affection for her children. The poet narrates the poem by remembering his childhood when his mother was bitten by a scorpion. He says that the continuous rainfall for ten hours had driven the scorpion into the house where it crawled beneath a sack of rice. When his mother entered the dark room, the scorpion parted the poison into her toe and disappeared. The news spread throughout the village and the peasants gathered in the poet’s house in large numbers like ‘the swarms of flies’ and buzzed God’s name about a hundred times, praying to stop the movements of the scorpion. They believed that every movement of the scorpion would be troublesome to the mother, the poison would move in the mother’s blood. So, the villagers searched their house with the candles and 165 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

lanterns to paralyze the evil scorpion, but he disappeared in the dark. As a number of villagers gathered in the house, the shadows they formed on the wall too appeared as a scorpion to the poet. The villagers prayed that the scorpion stops, and the sins of mother’s previous birth gets washed away that night or her sufferings might decrease the misfortunes of her next birth. They said this way the sums of evil might get balanced in this unreal world. They called the world unreal as everything in this world is temporary and births and deaths keep occurring in a cycle. They even prayed to god that the poison purifies her flesh. They sat around the mother who was groaning in pain. There was calmness and they thought that she had approached her end. The condition was becoming very critical as many neighbours were entering the house with more candles and lanterns, the insects were also increasing and the rain too continued. The poet’s father was a sceptic and rationalist person who tried powders, mixtures and herbs to cure the mother. However, he also tried prayers and blessings as it was a very taxing situation. He poured some paraffin upon the bitten toe and burnt it. The priest, who also came to the spot, was also performing his religious rites to tame the poison. Finally, after twenty hours, the sting was lost. The mother, after getting cured, thanked god that the scorpion had chosen her and spared her children. Critical Interpretation Nissim Ezekiel's ‘Night of the Scorpion' is the poet's personal account of his memory of his childhood. Once his mother was stung by a scorpion, he was helpless and just became a spectator. He explains that the scorpion had come in because of heavy rainfall and had hidden beneath a sack of rice. Ezekiel uses alliteration to describe the moment of the sting: 'Parting with his poison'. He uses the phrase 'diabolic tail' to depict the evil and compared the scorpion to the devil. The scorpion disappeared from the spot; after hearing the news of the deadly sting, villagers came to the spot. Ezekiel uses the simile 'like swarms of flies' to describe their number and behaviour of the people. He states that they 'buzzed the name of God' repeatedly, the onomatopoeia enabling us to 'hear' the constant noise they made. The scorpion is again seen as the devil in line ten: 'the Evil One'. We can imagine the fear of the child observing the scene, as the peasants' lanterns created 'giant scorpion shadows' on the walls of his home. Onomatopoeia is used again as the poet says that these people 'clicked their tongues' whilst searching for the scorpion. They believed that whenever the scorpion moved, its poison 'moved in mother's blood'. Line eighteen is the first in a fourteen-line section which recounts the words of wisdom voiced by the peasants in the hope that the woman would survive. Five of the lines begin 'May...' and are clear examples of the religious beliefs the villagers held. They refer to the past and future lives, absolution of sins, the lessening of evil and the hope that the poison will 'purify' the woman's flesh and spirit. Ezekiel describes how they surrounded his mother; he saw 'the peace of understanding' in their facial expressions. In the lines thirty-two and thirty-three, Ezekiel repeats the word ‘More’ for four times and describes the arrival of 'More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, more insects' as the rain continued to fall. In the line thirty-four, he makes the first direct reference to his mother's suffering, telling us that she 'twisted through and through' and was groaning in pain. Then the poet turns to the reaction of his father who was not a religious and superstitious man but a 166 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

'sceptic and rationalist'. On this occasion, however, the man resorted to 'every curse and blessing' accompanied by various herbal concoctions, such was his desperation. Ezekiel describes in detail that his father actually set alight to the toe that had been bitten by the scorpion. It must have had a profound effect on the poet as a child; he describes how 'I watched the flame feeding on my mother', personifying the fire. Ezekiel then watched and listened to a 'holy man' carrying out certain rites to 'tame' the poison. The poison lost its sting the following night and after twenty hours of suffering, the mother had a sigh of relief. The first forty-five lines form one continuous stanza relating the event from start to finish, concludes with a short three-line stanza in which the poet recalls his mother’s reaction to her scary and painful experience. She spoke of it only briefly, thanking God and saying how glad she was that the scorpion had chosen to sting her and spared her children. This was the boundless, selfless love of a mother who had great affection and love for her children. Ezekiel never forgot these words throughout his life. In this poem it is interesting to know that the poet narrates this incident as an observer’s point of view. He was not involved in the situation as the other adults who were in any action. This allows him to relate the actions and words of the peasants and his father whilst being detached from them. It is an insight into the behaviour of a small community in rural India where everyone becomes involved in one family or a mother's suffering, and all gather to witness the event and contribute a prayer, give justifications, suggestions, etc. It must have seemed though to the poet as a child as there was a huge gathering of people, and the night must have been everlasting. His comparison of the peasants to ‘swarms of flies’ suggest that they would rather have left the family in peace and comfort. 6.4THEME Ezekiel narrates how the speaker's mother is stung by a poisonous scorpion. He juxtaposes the pain and horror of the event alongside ahumorous depiction of the attitudes of simple and ignorant but concerned villagers. The poem depicts the supernatural elements that are strongly believed by the villagers. We come across some irrational beliefs prevalent in the rural society like the movement of the scorpion would speed up the movement of the poison in his mother's body. It also highlights the concern of the villagers for even a small incident like a scorpion bite in the neighbourhood. It also shows the affection a mother has for her children and the pain she undergoes silently as it assures the safety of her children. The poem ‘Night of the Scorpion’ has a typical Indian background. It reveals the superstitious beliefs of common Indian villagers. The incident described in the poem is a common experience in Indian villages. It describes the reaction of village people when the poet’s mother was stung by a scorpion. The members of an Indian village society are uneducated, ignorant and superstitious peasants, but still, they think that they have an answer to every question. 167 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

One rainy night, the poet’s mother was stung by a scorpion. The scorpion had settled under a sack of rice. It stung the poet’s mother and disappeared farmers from nearby places and tried to cure the woman by their superstitious methods. They repeated the name of God one hundred times to decrease the effect of the poison. The peasants started looking for the scorpion. They wanted to kill. They said that with every movement of the scorpion, the poison in the mother’s blood would also move. They also said that the sting of the scorpion would wash away the sins of her previous birth and reduce her suffering in the next birth. They sat in a circle, with the mother in the centre where she cried with pain. The poet’s father was a rationalist. He tried every powder, mixture, herb and hybrid to relieve his mother’s pain. He put a little kerosene oil on the bitten toe and burned it. The pain ended after about twenty hours. The poet’s mother was like an Indian mother. In her motherly manners, she thanked God that the scorpion had stung her and not her children. In short, the poet wants to create awareness in the minds of the readers of the ignorance and superstitions that still have their grip on the minds of the masses of India. Pictures of the dim powers of insidiousness possess large amounts of Night of the Scorpion; the underhanded tail of the scorpion, goliath scorpion shadows on the sun-prepared dividers and the night itself point to detestable. Truth be told, the ballad is about the correlated inquiry with respect to what can overcome fiendish. Where superstition, logic and religion demonstrated useless, the self-destroying affection for a mother had its say. Love overcomes all, and that is all you must know. Superstition Superstition is an imperative topic that is canvassed in the verse of Nissim Ezekiel. His verse investigates certain aspects of the Indian life that are so frequently addressed and thought about out of date, yet at the same time pervasive. In Night of The Scorpion, Nissim Ezekiel depicts a circumstance that is illustrative of the rustic Indian ethos and draws out the commonness of such a circumstance. 6.5LITERARY DEVICES Structure of the Poem The structure of the poem is very free, with lines of varying lengths and no rhyme scheme. The second stanza that ends the poem attracts attention for its brevity and emphasizes the words of the mother and their effect on the son. Imagery Imagery is used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perceptions referred to in a poem. Nissim Ezekiel describes a childhood experience through this poem. The poet conveys 168 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

through some imageries which can be understood by our senses. The senses consist of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and touching. The poet creates an image to stimulate these senses, this is called imagery. It can be defined as the representation of an experience through language. Though visual imagery is most often used in poetry, an image may also represent a sound, a smell, a touch or a feeling or sensation. The poet mainly uses imagery and alliteration in the poem.  Examples of Imagery: walls symbolise borders and cities symbolise countries.  Examples of Alliteration: (Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in a line). e.g., ‘sprang into the sky’, ‘it scaled six inches’, ‘why the valleys were’ etc.  Simile: ‘Remote and thorny like the heart’s dark floor’  Personification: ‘His spirit moved’, ‘exercise of will’ Nissim Ezekiel's 'Night of the Scorpion' is the poet's personal account of his memory of his mother being stung by a scorpion when he was a child. He begins by explaining that the scorpion had come in because of heavy rain and had hidden under a sack of rice. Ezekiel uses alliteration 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. The scorpion departed and, on hearing the news of the deadly sting, villagers came to the house. Ezekiel uses the simile 'like swarms of flies' to describe their number and behaviour. He states that they 'buzzed the name of God' repeatedly, the onomatopoeia enabling us to 'hear' the constant noise they made. The scorpion is again seen as the devil in line ten: 'the Evil One'. We can imagine the fear of the child observing the scene, as the peasants' lanterns created 'giant scorpion shadows' on the walls of his home. Onomatopoeia is used again as the poet says that these people 'clicked their tongues' whilst searching for the scorpion. They believed that whenever the scorpion moved, its poison 'moved in Mother's blood'. Line eighteen is the first in a fourteen-line section which recounts the words of wisdom voiced by the peasants in the hope that the woman would survive. Five of the lines begin 'May...' and are clear examples of the religious beliefs held by these villagers. They refer to past and future lives, absolution of sins, the lessening of evil and the hope that the poison will 'purify' the woman's flesh and spirit. Ezekiel describes how they surrounded his mother; he saw 'the peace of understanding' in their facial expressions. Lines thirty-two and thirty-three form a repetitive pattern in which Ezekiel remembers the arrival of 'More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, / more insects' as the rain continued to fall. In line thirty-four he makes the first direct reference to his mother's suffering, telling us that she 'twisted through and through' and was groaning in pain. He then turns to the reaction of his father, not a religious man but 'sceptic, rationalist'. On this occasion, however, the man resorted to 'every curse and blessing' accompanied by various herbal concoctions, such was his desperation. Ezekiel describes in detail that his father actually set alight to the 169 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

toe that had been bitten. It must have had a profound effect on the poet as a child; he describes how 'I watched the flame feeding on my mother', personifying the fire. Ezekiel then watched and listened to a 'holy man' carrying out certain rites to 'tame' the poison. The poison lost its sting the following night. The first forty-five lines form one continuous stanza relating the event from start to finish. The poem concludes with a short three-line stanza in which Ezekiel recalls his mother's reaction to her frightening and painful experience. She spoke of it only briefly, thanking God and saying how glad she was that the scorpion had chosen to sting her rather than her children. This was the boundless, selfless love of a mother, and these were words which Ezekiel never forgot. One of the interesting points about the poem is that Ezekiel narrates it from the point of view of a child who was purely an observer, not involved as the adults were in taking any action. This allows him to relate the actions and words of the peasants and his father whilst being detached from them. It is an insight into the behaviour of a small community in India where everyone becomes involved in one family or one mother's suffering, and all gather to witness the event and contribute a prayer. To the child it must have seemed as though there was a huge number of a person, and the night must have been interminable. His comparison of the peasants to flies suggests that he would rather they had left the family in peace. The structure of the poem is very free, with lines of varying lengths and no rhyme scheme. The second stanza that ends the poem attracts attention for its brevity and emphasises the words of the mother and their effect on the son. Through the poem, the poet depicts the struggles of an Indian mother who is stung by a scorpion. The whole poem shows the sufferings and struggles that she experiences when the scorpion bit her. On a rainy day, a scorpion enters the house and stings the mother of the family. The poet explains throughout the poem, the attitude of the community, the religious people, the priests and the family members towards the incident. People in and around the village interpret the incident with different perspectives. Some end up saying that she is suffering because of her past sins, and some are of the view that this pain will reduce her sufferings that she needs to undergo in the future. The head of the family, her husband is busy running to find a means to protect her from this scenario and bring her back to life and children on the other hand are panic stricken and look at all the incidents happening around in an astonished way. From the poem, it can be observed that, a male member of a patriarchal society conveniently accepts and follows the life around him ignoring the opposite gender’s innate feeling of pain or basic needs. Nissim Ezekiel beautifully uses the language in his poem and selectively used vocabulary in his discourse to describe the so-called divinity of motherhood. Being an expatriate in India, the writer might have received considerable opportunities to understand the tradition and practices of Hindu culture and Indian family life. Those understanding would have helped him to adopt the basic theme of the poem. The concept of mother in Indian family system is depicted in the poem. The male writer is 170 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

knowingly or unknowingly associates the sarvam-saha ideology to the female character in the poem. The housewife is expected to tolerate the associated emotional, physical and cultural assaults of the family life. When the male dominated and thus culturally justified society presents motherhood as the best and associates all struggles, and miseries to motherhood, the concept is naturally being transmitted through the culture and religion to the human minds. Even women don’t understand that they are the subject to these inequalities. Moreover, when the male critics analyse the poem, the female character in the poem, night of the scorpion is as described as woman with ill repute as well. The narrator of the poem refers the female character in the poem as his/her mother and the narrator talks about the father as well. So, the woman in the poem, night of the scorpion is presented as a house wife who has a husband and children. So that she would not opt any dirty business for her living. So, when a critic finds the reasons for her sufferings as her prostitution, it can be explained that she might have tried to satisfy her sensual needs. Even though Nissim Ezekiel is not giving any such hints in the poem, and when the critic’s male discourse goes to an extent to associate such a reason for her sufferings, the critic clearly proves the effect of patriarchal domination in the society and how he is being a part of it. 6.6SUMMARY  The poet of ‘Night of the Scorpion’ is Nissim Ezekiel who narrates this poem by remembering his childhood when his mother was bitten by a scorpion. He says that the continuous rain for ten hours had driven the scorpion into the house, where it crawled beneath a sack of rice.  In the dark room, when his mother entered, the scorpion parted the poison into her toe in fraction of seconds and probably went out again. The peasants of the village collected in their house in large numbers like the swarms of flies and buzzed God’s name about hundred times, praying to stop the movements of the scorpion, as they believed that with every movement of the scorpion, the poison would move in the mother’s blood.  So, with the candles and lanterns, they even searched their house to paralyze the evil scorpion. But he was not found. The shadows they formed on the wall, too appeared a scorpion to the poet. The villagers prayed that the scorpion stops, and the sins of mother’s previous birth gets washed away that night or her sufferings might decrease the misfortunes of her next birth.  They said this way the sums of evil might get balanced in this unreal world. They called the world unreal as everything in this world is temporary and births and deaths keep occurring in a cycle. They even prayed to god that the poison purifies her flesh. 171 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

They sat around the mother groaning in pain. There was peace o understanding on each face as they felt that she had approached her end.  The condition was becoming very messy as more neighbours were entering the house with more candles and lanterns, the insects were also increasing and the rain too continued.  The poet’s father being a sceptic and rationalist person tried powders, mixtures and herbs to cure the mother. However, he also tried prayers and blessings as it was a very problematic situation  He poured some paraffin upon the bitten toe and burnt it. The priest was also performing his rites to tame the poison. Finally, after twenty hours, the sting was lost.  The mother, after getting cured, thanked god that the scorpion picked her and spared her children.  Night of the Scorpion is a free verse poem with 8 stanzas and a total of 47 lines. There is no set rhyme scheme. The meter is mixed.  The scorpion is seen by some as an evil force, bringer of pain and hardship and even death. Note the use of the word diabolic as the desperate creature stings the woman and makes off out into the rain.  The peasants are being superstitious and old fashioned, even illiterate, not having moved on in their thinking and culture.  The father meanwhile is just the opposite in the sense that he is a rational, reductive type of person who is unimpressed with the peasants and their mumbo-jumbo. Yet, he resorts to using paraffin on the mother’s toe, setting it alight, not a very scientific response.  The mother perseveres; she is in agony all night but finally triumphs and does not succumb to the venom of the scorpion. For all that time she was unable to utter a word, capable only of groans, until the pain subsided and the relief, she felt gave her the power to sum her experience up: thank goodness it was her who took the sting and not her children, for they probably would not have survived.  “Night of the scorpion” is ordinarily an Indian poem by an Indian writer whose enthusiasm for the Indian soil and its customary human occasions of everyday Indian life is sublime. A decent numerous Indians are ignorant and are indiscriminately superstitious. In any case, they are straightforward, adoring and adorable. They endeavour to spare the casualty by doing whatever they can. Be that as it may, they don’t succeed.  The poem is translated as an emblematic juxtaposition of haziness and light. The night, the scorpion, the toxic substance and the agony speak to dimness. The ceaseless 172 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

rain remains for expectation and recovery. Candles, lamps, neighbours and at last the recuperation of the mother speak to light. The poem can likewise be thought of as emblematic of Good and Insidiousness as well.  Ezekiel uses a simile comparing the villagers to ‘swarms of flies’ (line 8). It is striking that he uses an insect image to describe the people’s reaction to an invertebrate’s sting. He develops the simile int he is following line: ‘they buzzed the name of God’ (line 9). 6.7KEYWORDS  Diabolic: Having the qualities of devil or wicked.  Paralyse: To stop an activity.  Diminished: To lessen; reduce.  Groaning: A mournful sound conveying pain or grief.  Rationalist: A person who believes in reason and knowledge than opinion and belief.  Incantation: The chanting of words claim to have magical power. 6.8LEARNING ACTIVITY 6. Write a critical appreciation of The Night of The Scorpion ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 7. What are the remarkable features of the poetry of Nissim Ezekiels poetry? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 6.9UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions 173 Short Questions 1. Who is the only rational person among the villagers? 2. How is the mother going to be benefited from her suffering? 3. Where was the scorpion hiding before he stung the mother? 4. Why are the peasants buzzing the name of the God? 5. What is the poison going to purify? CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Long Questions 1. Analyze the theme of Night of the Scorpion. 2. What is the theme of Night of the Scorpion? 3. When was Night of the Scorpion written? 4. Why does the poet call the tail of scorpion’ diabolic’ in Night of the Scorpion? 5. Why the scorpion’s tail is called 'diabolic'? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Complete the sentence: The mother was stung by a……. a. Black Ant b. Bee c. Scorpion d. Crab 2. Complete the sentence: The mother was stung on the……. a. Ankle b. Foot c. Toe d. Calf 3. Complete the sentence: The scorpion hid……. in the hut a. Behind the trunk b. Under the cot c. Behind the sack d. Beneath the sack 4. Complete the sentence: The word diabolic tail means………. a. Sacred b. Double edged c. Devilish d. None of these 5. Complete the sentence: The peasants buzzed the name of God……. 174 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

a. To catch the scorpion b. To drive away the scorpion c. To kill the scorpion d. To paralyze the scorpion Answers 1-c, 2-c, 3-d, 4-c, 5-d. 6.10 REFERENCES References:  Ary, Donald, Jacobs, Lucy Cheser, Razavieh, Ashgar and Chris Sorensen. 2006.Introduction to Research in Education. Sydney: Thomson.  Asror, Muhammad Khozinatul. 2011. An Analysis Of Figurative Language On Lyrics Of Maher Zain. Pamulang: Universitas Pamulang.  Bishop, L. 2007. 'A reflexive account of reusing qualitative data: beyond primary/secondary dualism', Sociological Research, Special Section on Reusing Qualitative Data, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/3/2.html. On Thursday, 2nd April 2013, at. 07.45 PM.  Chesteron, G.K. All Slang is Metaphor, and All Metaphor is Poetry. Chapter 16th Figure of Speech.  Dewinda, 2013. Fiction Is Very Reflection of Reality. http://dewinda.com/majasatau- gaya-bahasa/. On, 5th August 2013, at 08.00 PM.  Fussel, Susan R and Moss, Mallie M. 1998. Figurative Language in Emotional Communication. Carnegie Mellon University. http://repository.cmu.edu/hcii/82. Textbooks:  R.Raj Rao. Nissim Ezekiel: the authorised biography (N.D:Penguin Books India, 2000), New Delhi.  Thorat, K.Sandeep, Characteristic Indian Attitude in Nissim Ezekiel’s Poetry, Language in India,Vol.1X, ISSN:1930-2940 - Indernath Kher,’The Message fromAnother shore: The Esthetic Vision of Nissim Ezekiel, Contemporary.  Indian English Verse, 1950 ed.Chiranthan Kulshreshtha (Delhi: Arnold Heinemann,). Websites  ‘Nissim Ezekiel's Night of the Scorpion: Summary & Analysis’. iluenglish.com. iluenglish.com. 175 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 ‘Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel’. englishsummary.com. englishsummary.com.  ‘Commentary on ‘Night of the Scorpion’ by Nissim Ezekiel’. spotbit.com. spotbit.com.  ‘Night of Scorpion – Nissim Ezekiel’. scholarspark.com. scholarspark.com.  ‘I remember the night my mother’. kiddingtown.com. kiddingtown.com.  ‘Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel’. Literary Yog. 176 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT 7: COMPOSITION PART I: SOUNDS OF ENGLISH: CONSONANTS, VOWELS, DIPHTHONGS, STRESS, INTONATION STRUCTURE 7.0 Learning Objective 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Sounds of English 7.3 Consonants 7.4 Vowels 7.5 Diphthongs 7.6 Stress 7.7 Intonation 7.8 Summary 7.9 Keywords 7.10Learning Activity 7.11 Unit End Questions 7.12 References 7.0LEARNING OBJECTIVE After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Differentiate alphabets and phonetics.  Apply the phonetic symbols of different words.  Speak clearly using right stress and intonation.  Apply correct intonation while speaking different types of sentences. 7.1INTRODUCTION In most fields of study, language is thought of principally in terms of the written word, for it is in this form that we usually make permanent records of important ideas. Relatively little attention is spared for something as fleeting and unremarkable as spoken conversation. In linguistics, however, speech, rather than writing, is regarded as more central to human 177 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

language, for several reasons. First, humans have probably used spoken languages for 100,000 years, perhaps longer. Writing is a relatively recent development, only a few thousand years old. Even today, most of the world's 5,000 or so languages have no established writing system. But there is no society which communicates just by writing, without a spoken language. Furthermore, children learn to speak long before they learn to read and write; indeed, learning of spoken language takes place without formal instruction. All languages have two forms, the oral and the written. Words in any spoken language are primarily a combination of various speech sounds. Hence to speak any language the first essential thing is to produce the sounds of that language correctly. In languages such as Hindi, each sound has one letter to represent this in the written form. However, it is not so in the English language. English has 44 sounds but only 26 letters to represent them. Hence various combinations of letters are used to represent these sounds; sometimes the same letter (or a combination of letters) may represent different sounds. For example, the letter ‘c’ represents two different sounds as shown below. 1) ‘C’ as in care, cake and cat (with/k/sound) 2) ‘C’ as in cinema, cell and city (with/s/sound) Therefore, it is not necessary that the written form of the word may match the sound produced by it. This means that the sounds of English language need to be correctly acquired to bring accuracy in our speech. The use of silent letters sometimes complicates pronunciations in English; thus, ‘knife’ and ‘calm’ which contain the silent letters ‘k’ and ‘l’, respectively, are not pronounced the way they are spelt. Further, when we put together the sounds of English to produce continuous speech, we need to pay attention to some other features of English such as stress and intonation patterns, strong and weak forms of words, etc. When we speak sentences in English all words are not pronounced with the same breath force. Some words are spoken strongly with greater breath force while others are spoken relatively weakly. For example: Send him away. Put it in on the table. In the above sentences the highlighted parts of the words are spoken with greater force, while the others are gone through rapidly with less force. Within the same word too, some parts are spoken with more force than others. For example: International, application, teacher, because. In English the varying breath force is called stress while change in the pitch of the voice is called intonation. To be able to communicate accurately and fluently in English the speaker must understand and use these features appropriately. Lessons 1, 2 and 3 deal with the production of the individual sounds of English language. Stress, intonation and other features of connected speech are discussed in lesson 4 of this section. 7.2SOUNDS OF ENGLISH Phonetics Definition Phonetics is a branch of science. It deals with the study of language in one aspect. It deals with sounds. It deals with the production and articulation of speech sounds. The term phonetics is derived from the Greek words ‘phone’ which means ‘voice’ and ‘phoneo’ which 178 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

means ‘I Speak’. In learning and teaching of a foreign language, knowledge of phonetics is very essential for the learner as well as the teacher. Phonology Definition Phonology is derived from the Greek word ‘phone’ which means voice, and ‘logos’ which means study. Phonology deals with the study of sounds. Whereas phonetics deals with sound in general, phonology deals with the sounds of a particular language. Language Definition Language is made up of sounds, but then these sounds are not chosen atrandom or in a haphazard manner. It is an organization of sounds. It is an organized pattern. But the pattern or sequence of sounds in one language need not necessarily mean the same thing in another language. Every language has its own sound system and sound patterning. The Organs of Speech What are active and Passive Articulators? Of the organs of speech some are mobile and flexible (e.g., Tongue, lips). They are called active articulators. Some others do not move but remain rather stationary (e.g., Hard palate, teeth ridge etc.). They are called passive articulators. It must be noted that when one of the active articulators touches the passive articulator, sound is produced. The place of such a contact is called place of articulation or point of articulation. Vocal Cords The vocal cords are small folds of elastic tissues present in the larynx, commonly known as Adam’s apple or sound box. They can be kept apart or held together. When they are kept apart, there is an opening created. This position is known as glottis open. This is the position for our normal breathing. Certain sounds are produced when the vocal cords are held apart. Such sounds are called voiceless or breathed sounds (Egp, s,f, etc.). Some other sounds are produced when the vocal cords are held together. This position is known as glottis closed. While air coming from the lungs, forces its way through the glottis, it causes some vibration. This vibration or buzzing sound is known as voice. Sounds that are produced when the vocal cords are brought together are called voiced sounds e.g., /s/, /z/, /v/, /i: / etc., as in zoo, vine, easy. The Vocal Cords and their Position A sound may be voiced or voiceless. This can be felt by placing the finger on the Adam’s apple while pronouncing a sound. Another test is to close the ears and see whether a buzzing sound – sssss and then another series of z sound – zzzzz is heard. The former will give a hissing sound that is voiceless and the latter a buzzing sound that is voiced. In English, all vowels and nasals are voiced. Of the consonants some are voiced, and some are not. 179 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Palate This is the curved, bony, arch-like structure forming the upper part of the mouth. This is also known as the roof of the mouth. The palate is divided into two parts, namely hard palate and soft palate. The hard palate is immovable. But the soft palate (also known as velum) is mobile. It can be raised or lowered. It acts as a valve in closing and opening the nasal passage of air. When the soft palate is raised, it blocks the nasal passage and the air coming from the lungs through the wind pipe, freely enters the oral passage. Sounds that are produced during this time are called oral sounds. When the soft palette is lowered, it allows the air to pass through the nasal passage also. If we close our lips at this time, the oral passage (also known as vocal tract) is closed. During this time, the nasal sounds like /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ as in mum, nun, king are produced. This is the position for humming and breathing. Sometimes, the soft palate is lowered so as to allow the air to escape through the nose and the mouth. Then nasalized vowels as heard in French words enfant /afa/, bon /b/ are produced. Tongue The tongue is the most mobile of the organs of speech. It can move forwards, backwards, upwards, and sideways within the mouth. It can be made to touch any part of the mouth. During the production of vowels, the tongue plays a vital role. It is raised towards the palate or lowered but it does not touch any part within the mouth. If it is touches or rubs against any part within the mouth, then the sound produced will no more be a vowel but a consonant. The following diagram shows the various parts of the tongue involved in the production of sounds Lips The lips also play an important role in the production of speech sounds. It is the lips that determine the quality of the vowels. The quality of the vowels changes according to the various positions the lips take. The lips are spread, when we pronounce sounds like i: as in bee or neutral as in pen or open rounded as in pot or close rounded as in pool. The following figures show the various positions of lips. Teeth Some sounds are produced with the help of the teeth. For instance, the blade of the tongue makes a light contact with the inner surface of the upper incisors for producing sounds as heard in thanks and father. Such sounds are called dentals. Teeth Ridge This is also known as alveolar Ridge. This is just behind the upper row of teeth. This part is rather rough. When the tongue touches this part certain sounds like /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/ as in tame, dame, nut, lake, son, zoo, are produced. Such sounds are like alveolar. In the English alphabet there are 26 letters, but these letters produce 44 sounds. For this reason, one letter is used to produce more than one sound. In order to know the correct pronunciation certain 180 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

symbols denoting these sounds have been devised and standardized. By learning these symbols, you will be able to find the correct pronunciation of any word in a standard dictionary. These symbols will also help you to go through the book with guidance for correct pronunciation of words and conversations. These sounds are classified into two types: Figure 7.1: The sounds of English What is a Vowel Sound? There are only 5 vowel letters in English (a, e,i,o,u), but the sounds indicated by these 5 letters are 20. A vowel sound is produced when the air comes out of the mouth freely without any blockage or closure in the mouth cavity by the tongue, teeth, lips, etc. The vowel sounds are of two types: Single Vowel Sounds: When these sounds are produced, the tongue remains in the same position even when the sound is prolonged. They consist of one sound only and are called pure vowels as in ‘sit’, ‘pot’, ‘heat’, etc. (the underlined letters indicate the single vowel sounds) Double Vowel Sounds: These vowel sounds are a combination of two single vowel sounds and in pronouncing them the tongue moves from one position to another. For instance, in the word ‘light’ the sound of ‘i’ is a combination of the vowel sounds /a:/ as in ‘art’ and /i/ as in ‘it’. The words ‘hair’, ‘toy’ and ‘poor’ also contain double vowel sounds. You will find that sometimes two vowel letters may produce a single vowel sound as in ‘heat’, whereas a single vowel letter may produce a double vowel sound as in ‘light’ explained above. What is a Consonant Sound? A consonant sound is one in which the air stream coming out of the lungs is modified in the mouth cavity by some blockage created by the tongue, lips, etc. When you say the sound of 181 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

‘p’ as in ‘pen’ a blockage is created in the outgoing breath by closing both the lips and thus, a consonant sound is produced. Organs of Speech In order to know how to produce the various sounds of English correctly, you must be familiar with the speech organs that are used to produce them. The English speech sounds are produced with the help of different organs or parts of the mouth. These are lips, teeth, teeth ridge, tongue, the roof of the mouth cavity (consisting of the hard palate and the soft palate at the back), uvula (the soft hanging part at the extreme end of the roof of the mouth), vocal cords (two muscle strips placed horizontally at the top of the windpipe). The tip of the tongue moves up to touch the teeth ridge and create a blockage for air which comes out from both sides of the tongue to produce the sound ‘l’ The vocal cords vibrate to produce a buzzing sound which is also called the ‘voiced sound’ for example, the sound of the letter ‘j’ in the word ‘jam’ (phonetic symbol /dʒ/). Some other voiced sounds are /b/, /j/, /g/, /v/, /z/, etc. The other type of sounds where the vocal cords do not vibrate are called voiceless sounds e.g., /p/, /t/, /f/, /s/, etc. You can feel the difference between the two types of sounds by touching your throat and feeling the presence or absence of vibrations in voiced and voiceless sounds, respectively. See the figures given below and notice the production of the voiceless sound /f/ and the voiced sound /v/. 7.3CONSONANTS You can break consonants into two major categories – those that can go on for as long as physically possible and those that stop the sound. If I say the V sound or the S sound, for example, I can continue indefinitely – VVVVV or SSSSS. We call these sounds ‘continuants’ because the sound can continue as long as we want it to. Vowels are also continuants, and we lengthen vowel sounds when we stress them. In English, generally we don’t lengthen consonants but sometimes we do, for example MMMMM when something is delicious.:) The other category is the opposite of continuants. These are called ‘stops’ because they stop the sound. Examples of these are P, D and K. If one of these sounds appears in a word, the sound will briefly stop at that point. An example of this is the difference in the pronunciation of ROSE vs ROADS. We will often have stops in words that are heard simply because they stop the sound rather than being pronounced clearly. The difference between the sound SH and CH is that CH starts with a stop (often written as TSH.) We can also categorize consonants based on other characteristics. Does the sound go through the nose, as with N or M? Does it create friction – vibration caused by contact between the air 182 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

and some part of the mouth – such as with Z or F? Does it come very close to a point of articulation without creating friction nor going through the nose, such as L or Y? Pronouncing Vowels and Consonants Clearly is Just the Beginning While pronouncing the individual a sound is important, learning to put everything together and communicate effectively – and not like a robot - is a work of creation, a work of art. How I link the sounds, adjust the volume, lengthen the vowel, vary the speed, group the words, etc. - these are all elements of ‘prosody.’ I call prosody the ‘music of the language’ because language uses so many musical elements to give expression to what we say. Without these, we would sound like a robot – everything even and flat. In contrast, we vary the volume and speed at which we speak, the pitch - the height of the sound, the phrasing – what we group together and how we use intonation to indicate the phrase, etc. Consonant Sounds This list describes the consonant sounds of English. Read the examples aloud and also note the various possible spellings of each sound Dictionary Symbol International Example word(s) Phonetic Alphabet Stops (sounds you cannot hold) p p pink b b boy t t tall d d dog 183 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

ch tʃ chair j dʒ jump, giant car, kite, quit kk girl gg fun, phone van Fricatives (sounds you can hold) thanks these ff sun zoo vv shine th θ dh or th ð ss zz sh ʃ 184 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

zh ʒ measure **never occurs at the beginning of a word Nasals m m man n ng n nice Other ŋ king **never occurs at the beginning h of a word l r h happy y l love w ɹ run j yellow w water 185 Table 7.1: Consonant Sounds in English CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

7.4VOWELS The vowels we use in English depend upon where we come from. They differ considerably between native English accents and are a key sign of where we have learned to speak the language. I like to break vowels down into three groups – those with no movement, those with movement and the ‘lazy vowel.’ When we explore vowels, remember we are looking at pronunciation, not spelling. We have 5 vowel letters – A, E, I, O and U – and Y is also sometimes considered a vowel. But these are letters. We have many more vowel sounds than letters in English. In a neutral North American accent, examples of vowels with no movement include the A sound in BLACK, or the E sound in RED. We can also call these ‘simple vowels.’ While I may pronounce them somewhat differently depending upon where I was raised, they are still pronounced as one sound. Examples of vowels with movement – also called ‘diphthongs’ or ‘complex vowels’– are the O in ROSE and the A in GRAY (also spelt GREY.) The ROSE vowel is really OW – you can see the lips round at the end of the vowel. You don’t see the W in the spelling (as you can in the word LOW) but the sound is there. The GRAY vowel sound is really EY – you can feel the back of the tongue rise into the Y sound. In this case, you do see the Y but often it is not there in the spelling, as in the word GRADE. Some people don’t move enough on the vowels which creates a lazy sound, making it difficult to really understand which vowel is being used. Often simply increasing the movement of these diphthongs will make the speech considerably clearer. Vowels are important because, in English, we stress vowels rather than consonants. And there is always one primary stress in a word. If that word is stressed, then that vowel needs to be pronounced clearly to have clear diction. But when a vowel has no stress, we often replace it with the lazy vowel – technically called the ‘schwa,’ the reduced vowel – which is the most common vowel sound in English. When we don’t stress a simple vowel, and sometimes a complex vowel, it is reduced – its pronunciation is not so important and reducing it is what creates a more natural English rhythm. (I have created a 5-part video series on the schwa so stay tuned.) It can be difficult to illustrate the schwa in writing. It is often written as UH. For example, the word PHOTOGRAPH can be annotated as FOW-TUH-GRAF. In this case, the vowel in the first syllable is stressed and therefore clears (as in ROSE) and the final syllable also has some stress and is pronounced like the A in BLACK. But when we add the suffix Y (PHOTOGRAHY,) the stress shifts and the second syllable gets the stress, annotated as FUH- TAA-GRUH-FEE. You can see there are now 2 schwas in the word which replace the full vowel sounds used in the first example. 186 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Learning what to reduce and how to do it can be difficult for people who have native languages that are syllable-based rather than stress-based. (More on this in the upcoming video series.) But once mastered, your English will sound more local and flow more easily. The chart illustrates all the vowel sounds of English. North International Example word Example word(s) American Phonetic with main with alternate Dictionary Alphabet spelling spellings Symbol Short a a æ hat rain, say, steak, Long a ā ei hate they, eight, vein, straight ɛ pet Short e e i: Pete bread, said Long e ē ɪ kit ɑi kite meet, meat, chief, he, ɑ hop key, sunny ou hope Short i i myth Long i ī lied, wild, night, height, fly Short o o fraud, law, talk, father, fought, taught Long o ō toe, boat, most, grow, though, soul Short u u u cut touch, some, about 187 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Long u ū ɪu: cute cue, pupil, few Short oo oo ʊ book Long oo ōō u: boot would, bush blue, new, suit, flute, soup, shoe, do, through oy oy oi boy boil ow ow ɑu cow out, drought ir ir ɹ bird turn, work, syrup, dollar, faster, learn Table 7.2: Vowel sounds in English Types of Vowel Sounds You have read in the previous lesson that there are essentially two kinds of vowel sounds: pure or single vowels and diphthongs or double vowels. The pure vowel sounds are further divided into short and long vowels. Production of Vowel Sounds For producing the vowel sounds you have to keep two things in mind: (a) The shape of the lips and (b) The part of the tongue raised (a) The Shape of the Lips The shape of the lips changes while producing different vowels. The basic shapes are spread, rounded and neutral. (b) The Parts of the Tongue For producing different vowel sounds, the front, centre and back of the tongue move forward, backward, up or down. Vowels and its Classification The five letters a, e, i, o, u are the vowel letters, and we get 20 vowel sounds from these 5 vowel letters. These 20 vowels are further divided in two parts 188 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

1. Monophthongs (12) 2. Diphthongs (8) 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs are 20 vowel sounds.Monophthongs are also called pure vowels as they have single sound in their pronunciation. There is no shift or glide from one sound to another sound while we pronounce these vowels. The position of our tongue and mouth remains the same when we pronounce these vowel sounds. 12 Monophthongs are further dividing in two parts Long vowels (5) and short vowels (7). These are the symbols for long vowels with various examples to understand their pronunciation /a:/ Palm/pa:m/,Calm/ka:m/,Cart/ka:t/ /u:/ Cool/ku:l/,Fool/fu:l/,Food/fu:d/ /ɔː/ Cause/kɔːz/,Call/kɔːl/,all/ɔːl/ /i:/ Read/ri:d/,Seat/si:t/,Wheat/wi:t/ /ɜː/ Earn/ɜːn/, Learn/lɜːn/,Turn/tɜːn/ The two dots with these symbols denote longer pronunciation. These sounds are pronounced in longer way that is why they are called Long vowels. Short Vowels These vowels are not pronounced in longer way. They are called short vowels. These are the symbols for short vowels with various examples with phonetic transcription to understand the pronunciation for the sounds in a better way. / ə / about /əbaʊt/,ago/əgəʊ/,letter/letə/ / i / pit /pit/,sit /sit/,kit /kit/ / ʌ / mud /mʌd/,bus /bʌs/,cup /kʌp/, shut /ʃʌt/ / ɒ / lot /lɒt /,cot /kɒt/,dot /dɒt/,pot /pɒt/ /e/ bed/bed/,head /hed/,red /red/, get /get/ /ʊ/ foot /fʊt/,good /gʊd/,cook /kʊk/, look /lʊk/ /æ / bad /bæd/,cat /kæt/,mat /mæt/, rat /ræt/ Monophthongs are further classified as Front Vowels, Back Vowels and Central vowels. Front Vowels Symbols Examples 189 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

i: Feel I Fill e Set æ Sat Back Vowels Symbols Examples a: Car ɒ Pot ɔː Caught ʊ Put u: Pool Central Vowels Symbols Examples ʌ Cut ɜː Bird ə ago Each sound is different from the other. Hence an attempt to sub-classify the vowels is evident. To describe a vowel three criteria are considered. They are called as three term label. 1. Part of the tongue used during articulation 2. Height of the tongue during articulation 3. Position of lips during articulation When vowel sounds are articulated the tongue remains in a particular position. The joining lines give a rather funny shape. This figure indicates the vowel area in the mouth. When vowel sounds are articulated for any language, the tongue (front, centre, back) should fall somewhere within this area. 7.5DIPHTHONGS Diphthongs are the combination of two different vowel sounds that come together to create a distinct, new sound. Some common diphthongs include: /oi/, /oo/, and /ow/. Notice that the vowel sounds may look like a combination of vowel and consonant. Our first example, /oi/, 190 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

isn’t always spelled like oi in words. You can, however, hear this in the word soil or foil. But you can also hear how this diphthong sounds in the word toy. Notice how these words all make the same vowel combination sound /oi/. /oo/ is a diphthong you’ll often see as is. Think of words that have oo as their vowels. Wood, book, food, and foot! It’s important to notice that the double o combination sounds different than the o would by itself. On the other hand, /ow/ is a diphthong that can be spelled quite differently. Some words that come to mind are now, how, and house. This diphthong makes a sound that you would make when you stub your toe: ow! There are quite a few more diphthongs, but just like digraphs, there are many combinations. Some important ones include: /ew/, /aw/, and /au/. The more often you encounter digraphs and diphthongs, the more often you’ll get accustomed to how they are supposed to sound out loud. This might be the toughest episode yet that we’ve done on Phonics, simply because it’s a combination of our first two episodes. Don’t worry if you don’t yet understand it! You can try playing our FactSumo decks, or you can go back and study the other episodes. Above all, make sure to keep practicing and studying with FactSumo! We firmly believe that with confidence through practice, anything is possible. In addition to simple vowels, many languages include diphthongs, where we move our articulators while producing the vowel. This gives the sound a different a different shape at the end from how it begins. The word diphthong comes from the Greek word for ‘two sounds’. There are three major diphthongs in English that have quite a noticeable change in the quality of the vowel sound. Say these English words out loud: fly, tie, ride, smile. Now make the vowel sound [aɪ] again but hold it at the beginning [aaa]. The first part of the sound is the low front [a], but then the tongue moves up quickly at the end of the sound, ending it [ɪ]. So, the [aɪ] sound is a diphthong, and it gets transcribed with two consecutive symbols: [aɪ]. In the words now, loud, brown, the tongue again starts low and front [a], and then it moves high and to the back of the mouth, and the lips get rounded too! The second part of this diphthong is but the high back rounded [ʊ]. The [aʊ] diphthong is transcribed like this: [aʊ]. The third major diphthong in English occurs in words like toy, boil, and coin. It starts with the tongue at the back of the mouth and lips rounded [ɔ], then moves to the front with lips unrounded. It is transcribed like this: [ɔɪ]. Some linguists also consider the vowel sound in cue and few to be a diphthong. In this case, the vowels sound starts with the glide [j] and then moves into the vowel [u]. In addition to these major English diphthongs, speakers of Canadian English also tend to turn the mid-tense vowels into diphthongs. 191 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

For example, let’s look at the pair of vowels [e] and [ɛ] from the words gate and get. They’re both mid, front, unrounded vowels, but [e] is tense – it’s made with greater tension in the muscles of the vocal tract than [ɛ]. Canadian English speakers pronounce the lax vowel in get as a simple vowel [ɡɛt], but for the tense vowel, we tend to move the tongue up at the end: [ɡeɪt]. We do it so systematically that it’s very hard for us to hear it, but it’s always there. We do the analogous thing for the mid-back vowel [o] like in show and toe: at the end of the [o] vowel, the tongue moves up a little bit, so we produce the vowel as [oʊ]. Notice that the lips are rounded for both parts of this diphthong. To sum up, a diphthong is a vowel sound that involves movement of the tongue from one position to another. Nearly all dialects of English include the three major diphthongs [aɪ], [aʊ], and [ɔɪ]. These ones are called the major diphthongs because they involve large movements of the tongue. In Canadian English, speakers also regularly produce diphthongs for the tense vowels, [eɪ] and [oʊ], but not all English dialects do this. Some linguists consider these ones to be minor diphthongs. A diphthong is two vowel sounds that glide together and become like one long vowel, taking up only one syllable together. In some languages this doesn’t occur, and adjacent vowels must form two syllables (often separated by a ‘glottal stop,’ which is like a catch in the throat). Some languages only allow diphthongs in special positions such as the end of a word. It is uncommon to have as many diphthongs, or the same diphthongs, as we have in English. Students learning English will often either:  Shorten them (like saying ‘kek’ for ‘cake’).  Split them into two short sounds.  So, if your students are having difficulties with diphthongs:  Make sure your students are aware of which two sounds make up the diphthong. This is clear from the chart, but not always obvious from the spelling of the words.  Help your students to blend the two sounds smoothly together, and don’t worry if the sound seems a bit long. They will only occur in stressed syllables when a lengthened vowel sound is acceptable. Make a fun activity of practicing long diphthong sounds. First of all,let’s look at /ɪə/. This is a combination of /ɪ/ and /ə/, but it’s pronounced within one syllable, /ɪə/. The /ɪ/ sound is on the top row of the vowels section of the phonetic chart and the /ə/ is on the second 192 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

row. The main physical difference between the sounds on the top row and the sounds on the second row is that your mouth should be a little more open for the second-row sounds. So, as you say/ɪə/, you mouth should open a little. Starting on the /ɪ/ and finishing on the/ə/, /ɪə/ As in the words.  Year  Here  Really Let’s look at the next one. This is a combination of /ʊ/ and /ə/, /ʊə/. Again, your mouth should open a little as you go from the first sound to the second sound. Starting on the /ʊ/ and finishing on the /ə/. /ʊə/. As in the words.  Hour  Security  and During The next sound is a combination of /e/ and /ə/, /eə/. This time both the vowels are on the same row, so the mouth does not open, the main difference is the shape of our lips and the origin of the sound in our throat. Starting on the /e/ and finishing on the/ə/, /eə/. As in the words.  There  Where  Parent Moving onto the second column, now each sound ends with the vowel sound /ɪ/, although sometimes the sound is longer like /i:/, It is somewhere between the two, it depends on the word. When we say the diphthongs sound in isolation, we will normally say it like the longer form. They  point I The first sound in this column is/eɪ/ which is a combination of /e/ and /ɪ/ or /i:/. This time we need to close our mouth a little as we say the sound. /eɪ/. As in the words.  They  Say  Make 193 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The next sound is point/ɔɪ/ which is a combination of /ɔ:/ and /ɪ/ or /i:/. They are on different rows again, but the shape of our lips and the position of our tongue also change a lot because we are going from the right all the way to the left. Going from rounded lips or to unrounded. Starting on the/ɔ:/ and finishing on the /ɪ/ or /i:/: /ɔɪ/. As in the words.  Point  Boy  Oil The next sound is /aɪ/ which is a combination of /æ/ and /ɪ/ or /i:/. Now we are going from the bottom row to the top, so our mouth starts wide open and closes as we say the sound. Starting on the /æ/ and finishing on the/ɪ/ or /i:/. As in the words. I  By  Time The next sound is /əʊ/ which is a combination of/ə/ and /ʊ/ or the longer /u:/. The main difference here is the shape of the lips, rounding a little as we say the sound. Starting on the /ə/ and finishing on the /ʊ/ or /u:/ sound. As in the words.  Go  Know  Only The last of the diphthongs that we are going to look at is /aʊ/ which is a combination of /æ/ and /ʊ/ or the longer /u:/. Now our mouth is closing, and the shape of the lips is changing at the same time, rounding a little as we say the sound. Starting on the have and finishing on the would or /ʊ/ or /u:/. As in the words.  Out  How  Down So that is all the diphthongs. Thanks for watching. I hope you found it useful. If you have any questions or comments get in touch. 7.6STRESS Stress refers to the emphasis laid on specific syllables of a word or a specific word in a sentence. This highlights that there are two types as word stress and sentence stress. Word stress is when we pronounce a particular syllable with more emphasis or force in comparison 194 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

to the other syllables. For example, let us take the word ‘garden’. As we pronounce it, the stress is on ‘gar’, and the rest are unstressed. Sentence stress, on the other hand, refers to a particular word that is given prominence in comparison to the rest of the words. For example, when we say: It was awesome. The main stress is laid on the word ‘awesome‘. This highlights that the stress can be used to emphasize a particular fact in a sentence or else to bring out the meaning. Syllable Stress Incorrect stress is not only uncomfortable, but it changes the meaning of words. In some languages, syllable stress is almost irrelevant to meaning. However, in English, changing the stress can change the meaning of a word and the grammatical structure of a whole sentence. For example:  Desert, desert, dessert: These are three different words, with the same consonants and vowels, but the stress changes the meaning.  Permit, permit: These two words are clearly related in meaning. However, the first one is a noun (a piece of paper) and the second one is a verb (the action of allowing something). There are many other words like this. While native speakers of English can generally understand a word even when the stress is misplaced, it can be very uncomfortable or confusing to listen to. With long words in English which have added prefixes and suffixes, the stress often changes from the base word. This can also change the vowel sounds as they move from stressed to unstressed syllables. For example:  Photo, photographer, photography, photographic. *Note: Notice how the’o’ sound changes quality (from a diphthong as in ‘show’ to a simple vowel sound as in ‘on’) depending on whether or not it is in the stressed syllable. This can be very confusing for language learners and distressing when they are faced with reading aloud a text which contains a number of long multi-syllable words. There are some rules (although they naturally also have exceptions) which you can teach your students to practice and increase their confidence in saying long words. For example:  Stress falls on the third-last syllable in words ending in a consonant plus ‘y’ (but not ‘-ly’).  Stress falls on the third-last syllable in words ending in ‘-ize.’  Stress falls on the third-last syllable in words ending in ‘-ate.’  Stress falls on the syllable just before ‘-ic’ or ‘-tion’/’-sion’/’-cion’/’-xion’ 195 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Although learning these rules may not help students at the moment when they are about to say a word, if they are preparing themselves to read something aloud, they can practice new words until they are familiar with them. Sentence Stress English is generally considered to be a stress-timed language. While for linguistic purists this is not hard and fast, it does demonstrate an important difference in English compared to other languages which are syllable-timed. What it means is that the number of important words in a sentence will determine how long it takes to say the sentence, rather than the overall number of words. The little, unimportant words are mumbled through quickly in between the important words. So, for example, the following sentences all have the same important words (in capital letters), and adding in the other words/syllables does not make the sentence any longer when spoken:  SAM LIVES in a NICE, OLD HOUSE.  SAM LIVES in a LOVEly, OLD HOUSE.  SAM’s been LIVing in a deLIGHTful, OLD HOUSE.  SAM’ll be LIVing in a deLIGHTful, VicTORian cotTAGE. In each of these sentences there are five stressed syllables, and so they essentially take the same time to say. Try clicking your fingers to the beat as you say the stressed syllables. Secondly, in English, the deeper meaning behind a statement is in the stress. Exactly the same sentence can hold a different meaning depending on how it is stressed. Take this sentence for example:  HAVE you seen my new red car? (Really? Have you actually seen it?)  Have YOU seen my new red car? (Because everyone else has seen it.)  Have you SEEN my new red car? (You’ve heard about it, but have you seen it?)  Have you seen MY new red car? (There are lots of cars out there, this one is mine.)  Have you seen my NEW red car? (Yes, I had one before, this is my new one.)  Have you seen my new RED car? (I have several new cars; this is my red one!)  Have you seen my new red CAR? (It matches my other red toys.) Students can have great fun dramatizing these sentences. Ask your students to try stressing the right syllables in these sentences to get the correct meaning: 196 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 David stole the money, not Mike. (Stress ‘David’ and ‘not.’)  David stole the money. He didn’t have permission to take it. (Stress ‘stole.’)  I haven’t seen the film, but David has. (Stress ‘I’ and ‘David.’)  David stole the money. He didn’t touch the jewelry. (Stress ‘money.’)  Mike’s birthday is on the 28th, not the 24th. (Stress ‘8th.’) 7.7INTONATION As we express our thoughts, the way in which our voice changes as the pitch rises and falls allows the others to understand our stance of various things. This is referred to as intonation. Intonation consists of tone units and a pitch range. Tone units refer to the phrases that we divide as we speak. In each tone unit, there is a combination of rise and fall of the pitch. Pitch range, on the other hand, focuses specifically on the highs and lows of the pitch. This allows us to understand how a person feels about a certain thing through the manner in which he expresses it. For example, let us take a very ordinary occurrence. You trust him. You trust him. With the change of the pitch, this can express different meanings such as disbelief, satisfaction, acknowledgement, etc. So, intonation assists in effective communication through the rise and fall of the voice. If people spoke in the same pitch without any changes, it would certainly be very difficult to grasp the exact meaning. Although not a tonal language (like Chinese, for example), English has a particularly musical intonation, going generally higher and lower than others. Listening to a native English speaker trying to speak another language and using English intonation can send speakers of that language into fits of laughter. So, when they try to use English intonation, they actually feel a little embarrassed and often end up sounding rather flat! The theory of English intonation is complicated, and not really necessary to learn to develop good intonation skills. It’s better to use immersion and get students to listen to and copy as much natural English speaking as possible—including the intonation. The high point, or peak syllable, comes at the end of an utterance, so this is where the drama happens. When focusing on the intonation for a particular sentence, always start at the back end. For example: The sentence is: ‘Making my own pancakes every day is such a chore!’ Try saying it with attitude! 197 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

In this case the peak syllable is ‘chore,’ so the pitch here should be high. Also ‘such’ should be high, as well as maybe ‘own’ and ‘every.’ Now to practice:  ‘…chore!’  ‘… such a chore!’  ‘… every day is such a chore!’  ‘… my own pancakes every day is such a chore!’  ‘Making my own pancakes every day is such a chore!’ 7.8SUMMARY  Phonetics is the study of human sounds and phonology is the classification of the sounds within the system of a particular language or languages.  Phonetics is divided into three types according to the production (articulatory), transmission (acoustic) and perception (auditive) of sounds.  Three categories of sounds must be recognized at the outset: phones (human sounds), phonemes (units which distinguish meaning in a language), allophones (non- distinctive units).  Sounds can be divided into consonants and vowels. The former can be characterized according to 1) place, 2) manner of articulation and 3) voice (voiceless or voiced). For vowels a coordinate system called a vowel quandrangle, within which actual vowel values are located, is used.  Phonotactics deals with the combinations of sounds possible and where sounds can occur in a syllable.  The major structure for the organization of sounds is the syllable. It consists of an onset (beginning), a rhyme (everything after the beginning) which can be sub- divided into a nucleus (vowel or vowel-like centre) and a coda (right-edge).  Prosody is concerned with features of words and sentences above the level of individual sounds, e.g., stress, pitch, intonation. Stress is frequently contrastive in English.  The unstressed syllables of English show characteristic phonetic reduction and words containing this are called weak forms.  It is essential to distinguish between writing and sound. There are various terms (homophony, homography, homonymy) to characterize the relationship between the 198 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

written and the spoken form of words depending on what the match between the two is like.  Phonetics is the study of the range of sounds which occur in speech, including the way they are produced by the speech organs and their acoustic properties.  Phonology is the study of the distribution of and the relationships between speech sounds, i.e., the system of sounds of a language.  Pronunciation is the way of producing a spoken word, especially so that it is accepted or generally understood.  Rhythm is the speed and cadence of how you say a sentence. So, some beginner students might say – each - word- in – a - sentence - at - the - same - speed and sound a little like a robot. Developing different speeds and know when to slow down and speed up can give your spoken English more interest.  Intonation is the ‘music’ of the language. Often questions can be asked with a rising intonation where the pitch goes up. This might be a genuine question to which you don’t know the answer. ‘John’s still on holiday?’ said with a rising pitch means it’s a question which needs answering. If it’s said without a rising intonation,it’s information that you already know, and you may just need confirmation. Intonation can also show emotions like surprise etc.  Stress is saying a syllable or part of a word more strongly and can be at word level. RECord is the noun for example of an athletics world record perhaps, whilst reCORD is what you do to a song when you copy it onto a CD. 7.9 KEYWORDS  Larynx: The valve at the top of the trachea, the source of voicing.  Lateral: Produced with lowering of the side(s) of the tongue.  Manner of articulation: The degree of obstruction of airflow involved in a given consonant.  Mid: Produced with the tongue body neither high nor low.  Minimalpair: Two words with different meanings, which are identical except for the phonetic distinction in question, used to establish the phonemic status of the phonetic distinction.  Vocaltract: The lungs, throat, mouth and nose, particularly as used in speech.  Voicing: Pulsing of air in the glottis as it passes through the vibrating larynx.  Vowel: Sounds produced without significant obstruction of airflow in the vocal tract. 199 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 Well-formed: Obeying the phonological rules of the language.  Articulator: An organ of the vocal tract used in speech production.  Basic form: The form of a stem (or prefix/suffix) prior to undergoing any alternations.  Bilabial: Produced with the two lips 7.10LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. What is the difference between stress and intonation? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. How does phonetics help in learning language? ___________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 7.11UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. Define ‘Stress’. 2. Define Intonation. 3. Write about importance of word stress. 4. Write the vowel symbols in phonetics. 5. Write about the segregation of English phonetic symbols. Long Questions 1. Analyze the difference between stress and intonation. 2. Explain stress in detail, along with 5 examples. 3. How intonation differs for different types of sentences? 4. Explain phonetics with examples. 5. What is the importance of phonetics in English? Explain in detail? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Identify the correct option for the following sentence: All English words have primary or secondary _______. 200 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)