What are the metaphors used in the poem "Night of the Scorpion"? Please identify all of them and include a detailed description.

As
another reviewer stated, "Night of the Scorpion" is not heavy on metaphors. There is
moreand descriptive detail in the way Nissim Ezekiel presents the anecdote of a scorpion
stinging his mother and the way the community reacted as she was poisoned and then eventually
freed of the poison.

Still, you could argue that some of the poet's
descriptions of the scorpion are metaphorical, as they are not literal. For example, Ezekiel
writes,

Parting with his poisonflash
of diabolic
tail in the dark room
he risked the rain again.

The peasants came
like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse
the Evil One.

In these stanzas, the scorpion has a
"diabolical tale" and is referred to as "the Evil One." These phrases
indicate that the poet and the community see this scorpion as Satan incarnate. In the second of
these stanzas, we see more figurative language in the description of "The peasants."
They are compared to "flies" as they "buzzed" against the evil scorpion's
power by invoking God. The poet uses "like" to state this comparison, though, so it is
arather than a .

Generally speaking, the act of trying to heal the poet's
mother from the scorpion's poison is presented as a sort of ritualistic cleansing. At the end of
the poem, the mother's final thought after being cleansed of the poison is to "Thank God
the scorpion picked on [her] / And spared [her] children." This final stanza implies that
the mother's experience is a metaphor for or a symbol of her love for her children and the
sacrifices she is willing to make for their well-being.