Both of the animals act differently and therefore serve different purposes in their respective poems. In ‘Night of the Scorpion’, the scorpion causes pain to the speaker’s mother and it is this pain, and the people in the poem’s reactions to the pain, that is dealt with. In ‘Vultures’ however, the vultures are used as metaphors to show that even evil things can love.
‘Night of the Scorpion’ is a poem that deals mostly with someone else’s pain, whereas the poem ‘Vultures’ deals with a person who is causing pain. ‘Night of the Scorpion’ involves the speaker in the poem, recalling an incident in which his mother was stung by a scorpion, whilst ‘Vultures’ deals with a Nazi officer who has been killing people. Both poems also deal with infection, in ‘Night of the Scorpion’ the mother has been infected with a scorpion’s venom, and this is coursing through her veins, and in ‘Vultures’, a “Daddy” has been infected with evil and has become a Nazi officer, not thinking twice about killing someone.
In ‘Night of the Scorpion’, the people in the poem are trying to free the mother from evil, and attempt get rid of it by trying all sorts of odd cures. In ‘Vultures’, evil is being spread, by both the Nazi officer and by the vultures, and it seems that no action is being taken to try and stop them.
Both ‘Night of the Scorpion’ and ‘Vultures’ can be interpreted in a symbolic way. In ‘Night of the Scorpion’, the mother suffers terribly because of a scorpion and because of the supposed ‘cures’ she is given. After all the pain that she goes through at the end of the poem she says:
“Thank God the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.”
This shows how much the mother loves her children and can be interpreted as showing how self-sacrificing mothers are; she is willing to go through such a large ordeal, just for her offspring’s sake. In ‘Vultures’ the metaphor of the vulture couple shows how even evil people, who do terrible things, are capable of love and tenderness:
“A vulture…
nestled close to his
mate his smooth
bashed-in head…
inclined affectionately
to hers.”
There is another display of love as well as this one by the vultures. Later on we are told about a Nazi commandant who “with fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils” stops on his way home to buy chocolate for “his tender offspring”.
The poems also deal with affection. In ‘Vultures’ we are shown how even evil people are capable of affection, there are two vulture mates “nestled close” in the first part of the poem and in the second part, a Nazi officer is shown buying sweets for his child, and at home is called “Daddy”.
Both poems although they have similar moods for the most part, end in different ways. Throughout ‘Night of the Scorpion’, there is a quite a dark mood, the speaker feels powerless because he is unable to help his suffering mother, and that he is merely an observer. Throughout ‘Vultures’ there is also a dark mood, you are told about the ugly vultures and are given lots of gory imagery:
“Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the
things in its bowel.”
This violent imagery reinforces the sense of evil you get about the vultures. This imagery is also similar to the imagery in ‘Night of the Scorpion’ mainly because this is about suffering, death and dying. In ‘Vultures’, however, the person is already dead, whereas in the other poem the mother is dying and suffering. At the end of ‘Vultures’, the “perpetuity of evil” is mentioned, this is quite pessimistic and shows that evil is never going to go away. At the end of ‘Night of the Scorpion’ however, the mother is cured:
“After twenty hours
it lost its sting.”
She survives and is now free of suffering and pain, without even any regrets that she was the one who was bitten.
