[2] The plot entwines four young men of differing ethnic make-up: Santinathan is a Tamil, Guan Kheng a Chinese, Sabran a Malay and Peter D'Almeida a Eurasian.
A distinctive feature of Scorpion Orchid lies in fourteen italicized passages of varying length, drawn from traditional Malayan texts and interwoven into the narrative.
In a political sense, the novel can be read as a critique on state propagated multicultural pluralism reflected in the differences on race and culture that eventually separated four main characters.
Akin to this is the exploration of identity that each of the young men challenge through, facing questions on their ethnicity and its place on their lives.
[3] Being a text charged with meaning, the use of English to narrate Scorpion Orchid is used to highlight the fallacy of its neutrality amongst the historical colonial conflict within the storyline.