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The narrator of the story is an adult reflecting on a period in her life after a major operation at 14 years old. After she rushes to the hospital in the middle of the night during a snowstorm, the doctor removes her appendix and a mysterious lump. At the time, the narrator’s family does not mention the possibility of cancer. After the operation, the narrator experiences an inability to sleep and dark, violent thoughts toward her sister, Catherine. To combat these thoughts, the narrator walks around the family’s property at night. Once she confesses these thoughts to her father, whose response is nonchalant, she feels better. Ultimately, through her struggle with the unconscious and insomnia, the narrator undergoes a coming-of-age journey and the story demonstrates a pivotal moment in her young life.
Narrator Quotes in Night
The Night quotes below are all either spoken by Narrator or refer to Narrator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Night Quotes
When I was young, there seemed to be never a childbirth, or a burst appendix, or any other drastic physical event that did not occur simultaneously with a snowstorm.
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This is the first line of the story. Just in the first sentence, Munro introduces urgency into the story by invoking both medical and weather emergencies. The narrator, who is an adult woman looking back on a particular time in her childhood, connects the unpredictability and inevitability of the snowstorm with that of illness. Humans are relatively powerless to prevent the sometimes catastrophic effects of issues such as snowstorms and illness. This feeling of powerlessness in the face of the unpredictable aspects of life is essential to understand the narrator’s existential journey in the story. After her appendectomy, the narrator’s Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde
The thought of cancer never entered my head and she never mentioned it. I don’t think there could be such a revelation today without some kind of question, some probing about whether it was or wasn’t. Cancerous or benign—we would want to know at once.
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After the narrator has her appendix removed, she recovers and returns to school. During the Easter holidays, the narrator’s mother reveals that the doctor, while doing the appendectomy, had also removed a mysterious lump. The adult narrator in this quote reflects on the vast differences in society between the time in which she grew up and that in which she writes. In the case of the lump, attitudes about the possibility of cancer is a huge difference between these two time periods. It betrays both a lack of advancement in the medical field in the 1940s (and thus a higher Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a
My sister was nine when I was fourteen. The relationship between us was always unsettled. When I wasn’t tormenting her, teasing her in some asinine way, I would take on the role of sophisticated counsellor or hair-raising storyteller.
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In the story, the narrator describes her relationship with her sister. This relationship is the only one between the narrator and another child that the reader sees. For this reason, it is the central relationship of the story. The central conflict of the story (the narrator’s battle with her dark thoughts about strangling her sister) also centers around this relationship. The narrator’s descriptions of the roles that she takes on within her relationship with her sister reveals the ways that she defines herself in relation to her sister. The description of their relationship as “unsettled” prefaces the narrator’s struggle with Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaec
The more I chased the thought away, the more it came back. No vengeance, no hatred—as I’ve said, no reason, except that something like an utterly cold deep thought that was hardly an urging, more of a contemplation, could take possession of me. I must not even think of it but I did think of it.
The thought was there and hanging in my mind.
The thought that I could strangle my little sister, who was asleep in the bunk below me and whom I loved more than anybody in the world.
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The narrator begins to experience dark thoughts at night in her shared room with Catherine. She cannot control these thoughts. As is clear from the quote, her violent thoughts have no logic, reason, or motivation. Because the narrator is unable to control the dark thoughts inside herself, these thoughts force her to reckon with her own dark side. The pattern of these thoughts only showing up when the narrator is the lone person awake in her house demonstrates the impact of isolation on the narrator’s psyche. This isolation also puts the narrator in the position of dealing with these thoughts Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperio
The east side of our house and the west side looked on two different worlds, or so it seemed to me. The east side was the town side, even though you could not see any town. Not so much as two miles away, there were houses in rows, with streetlights and running water. And though I have said you could not see any of that, I am really not sure that you couldn’t get a certain glow if you stared long enough.
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As the narrator navigates the dark night, she makes observations about the world around her. Specifically, she makes observations about her family’s property. From the initial scene of the story when the family must take a horse and buggy to the hospital, the reader knows that the narrator and her family live a life that is somewhat isolated from their town and community. Isolation in general is an essential factor in the narrator’s coming of age. In observing the two different worlds that her family’s house seems to inhabit, the narrator emphasizes the distance between her family’s life and that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessita
I remembered what I had completely forgotten—that I used to have a sandbox there, placed where my mother could watch me out that north window. A great bunch of overgrown spirea was flowering in its place now and you could hardly see out at all.
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As the narrator walks around her family’s property every night, she sees it in new ways. Her navigation of the night symbolizes a trip through her own unconscious mind as memories resurface and dark thoughts show themselves. The childhood memory that the narrator experiences about the sandbox is emblematic of the fact that these nighttime trips are a part of a coming-of-age journey. This coming of age goes hand-in-hand with the narrator’s separation from her parents. Whereas, in the childhood memory, the narrator’s mother used to watch her play in the sandbox through the kitchen window, as an adolescent the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qu
Who was it? Nobody but my father. He too sitting on the stoop looking towards town and that improbable faint light. He was dressed in his day clothes.
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One night, as the narrator is on her nightly walk, she runs into her father sitting on the stoop. She does not recognize him at first. The fact that she does not recognize him suggests the distance that has grown between herself and her parents as she navigates growing up. Additionally, his unrecognizability highlights the strangeness of the house at night, a virtually different environment from that of her daytime life. In a sense, the narrator and her father meet each other in an alternative world, different from that of their daytime, normal life. The fact that her father is Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque e
He said, “People have those kinds of thoughts sometimes.”
He said this quite seriously and without any sort of alarm or jumpy surprise. People have these kinds of thoughts or fears if you like, but there’s no real worry about it, no more than a dream, you could say.
[….] An effect of the ether, he said. Ether they gave you in the hospital. No more sense than a dream.
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After the narrator confesses her dark thoughts about killing her sister to her father, he replies nonchalantly. In telling her that unwanted dark thoughts are at least somewhat normal or common, the narrator’s father confirms that the narrator is simply growing up. In other words, the narrator joins the adults in her life in dealing with complicated and dark parts of the self. His comparison of the narrator’s dark thoughts to a dream highlights the disconnect between the narrator’s unconscious and reality. Furthermore, his statement that the thoughts are an effect of the ether (anesthetic) that the hospital gave the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore.
If this were happening today, he might have made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist (I think that is what I might have done for a child, a generation and an income further).
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After the narrator’s father comforts her about her dark thoughts, the adult narrator reflects on his parenting style in this moment. Similarly to the narrator’s reflections on discussions around illness when she was a child, the narrator identifies sharp contrasts between the conversation around mental health in the present and the conversation around mental health in her childhood. The narrator’s comment that, in her father’s position, she might have sent her child to a psychiatrist highlights the discussion of parenting in the story. However, when the narrator says that she would have done this a generation and an income further, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectet
If you live long enough as a parent nowadays, you discover that you have made mistakes you didn’t bother to know about along with the ones you do know about all too well. You are somewhat humbled at heart, sometimes disgusted with yourself. I don’t think my father ever felt anything like this.
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In the final moments of the story, the narrator reflects on her father’s parenting. She reveals that he often turned to corporal punishment as a parenting tactic. This revelation reminds the reader that the story represents only a short period of the narrator’s childhood and shows a limited view of the personalities and actions of the narrator and her family members. Because the narrator is an adult looking back on a particular time in her childhood, she visits these memories with the perspective of a parent. Her comment that parents make mistakes that they do not even know about illustrates Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempo
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Narrator Character Timeline in Night
The timeline below shows where the character Narrator appears in Night. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Night
The narrator reflects that all medical events in her childhood seemed to occur during a snowstorm. She...
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The narrator returns to school after the recovery period. One day over the Easter holidays, her mother...
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At the end of the school year, the narrator goes on her summer break looking and feeling well. The narrator describes her relationship with...
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The narrator remembers that particular summer as more free than subsequent summers. She does not have many...
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The narrator begins to have trouble sleeping, which she attributes to her lack of physical activity. Her...
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As time goes on, the narrator loses hope in getting a good night’s sleep. Instead, she turns her attention to fighting...
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The narrator goes outside into the dark night, removing the chair that the family uses as a...
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The narrator does not tell her family about her trouble sleeping and spends most of her days...
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One night, the narrator senses a presence while on her nightly walk. Though she is nervous at first, she...
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The narrator confesses her fear that she would strangle Catherine to her father. He tells her not...
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The narrator as an adult reflects that her father never felt remorse over the corporal punishment he...
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