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In “Night,” the night itself represents the narrator’s struggle to come to terms with her unconscious mind. The narrator’s urges to kill her sister Catherine only surface at night—during the day, she and her sister sit together on the hammock in peace. Clearly, the night activates the narrator’s disturbing unconscious urges. The only way the narrator can combat these urges is by literally exploring the dark night around her family’s property. Because of the family’s isolation from town, the property lacks streetlights and the narrator must adjust to the darkness. She is only able to sleep when the birds begin to sing and the sky begins to lighten. This peace that comes with daytime underscores the depth of her struggle with her unconscious mind during the night. It is only her father’s unemotional response to her dark thoughts that eventually comforts the narrator and helps her sleep at night. In other words, by accepting the workings of her unconscious mind instead of fearing them, the narrator is finally able to be at peace with the night.
Night Quotes in Night
The Night quotes below all refer to the symbol of Night. 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
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.
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Night Symbol Timeline in Night
The timeline below shows where the symbol Night appears in Night. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Night
...of her days in the hammock in the yard. Her troubles sleeping persist and her nighttime walks become routine. She becomes used to the empty, dark, and quiet house at night....
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One night, the narrator senses a presence while on her nightly walk. Though she is nervous at...
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