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Silence and Isolation
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Night, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
In “Night,” Munro demonstrates how changing perspective is an important part of coming of age. After the narrator has her appendix removed, she is “not herself,” struggling with violent urges. As she wanders the dark night to combat her disturbing and unfamiliar thoughts, she figuratively learns to navigate the darkness of her mind as well. In the pivotal moment of the story when she runs into her father, she at first does not recognize him, as he is wearing nicer clothes than usual and greets her with unaccustomed formality. This unfamiliarity underscores the narrator’s difficulty in coming to terms with her new perspective on herself and the world. However, his straightforward, accepting response to her dark thoughts—that people sometimes have strange thoughts they don’t want—helps her come to terms with the complexity of her own mind and, seemingly, with the challenges of growing up. Through the narrator’s process of coming to know her home, her father, and herself in a deeper, more mature way, the story suggests that changes of perspective are a key sign of growing up.
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Coming of Age ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Coming of Age appears in each chapter of Night. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Chapter
Night
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Coming of Age Quotes in Night
Below you will find the important quotes in Night related to the theme of Coming of Age.
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
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
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
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
