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The Psychological Effects of Illness
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.
The short story “Night” explores the narrator’s existence in isolation, arguing that isolation worsens psychological distress and can even be its root cause. While recovering from an appendectomy, the narrator does fewer chores around the house over her summer break. The lack of physical activity leads to trouble sleeping, and the narrator’s lack of sleep isolates her from her family, as she wanders around alone all night. Her time alone at night while the rest of the family sleeps stirs dark thoughts about killing her sister, Catherine. The narrator doesn’t tell her family about her insomnia and distressing thoughts, so her family’s ignorance of her struggles only makes the isolation worse, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. When she finally tells her father about her dark thoughts, she feels better and begins to sleep again. Though the narrator’s father does not offer any concrete solutions to the issue, simply sharing her experience releases the narrator from her isolation. This conversation stands in stark contrast with her family’s avoidance of the subject of cancer earlier in the story, when the very idea of cancer is “dark, rotting” and unspeakable. Ironically, it is easier for the narrator’s family to talk about disturbing side effects of illness (violent thoughts) than to confront potential illness directly. By exploring the effects of silence and isolation, the author suggests that honest relationships are necessary to combat the effects of one’s inner struggles. In other words, talking about difficult issues is an essential part of preventing them from becoming even bigger, possibly all-encompassing problems.
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Silence and Isolation ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Silence and Isolation 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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Silence and Isolation Quotes in Night
Below you will find the important quotes in Night related to the theme of Silence and Isolation.
Night Quotes
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.
