The man and woman’s two young daughters are likely in their toddler years, since they are seen playing with blocks and sleeping with the door ajar (implying a childlike fear of the dark). The man and woman speculate that the girls know nothing of the impending end—and try to keep it that way—though the story leaves open the possibility that the girls also had the apocalyptic dream but are too young to process its meaning and impact.
The Girls / Daughters Quotes in The Last Night of the World
The The Last Night of the World quotes below are all either spoken by The Girls / Daughters or refer to The Girls / Daughters. 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:
).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Simon and Schuster edition of The Last Night of the World published in 1981.
The Last Night of the World
Quotes
“Do you know, I won’t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or my work or anything except you three. I won’t miss a thing except perhaps the change in the weather, and a glass of ice water when it’s hot, and I might miss sleeping.”
Related Characters:
The Man / Husband (speaker), The Woman / Wife, The Girls / Daughters
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“I wonder […] If the door will be shut all the way, or if it’ll be left just a little ajar so some light comes in.”
“I wonder if the children know.”
“No, of course not.”
Related Characters:
The Man / Husband (speaker), The Woman / Wife (speaker), The Girls / Daughters
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Last Night of the World LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Girls / Daughters Character Timeline in The Last Night of the World
The timeline below shows where the character The Girls / Daughters appears in The Last Night of the World. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Last Night of the World
...it much thought. The man pours himself a cup of coffee, listening to his two daughters playing with blocks in the parlor. The smell of the coffee is “easy” and “clean”...
(full context)
...other times, though, he feels at peace with it. Glancing at his two little blonde girls, the man tells his wife that “it first happened about four nights ago,” but at...
(full context)
Listening to the little girls laughing in the other room, the husband says that he always assumed that people would...
(full context)
...do so and put them away with “special neatness.” At 8:30 P.M., they put the girls to bed, leaving their lamps on and the door to their room cracked open. Afterward,...
(full context)