Discussion Topic
Phrases in "Night Women" by Edwidge Danticat that reveal the narrator's character and help the reader understand the story
Summary:
Phrases in "Night Women" by Edwidge Danticat that reveal the narrator's character and help the reader understand the story include descriptions of her resilience and maternal dedication, such as "I have learned to sleep in the day" and "My son must not know what I do." These phrases highlight her sacrifices and the duality of her life as both a mother and a night worker.
What do phrases in Night Women reveal about the narrator?
Please keep in mind that "Night Women" is part of the full work called Krick? Krack!, but we can still take a look at some quotations that really show the importance of the narrator/speaker.
They say behind mountains are more mountains.
Here we have the ultimate statement about limited economic means. Note how the narrator always begins with the negative (and ends with the positive). This is one of the quotations about the negative aspects of life. We will always continue to struggle. Once we struggle up one "mountain" (here a symbol for a difficult time of life), we will simply hit another, different struggle. Then we Danticat gets even more specific:
No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the...
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rebelliousness.
Again, we see a sad and negative statement about women of limited economic means and how they are pigeonholed. They are asked not to participate in intellectual pursuits, but instead sit in "dark corners" to braid hair and curb rebellion.
The soldiers can come and do with us what they want. That makes papa feel weak, she says. He gets angry when he feels weak.
Now we have a quotation about the negative emotions of life. The soldiers control papa. Papa feels weak. Papa gets angry. Weakness breeds anger. This, again, shows the issues of people with limited means.
People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.
As one of the most negative quotations about hopefulness, here we see it can be used as a weapon. People, especially those of limited economic means, are looking for anything to allow them to cling to the positive. Such is the reason why hope can be used against the impoverished. Luckily, the speaker does end on a positive note:
All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.
Here Danticat gets to the ultimate hopeful emotion: love. Love is the endpoint. Love is the best we can hope for. Love can exist in the highest echelons of society and the lowest echelons of society. Love doesn't discriminate. Even the narrator of the story, then, knows that love is the best she can hope for (a "drop" of love at the least and a "flood" of love at the most).