Thursday, November 5, 2015

"Night Women" - Shannon Walsh (Week 7)



          The story begins with narrator alluding to her nightly profession. She ambiguously speaks of night: “The night is the time I dread most in my life. Yet if I am to live, I must depend on it” (203). This grabs the reader’s attention, as one immediately wonders why her life depends on the night. Intrigued, the reader continues reading. The narrator never outright tells the reader what her job is, but she gives enough information throughout the story so that the reader can infer that she is a prostitute. This contributes to the air of innocence within the story, as she actively protects her young, innocent and naïve son from this information. In the same way, by never blatantly stating her profession, she also protects the audience from this information.
          The narrator also uses mythical, dreamlike imagery. She describes a place in the village “where ghost women ride the crests of waves while brushing the stars out of their hair” (204). She describes herself as being “stuck between day and night in a golden amber bronze” (204). These romantic images contribute to the overall surreal, dreamlike setting that the narrator creates, which lends the story an air of fantasy as she speaks of her dark reality.
 

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