Night Summary

In “Night,” the narrator reminisces on a particular period of time in her childhood. She remarks that dramatic events in her childhood always seemed to happen during a snowstorm. One night, during a blizzard, the narrator’s parents must borrow their neighbors’ horses to take her to the hospital. There, the doctor removes her appendix. The narrator spends a few days in the hospital. She does not worry about how her father paid for the surgery.

After the narrator recovers and returns to school, her mother tells her that, in the process of removing her appendix, the doctor also removed a mysterious lump. There is no mention of cancer and the narrator doesn’t think further about the lump at the time. The adult narrator muses on the ways that discussion around illness changes over time; she reflects that present-day doctors and patients take the possibility of cancer much more seriously and discuss it more openly.

When school lets out for the summer, the narrator spends most of her day relaxing around the family’s property. Possibly as a result of this inactivity, the narrator experiences insomnia. During her sleepless nights in her shared bedroom with her sister, Catherine, the narrator also experiences thoughts of killing her sister. In order to combat these unwanted thoughts, the narrator leaves their room to wander the dark property. She does this nightly, returning to her bed to sleep when the birds start to sing and the sky starts to lighten.

One night, the narrator senses a strange presence. To her relief, the presence turns out to be her father, dressed in slightly nicer clothes than usual (as though he were going into town) and smoking a cigarette. They greet each other and her father asks if she is having trouble sleeping. During their conversation, the narrator realizes that her father had heard her walking around all those nights. The narrator confesses her fear that she would strangle her sister. Her father tells her that these thoughts are normal and urges her not to worry about them. The narrator reflects that if she were in her father’s position, she might have questioned her child further or sent them to a psychiatrist. The adult narrator continues to reflect on her father’s parenting style, which included corporal punishment. However, in that moment, his matter-of-factness calms her and she is able to sleep.