Argument essay on Night Women

Night Women by Edwidge Danticat is a short story that describes a mother’s unique love.
The author shows the experiences and feelings of a woman, the main character in the story. She
works at night to provide a life for her son. The time between dusk and dawn determines the kind
of life she will live with her son. She dreads the night, but if she must survive, she must live
through it as her life depends on what she does between dusk and dawn. She has to work at night
if she has to live. She does not like a job, but it is like a necessary evil. She must work for
survival. The author depicts the woman’s struggles to provide for her only son. She sired the
child with an old lover who left her many years ago. She is, therefore, her son’s only hope. She
does not hope to fail, not when her son is watching. Therefore, she works as a prostitute, which is
why the author refers to her as the ‘Night Woman.’ The night woman is not like the day woman;
she works when the sun goes down because her mother’s duties demand that she does everything
in her powers to provide; it is the strength of a mother’s love.
The mother in the story redefines night as she anticipates what lies ahead. She is a loner
who has to do what it takes to provide for her son. His father, she says, decided to “disappear
with the night’s shadows a long time ago” (83). Since then, her nights have never been the same
again. Her lost relationship with the father of her son changed the way in which she perceives the
night. The author uses the word ‘night’ symbolically in the story. The single mother of one is a

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‘night woman’ who has to work at night to make a living. Her long-gone lover disappeared just
like the shadows of the night disappeared. Her story is best understood at night. It is only
possible to tell that she works as a prostitute by observing her life at night and listening to her
quiet thoughts. She has an activity-filled night. Night defines her life. She knows that even
though her son’s father left, she has a responsibility to provide for and love her son.
The author uses figurative language to describe the innocence of a child whose mother is
a night woman and whose father abandoned. The son is innocent and does not know that his
mother has to work at night to make ends meet. He sleeps soundly and even kills mosquitos in
his sleep without even waking. His mother says, “in the morning, he will have tiny blood spots
on his forehead, as though he had spent the whole night kissing a woman with wide-open
wounds on her face” (84). Here the woman describes herself. In the morning, she feels like she
has flesh wounds on her face. Just the way her son kills mosquitos without even waking, she is
able to entertain her visitors at night without her son waking. While she feels ‘dirty,’ her son does
not view her this way. The author uses imagery and describes the woman’s eyes as dirt. The
woman says, “my eyes are the color of dirt” (84). This is her view of herself. She feels dirty
because of what she has to do at night to make ends meet. Despite this, her son’s innocence
marvels at her. As long as he does not know what his mother has to do to provide for them, then
the single woman is at peace. As she watches her son fall asleep, she is happy because she will
finally be able to work.
In Night Women, the son is ignorant about his mother’s source of income. The woman is
able to provide food and shelter for him every day, and he does not question what she does to
make them survive. The mother marvels at the ignorance, which may be used to describe his
innocence. She uses a simile to describe her son: “he is like a butterfly fluttering on a rock that

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stands out naked in the middle of a stream” (85). Here, she compares the boy to a butterfly,
beautiful and innocent. However, just like a butterfly has the ability to fly, he too can fly. He can
liberate himself from the shameful life that his mother lives. However, all the things that his
mother does occur at night. He has no idea. In this statement, the mother seems to predict a time
in the boy’s life when he will yearn for freedom. She considers the possibility of the boy wanting
to live a free life, separate from his mothers. She worries that, at times, the boy demands
something more than her. She says, “sometimes I see in the folds of his eyes a longing for
something that’s bigger than myself” (85). She fears that the son will one day ask to meet his
father or at least to experience life outside his mother’s small house. However, that is yet to
happen. The woman prepares for such a time when her son will be all grown and will demand
answers. She fabricates a story of when one night, the son wakes up and finds a naked man in the
house. she comes up with a story on what to say should that happen. She says, “I will tell him
that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from Heaven for a while” (88). She
fears a time when her son will lose his innocence. However, until then, she continues to work as
a prostitute. She knows that she has some more time before her son can start questioning her
activities. She will worry about it then; for now, she works and provides.
Nighttime introduces a new world to the single mother. She feels detached from the other
women, who, unlike her work during the day and do not feel ashamed of their work. She is
forced to work at night and what she does leaves her feeling ashamed. She sometimes has to
wake up with men’s cologne on her bed. She knows that she is not the only one who works at
night. She says, “there are women who sit up through the night and undo patches of cloth that
they spent the whole day weaving” (85). Unlike her, these women do whatever they can,
including destroying their toil to ensure that they have something to do. Unlike her, their work

has decency. They do not have to do shameful work. She says that “as long as there’s work, they
will not have to lie next to the lifeless soul of a man whose scent still lingers in another woman’s
bed” (85). Here, she describes herself as the woman who has to spend her nights lying next to the
lifeless souls of men. The metaphor here describes her feelings towards prostitution. She does
not feel as though the men are alive because she herself feels ‘dead’ at night. She already
admitted that she dreads night. It is a time in her life that she has to do what she does not like. It
is difficult for her. Thus, to kill the guilt, she feels as though she is lying to lifeless souls. It is
difficult for a woman to make a living. However, she does not depend on her son’s father for
anything and has to do what she can to ensure that her son lives a good life. The doctor describes
her as an “avalanche, a waterfall.” These symbols symbolize the role she plays in her clients’
lives. She satisfies them. They leave feeling fuller and better than they came. She is like a
waterfall; she just gives. She spends her nights entertaining the women and has to spend the days
by herself. She enjoys the days more because she can rest and refresh before it is dusk again.
Overall, the single woman has to live each day and do what she can to demonstrate her
love for her son. Sometimes this means working as a prostitute, and sometimes it means
whispering into her son’s ears while he sleeps. His paper gives a short insight into the life of the
woman whose life revolves around nighttime. Her life cannot be understood without looking at
how she spends her nights. To be able to live another day, she must work at night. It is no
wonder the author called the short story “Night Women’. The short story describes the life of a
single woman who has to raise her child alone without the support of the man who is the father
of the young boy. Throughout the analysis, the strength of the woman is illustrated. As such, as
she does not like working as a prostitute, she enters into the night determined to ‘entertain’ the
men in her life so that she can earn a living. While she appears like an independent woman who

does not rely on the father of her son for her support, her nighttime activities reveal otherwise.
She is not as independent as one may think. She still has to entertain men whose souls she
describes as lifeless so that she can earn a living. This seems ironical. While the author appears
to be demonstrating the single woman as able and independent, a close reading of the text shows
that she as depends on men to survive. It makes the reader question the strength of the night
woman. Is she really strong, or does she ‘use’ men as a means to make her ends meet? This is an
open question that the analysis explores. In conclusion, the single woman is strong because she
has to live with the shame of being a prostitute as a way of making her son live well.

Works Cited
Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak!. Soho Press, 2004.