 Hello and welcome to a summary of all you need to know about the story Night by Alice Monro. Now, I'll explain the meaning related to this text as it appears in the Pearson International GCSE anthology and I'll highlight literary and language devices as well as contextual factors that you should be aware of when studying this text. So let's get started. Now let's begin with the title itself Night. Now, contextually speaking, this is based on a semi-autobiographical story by Alice Monro herself, who's a Canadian writer from rural Canada and she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her writing. Now, do bear in mind as we're reading this story that Alice Monro herself as a child used to be ill. So there's a lot of semi-autobiographical elements that she employs within this story. So what I will do is read through different sections of this story and then point out important techniques that you must be aware of. So let's begin with the first three paragraphs. When I was young, there seemed to be never a childbirth or a burst appendix or any other drastic physical event that did not occur simultaneously with a snorkelstone. The roads would be closed. There was no question of digging out a car anyway and some horses had to be hitched up to make their way into town to the hospital. It was just lucky that there were horses still around. In the normal course of events, they would have been given up but the war and gas rationing had changed all that at least for the time being. When the pain on my side struck, therefore, it had to do so at about 11 o'clock at night and a blizzard had to be blowing and since we were not stabling any horses at the moment, the neighbour's team had to be brought into action to take me to the hospital. A trip of no more than a mile and a half, but an adventure all the same. The doctor was waiting and to nobody's surprise, he prepared to take out my appendix. So I lay minus my appendix for some days, looking out at a hospital window at the snow, sifting in a sombre way through some evergreens. I don't suppose it ever crossed my head to wonder how my father was going to pay for this distinction. I think he sold a woodlot that he had kept when he disposed of his father's farm. He would have hoped to use it for trapping or sugaring or perhaps he felt an mentionable nostalgia. Now the beginning of this story essentially uses really important pathetic fallacy to set out a really major event. So of course, what we learn from the outset is the speaker, the narrator of the story. Of course, we're not directly told it's Monroe herself, but the speaker and the narrator, they have this appendix which bursts in the middle of the night and then they have to be taken and of course the doctor takes out the appendix and this person then convalesces, they recover and of course we start getting hints of how poor their family's financial situation is. Now the story begins with first person narrative as I've mentioned and of course this is evident through the first person pronoun I and of course this is a reflective retrospective story. Now the mention of a childbirth or a burst appendix or any other drastic physical events. Now the tricolon here shows already from the outset that the narrator's family is beset with lots and lots of issues. Moreover, the sibilance here and the pathetic fallacy which refers to the snowstorm of course, this gives us a feeling of something terrible that's going to happen and of course what we learn is that the narrator suffers an appendix and of course this is a terrible thing especially for a family which can't afford for medical payments and so on. Moreover, there's the mention of horse age, the hitched up hospital. Now the alliteration here of horses hitched up hospital, the alliteration of H shows as this narrator lived in a remote rural poverty and of course this makes it more semi-autobiographical because Alice Monroe herself grew up in remote rural poverty in Canada. Moreover, the reference to how they would have been given up this emphasizes further on their poverty, the fact that when they're living in this rural place they don't really have any horses which they can hitch to take them to the hospital. Already this has been lost probably because of financial difficulties. Moreover, there's this indirect reference to the Second World War which happened between 1939 to 1945, the mention of the war and gas rationing. Again, this shows us the time period and the time frame that this occurred in. Moreover, the sibilance sidestruck, this shows just how slowly this illness became and then suddenly it was a huge painful illness and of course the appendix when it bursts this can be a really really painful event. There's more pathetic fallacy that's used where we learn that blizzard is blowing and of course also there's alliteration of B. Again, this compounds the problems that are happening, it reflects the problems that are B setting the ceremony and of course the narrator herself. Moreover, the reference to people, the neighbors taking action. This is an active verb obviously showing just how quickly they had to work and how urgently they had to take it to the hospital and of course there's a repetition once more to hospital and this by the narrator is seen as an adventure. So this is a really interesting metaphor that's used to show just how even if she was in pain this was somewhat exciting considering just how rural this place is and of course this is also emphasising just how little happened in this kind of setting. Now, the common noun, my appendix references the narrators who suffered from appendicitis. Moreover, the next sentence that begins the third paragraph, sadly minus my appendix is some days looking out at a hospital window at the snow sitting in a somber way through some evergreens. Now, this complex sentence focuses on the narrator's introspection as they are convalescing as they are recovering and the alliteration minus my to emphasise how they don't have an appendix for its somewhat humorous effect. Now, the sibilance and the personification snow sifting in a somber way. This reflects her own mood and parenthesis is used here to show her inner thoughts and we sense that she's in the dark about how her father actually ended up being able to afford for the payment so we as readers feel her own lack of clarity just as she did as a child and she contemplates that maybe her father sold a wood lot. Now, this shows that the father was had to dispossess himself. He had to sell the few worldly possessions he was having just to help look after her in the hospital. So, let's carry on. Then I went back to school and enjoyed being excused from physical training for longer than necessary and on one Saturday morning when my mother and I were alone in the kitchen. She told me that my appendix had been taken out in the hospital just as I thought but it was not the only thing removed. The doctor had seen fit to take it out while he was at it but the main thing that concerned him was a growth. A growth my mother said the size of a turkey's egg but don't worry she said it's all over now. The thought of cancer never entered my head and she never mentioned it. I don't think there could be such a revelation today without some kind of question, some probing about whether it was or it wasn't. Cancerous benign we would want to know at once. The only way I can explain our failure to speak of it was that there must have been a cloud around that word. So, I did not ask and wasn't told and can only suppose it was benign or was worst most skillfully got rid of. For here I am today and so little do I think of it that all through my life when called upon to list my surgeries I automatically say or write only appendix. Now in this part of the passage we find that actually there's not that great communication she's kept in the dark on other things so she realizes something really concerning which she really wasn't told whilst she was in hospital recovering that she had a cancerous growth in addition to her appendicitis which her mother then casually mentions it and says well it's all over now and of course she reflects that actually this was something quite big but of course talking about cancer remained quite taboo for their family that's why they never raised it. Now this passage talks about how she enjoyed being excused from physical training and of course the assonance of E shows just how gleeful she was to not have to do PE for example in school. Also the comparative adjective longer than necessary shows of course that maybe she stayed and excused herself from physical training even when she didn't really have to when she was well enough to go back into it she just took a few cheeky liberties as a young girl. Then she mentions how my mother and I were alone and now what this does is it focuses on her relationship with her mother and as we read through we start sensing that there's a kind of emotional distance between herself and her mother. Moreover the repetition of appendix shows this constant aneuphoric reference to her illness. Now there's this aneuphoric reference again to appendix but then also the reference to it is quite vague so we start questioning what else could it be. Then we learn that the doctor had seen it fit to take it out and this is really unsettling as she doesn't quite know what else was taken out of her body and there's then the repetition of a growth, a growth. Now this is also a form of aneuplosis always remember aneuplosis means when the last word of one sentence is repeated as the first word of the following sentence. Now aneuplosis is used here to highlight the shock of this news, the shock of this cancerous growth that was also taken out of her body and then she uses the metaphor that it was a size of a turkey's egg and what this shows is she actually narrowly escaped a really life-threatening event which was not mentioned to her. Then her mother really casually speaks in almost monosyllabic language and this again further suggests her emotional distance from her daughter rather than maybe sitting her down and breaking this news to her slowly she almost shrugs it off and this is a big deal that her daughter maybe feels like perhaps they should have maybe talked about it more. Of course the common noun cancer adds a really troubling cloud and of course we learn that this becomes a really taboo thing that they have never really talked about in their family and the hyperbole a revelation. Of course this shows that in most families and even of course today people would probably sit their children down and tell them about this but this didn't happen in her family she was left in the dark her mother casually mentioned that she may have had cancer and they move on. Also the repetition of some some kind of question some probing the speaker feels her mother should probably have opened a discussion she really had no way of getting closure from this news. There's the repetition once more of it and what this does is it gives life to this disease this cancerous growth. Now the metaphor that there was a cloud around that word shows that she felt even if that she might have liked to have some closure talking about it was taboo so she never really talked about it with her family. She then says that she didn't ask and wasn't told and can only suppose and the polycyndicine that's used here shows she simply just settles back into the motions she never really communicates openly with her family. She then mentions and asserts here I am today and this declarative sentence shows she feels empowered after beating cancer many many years later on. So let's carry on. In the heat of early June I got out of school having made good enough marks to free me from the final examination. I looked well I did chores around the house I read books as usual nobody knew there was a thing that mattered with me. Now I have to describe the sleeping arrangements in the bedroom occupied by my sister and myself. It was a small room that could not accommodate two single beds side by side so the solution was a pair of bunk beds with a ladder in place to help whoever slept in the top bunk climb into bed that was me. When I'd been younger and prone to teasing I would lift up the corner of my thin mattress and threaten to spit on my little sister lying helpless in the bunk below. Of course my sister her name was Catherine was not really helpless she could hide under her covers but my game was to watch until suffocation or curiosity drove her out and at that moment to spit or successfully pretend to spit on her bared face enraging her. Now she looks like she moves on from this really shocking news and she goes back and settles back into the motions and of course we then learn about her relationship with his sister here and how they share this single room together and she's somewhat to mentor. Now there's this of course temporal shift as I mentioned the mention of early June and the reference to how this she was freed from final exams this illiteration here shows that she settles back into the motions she finishes her final exams and she goes back into the motions she then asserts I looked well I did chores around the house I read books as usual now this innocent here shows that she goes back into some kind of routine however then she mentions nobody knew a thing the matter with me now what this does is it foreshadows that something will definitely be the matter with her something will be wrong with her later on in the story. Now she references my sister and myself and we realise that she shares her room with her sibling and she describes it using the adjective small to show that it was a fairly compact room again this adds to our image of the poverty that they had they didn't probably live in a really massive house and they stayed in two single beds side by side and the sibilants side by side and single shows how tiny the room is and emphasises it. Furthermore the simple sentence that was me essentially emphasises how she took the top bunk and in typical sibling relationships the older sibling tends to have the top bunk which is perceived as a better bunk so obviously we're getting a sense of the dynamics between her and her younger sister. Furthermore the mention of her thin mattress now this pre-modifier emphasises the poverty further it emphasises just how sparse and how poor quality their possessions were. Furthermore her relationship with the sister is emphasised when she says she would threaten to spit on my little sister lying helpless now what this shows of course is that when she was younger she used to torment her younger sister again this is not too atypical of siblings in other words this is quite normal when you have an older sibling who uses the power against the younger sister or the younger sibling. Furthermore there's the repetition of sister and of course this shows this complicated relationship that they had and the parenthetical hyphen so the parenthesis here emphasises her name so she was called Catherine. Moreover she references the game which she used to play with her sister and of course it's a very one-sided game and this abstract noun shows she really enjoyed tormenting her sister and playing around with her sister's feelings and emotions. Moreover there's this repetition of her spitting again this is quite a disgusting verb and this repetition shows her immaturity towards her sister and how she used to really mistreat her. So let's carry on I was too old for such feeling certainly too old by this time my sister was nine when I was 14 the relationship between us was always unsettled when I wasn't tormenting her teasing her in some asinine way I will take on the role of sophisticated counsellor or hair-raising storyteller. I don't mean to say that I was entirely in control of her or even that our lives were constantly intertwined she had her own friends her own games in the month June as I've said I was free of school and left on my own as I don't remember being in quite the same way in any other time of my growing up I did some chores in the house but my mother must have been well enough as yet to handle most of that work or perhaps we adjust enough money at the time to hire what she my mother would call a maid though everybody else said hired girl I don't remember at any rate having to tackle any of the jobs that piled up for me in later summers when I fought quite willingly to maintain the decency of our house it seems that the mysterious turkey egg must have given me some invalid status so that I could spend part of the time wondering about like a visitor though not trailing any special clouds nobody in our family would have got away with that it was all inward this uselessness and strangeness I felt now this part of the story obviously emphasises her relationship with the sister where she was always talking about how unsettled their relationship was she played several different roles with her sometimes mistreating her sometimes being a listening ear sometimes scaring her with horror stories and then she takes us back to the story that she'd began and we learned that they got some hired help to help around with the chores because she was quite unwell and then there's a hint that her mother was also not very well and of course it's going to be brought up especially towards the end of the story now in this part of the passage she mentions I was too old for such feeling too old by this time and the intensifier shows that the narrator knows that she should have known better also the vast age gap is emphasised when we learned that her sister was nine whilst she was fourteen again she should have known better than to be you know treating her really badly then she emphasises the relationship between us was always unsettled and this shows that she had a fairly fractured family relationship even with her own sister and she then emphasises this by talking about how she was tormenting her teasing her and the litteration here shows the sadistic pleasure that she took in upsetting her sister now we then also learned that she describes herself as a counselor or even sometimes a storyteller and these abstract nouns show the complex dynamics between them and the relationship that they had which was somehow and somewhat contradictory and do remember that this belongs to a complex sentence furthermore she mentions her sister she had her own friends her own games and this possessive pronoun hints at the emotional differences between them but also maybe how her sister was able to have a better social life than her and perhaps that contributed to how she mistreated her now she uses that verbal phrase of time again in the month june and this adverbial phrase of time once more fixes us on what she's trying to tell us as a story what happened in june she then mentions as i've said and what this adds is a conversational tone she brings us back into her confidence almost as if were people that she's talking to quite casually then she then emphasises how they brought in some hired help and the sentence or the part of the sentence where she states but my mother must have been well enough this is a hint of an illness or an imbalance that will take place later on of course this foreshadows how towards the end we learned that her mother had Parkinson's disease now we learned that her mother caused this hired help made and this hints that the narrator feels that her mother was quite pompous in this reference whilst everyone else called her a hired girl and this is a diminutive reference in many ways especially referring to somebody who works for you as a girl and this showed that the maid was hired to help because of her own tumor and of course of her convalescing after her surgery now it's interesting that she mentions she would have fought quite willingly to maintain the distancing of her house and this adverb shows that she used to actually take quite a lot of pride in helping around the house and keeping it quite neat and the mention of how she has now an invalid status this references her disability her illness incapacitated her do remember that the word invalid is now politically incorrect you can't refer to people who are disabled as invalid but of course this is showing the slightly maybe older time period that this passage belongs to it is a modern passage but perhaps some of the language references how perhaps this took place during the second world war where it was a different type of world now the simile where she used to wander around the house like a visitor this simile is really ironic because your house is the place you should be most familiar with so it's interesting it starts adding some sense of irony we as readers start wondering hang on they don't have a great communication between her and her mother she has a fairly fractured relationship with her sister so we start piecing together that maybe life at home is not that great also she references the uselessness and strangeness that she felt as a result of recovering and this hints to us that the freedom that she got because she was recovering and the freedom to not have to do housework and things like that this actually made her feel quite useless and inept so it was fun at first but actually she increasingly felt useless so let's carry on it must have been just that very moment of the day was not filled up with jobs as it was in the summers before and after so maybe that was the reason that I had began to have trouble getting to sleep at first I think that meant lying awake maybe till around midnight and wondering at how wide awake I was with the rest of the household asleep I would have read and gotten tired in the usual way and turned out my light and waited nobody would have called out to me earlier telling me to put out my light and get to sleep for the first time ever and this too must have marked a special status I was left to make up my own mind about such a thing it took a while for the house to change from the light of day and from the household lights turned on late into the evening leaving behind the general clutter of things to be done hung up finished with it became a stranger place in which people and the work that dictated their lives fell away the uses for everything around them fell away all the furniture retreated into itself and no longer existed because of anybody's attention now in this part of the passage she mentions it must have been at that very moment now what this shows is she was unsure of her mental state at this time in June so she's conjecturing in guessing what might have caused her to do what she's going to reveal later on now what she does reveal is she had trouble getting to sleep she struggled with insomnia and she did not feel at peace always remember things related to insomnia sometimes there's a subconscious element of a lack of peacefulness which causes one to stay awake now she references how she was awake and this is repeated and this repetition of awake shows she is subconsciously troubled with her new found freedom which she found quite difficult to cope with she then says I would have read and got tired in the usual way and turned out my light and waited and of course what this is referring to is usually her routine as she fell asleep so she would maybe read switch off her lights and then fall asleep but of course this is in contrast to the insomnia that she develops now because she's recovering she mentions I was left to make up my own mind and the litteration here shows she struggles still with her freedom and this is causing her to slowly lose her sanity and causing her of course this insomnia to set on moreover she uses onomatopoeia here leaving behind the general clatter of things to be done and the onomatopoeia references and connotes the general busyness of life which she felt somewhat excluded from in the house and then she mentions how the house it became a stranger place and the comparative adjective stranger shows she really felt alienated from her home because she wasn't able to actively engage in it and then she talks about how the lives fell away and this repetition shows she perhaps feels like her life is falling apart and disintegrating she then mentions how the furniture retreated into itself and this personification is really interesting describing how everything grows dark and how everything stops somewhat existing or it becomes quite quiet however this further emphasizes her insomnia because she's still awake and still able to notice all of these things furthermore she mentions how the furniture retreated itself and no longer existed because of anybody's attention again this assonance emphasizes just how everything just stopped during the night people stopped paying attention to certain things however she was awake and she took note of all of this and this of course further emphasizes her sense of loneliness so let's carry on you might think this was a liberation at first perhaps it was the freedom the strangeness but as my failure to fall asleep prolonged itself and as it finally took hold altogether until it changed into the dawn i became more and more disturbed by it it's i started saying rhymes and real poetry first to make myself go under but then hardly of my own volition the activity seemed to mock me i was mocking myself as the words turned into absurdity into the silliest random speech i was not myself i had been hearing that set of people now and then all my life without thinking what it could mean so who do you think you are then i'd be hearing that too without attaching to it any real menace just taking it as a sort of routine during think again so now this part of the passage shows how the insomnia really starts gripping her she first tries to cope with reciting rhymes and poetry but then she's unable to still lie herself into sleep and then so many starts growing worse and worse now the second person pronoun you in this part of the passage addresses us and addresses maybe our assumptions then she uses the series of simple sentences the freedom the strangeness to show how bizarre the feeling of freedom really felt to her she was quite disturbed by this furthermore the repetition of the third person pronoun it this is anaphora and it creates intrigue as to what is haunting and disturbing so much that she can't sleep moreover the repetition of more and more i became more and more disturbed shows her creeping sense of unease at her insomnia then she talks about rhymes poetry this belongs to the semantic field of literature however this is quite eerie it is not normal for her furthermore she says that this activity seemed to mock me and this is personifying literature however she it shows that she felt really irritated that her recitation of rhymes and poetry really wasn't helping her sleep now the simple sentence here i was not myself shows she's really disturbed she feels isolated however she can't demystify her discontent then the rhetorical question so who do you think you are then this references how some people outside would refer to her maybe even her parents when they're telling her off however she's now reflecting on this as she's struggling to sleep then this simple sentence is actually an imperative sentence again it's telling her something or maybe telling us as the audience something think again and of course this leaves us on a bit of an edge and we then start getting really really intrigued what is this insomnia going to lead her to do so let's carry on by this time it wasn't sleep i was after i knew mere sleep wasn't likely maybe not even desirable something was taking hold of me and it was my business my hope to fight it off i had the sense to do that but only barely as it seemed whatever it was trying to tell me to do things not exactly for any reason but just to see if such acts were possible it was informing me that motives are not necessary it was only necessary to give in how strange not now of revenge or for any normal reason but just because you had thought of something and i did think of it the more i chased the thought away the more it came back no vengeance no hatred as i've said no reason except something like an utterly cold deep thought that was hardly an urging more of contemplation could take possession of me i must not even think of it but i did think of it the thought was there and hanging in my mind the thought that i could strangle my little sister who was asleep in the bunk below me and whom i loved more than anybody in the world so in this part of the passage we get to the root of the problem we get to what has been causing her not any sleep and it's the thought of killing her own sister which is really really shocking and horrifying for us more so because there's no motive behind it she even says so so it's even more horrific now in this part of the passage she mentions it wasn't sleep i was after her new sleep wasn't likely and the repetition of the word sleep shows she's slowly losing a sanity and she's unable to sleep even if she's desperate for sleep she then mentions something was taking hold of me and this mystery really creates some intrigue it seems like almost a demonic spirit is slowly possessing her and the repetition of the possessive pronouns my show she's trying to take control and agency over the situation she's trying to fight it she's trying to somehow control it but it's beyond her control moreover the anaphora it this third person pronoun which has been repeated throughout the passage it makes us wonder if this is a voice in her head this spirit that's taking hold of her now this thing this it was trying to tell me to do things and the litteration of tea shows her mental health is growing weaker and weaker she's grappling with this thing also she mentions that it was telling her to give into something not out of revenge or any normal reason but just because he had a thought of something and this complex sentence makes us feel terrified is quite menacing furthermore the simple sentence and i did think of it shows she's obsessed with this thought we don't yet know what this thought is as yet in this passage and she mentions actually there's no motives she repeats no vengeance no hatred and this is really menacing language because it starts putting us on tenterhooks we start wondering what's going to happen furthermore this thought could take possession of her it's like a spirit controlling her and this is also a form of personification and she tells herself almost i must not even think of it but i did think of it and this compound sentence builds intrigue furthermore the repetition of the words the thought and of course this is also a litteration shows us that this thing is really possessing her mind and then she mentions that the thought was hanging in my mind now the present continuous verb hanging connotes death from hanging so it's a very all very menacing language and then we learn what this thought is she states i could strangle my little sister now the volta here is horrifying volta do you remember is turning point now this volta is horrifying as she's contemplating fratricide which means killing one's brother or sister so this is what's causing her insomnia and it's horrifying for us as readers and she almost shows her guilt at this because she says i loved more than anybody in the world and this comparative adjective more than shows her conflicting and contradictory feelings towards her sister she loves her more than anybody in the world yet she is thinking of killing her for no reason at all so let's carry on i might do it not for jealousy viciousness or anger but because of madness which can be relying right beside me there in the night not a savage madness either but something that could be almost teasing a lazing teasing half sluggish suggestion that seemed to have been waiting a long time it might be saying why not why not try the worst the worst here in the most familiar place the room worried lane for all our lives and thought ourselves most safe i might do it for no reason i or anybody could understand except that i cannot help it the thing to do was to get up to get myself out of that room and out of the house i went down the rungs of the ladder and never cast a single look at my sister where she slept then quietly down the stairs nobody stirring into the kitchen where everything was so familiar to me that i could make my way without a light the kitchen door was not really locked i'm not even sure that we possessed a key a chair was pushed under the door knobs that anybody trying to get in would make a great clatter a slow careful removal of the chair could be managed without making any noise at all so in this part of the passage essentially she grapples with this thought and then she decides to do the right thing which is to just completely remove herself from the situation so she sneaks out of her room and of course we learned that she later goes out for walks during the night so now she mentions her jealousy viciousness and anger and this is tricolon she's showing that actually this would be a senseless killing because she doesn't experience any jealousy for her sister any viciousness or any anger towards her if she were to kill her it would not be for any reason and she then mentions it would be because mainly of madness and the repetition of this abstract noun shows that it would just purely because because of a mental illness and then she talks about how the madness is lying right there beside me and the personification shows that this crazy thought really haunts her constantly then she references a lazy teasing half sluggish suggestion and the tricolon here shows this act would be senseless killing which is even more horrifying for us as readers now she mentions it might be saying why not why not try the worst the worst now there's undiploses here again so as you can see in the first sentence the ending is why not the second sentence begins with why not and then it ends with the worst and then the next sentence starts with the worst so another places is when the end of one sentence the words used there begin the next sentence now what this does is it makes us panic as we realise that she's kind of losing grip over her rationality especially more so because she's suffering from insomnia and that's one of the challenges of insomnia you start the real world and the dreamlike world start mixing and then this makes people really lose a grip over the rationality so we start wondering if that's going to happen to her she then talks about how if the murder were to happen it would be in the most familiar place the most safe place now these superlative adjectives are used to really create a sense of irony as this is really where they should be most safe your home is the place that you should be most familiar and most safe however this is where she risks being killed by her own sister or conversely this is where the narrator risks killing her own sister moreover she mentions how i could not help it now monroe uses this language to show how the speaker feels really really powerless against this urge to kill her own sister now she continues by saying the thing to do was to get up to get myself out of that room and out of the house now what this complex sentence does is she tries to control this situation by making sure she doesn't do anything she'll regret so she actually leaves the home which of course makes us as readers feel really relieved moreover she mentions how quietly she left and this adverb shows her furtive movement she doesn't want to wake up her sister she doesn't want to wake up anybody else and of course this is part of her secretive movement and tied also to her insomnia she doesn't want to alarm anybody by them knowing within her family that she suffers from insomnia now the intensifier so now shows how this part of the home especially going downstairs in the darkness her home is really familiar to her which is why of course earlier in the passage where she felt almost like a stranger it sounds very different and very bizarre to us as readers she talks about how she will make my way without a light and this alliteration adds to this furtive sense of movement and this quick sense of movement as she heads out of the house furthermore she knows she won't be able to make a clatter and this onomatopoeia shows of course in the dead of night if she did make this clatter her secret might be discovered and her insomnia might be discovered now she describes a slow careful removal and this again shows her stealthy movement as she makes off so let's carry on after the first night I was able to make my moves without a break so that I could be outside as it seemed within a couple of smooth seconds of course there were no street lights we were too far from town everything was larger the trees around the house were always called by the names the beach tree the arm tree the oak tree the maples always spoken of in the plural and not differentiated because they clung together now they were all intensely black so were the white lilac tree no longer with its blossom and the purple lilac tree always called lilac trees not bushes because they'd grown too big the front and back and side lawns were easy to negotiate because I'd mown them myself with the idea of giving us some town like responsibility back and forth I walked first close to the house then venturing here and there as I got to rely on my eyesight and could count on not bumping into the plump handle or the platform that supported the clothesline the birds began to stir and then to sing as if each of them had thought of it separately up there in the trees they woke far earlier than I would have thought possible but soon after those earlier starting songs they got to be a little whitening in the sky and suddenly I would be overwhelmed as sleepiness I went back into the house where there was suddenly darkness everywhere and I very popularly carefully silently set the tilted chair under the door knob and went upstairs without a sound managing doors and steps with the caution necessary although I already seemed half asleep I fell into my pillow and woke late late in our house being around eight o'clock so now here we start understanding the motions that she goes through as she deals with her insomnia but of course leaving going out into the rural landscape and then of course when the birds come up and this is when the break of day begins she goes back and she sleeps for a few hours before she wakes up at eight o'clock which is seen as late by her family now in this part of the passage she talks about make my moves without and again this is a repetition of her previous description of her movements and the alliteration here shows how quiet her movements are as she slinks out furthermore she describes the smooth seconds and this sibilance shows how quickly she slips out but without any sound now the assertion we were too far from town this is now tied to the context again do remember that Monroe wrote this and this was somewhat semi-autobiographical as she herself lived in rural Canada therefore she is describing here the really rural and insular location of this narrator's home now as she steps out and ventures out into the darkness she sees everything was larger now this narrator is describing what she sees and Monroe uses the simple sentence and the comparative adjective larger to really focus on the natural setting but also how large it feels in the darkness moreover there's the mention of the trees and this is a hypernome and she reinforces this by using the hypernomes the specific language related to the different types and species of trees she mentions the beach the elm the oak the maples now all of this belongs to a semantic field of trees depicting this somewhat idyllic natural surrounding but of course it's really far from idyllic they live in poverty but also now she's suffering from insomnia and suffering from really horrific ideas of killing her own sister now she emphasizes just how dark everything is by describing how everything looks intensely black and this creates a really ominous image of all the natural surroundings that she can see moreover there's the mention of the white lilac tree no longer what its blossoms put in parenthesis and this is perhaps symbolic of her own lack of vitality and her own lack of hope now there's a description of the front and back and side lawns and this is polysinditin to really just give us a moving description of what she can see as she's walking around outside and she mentions how she used to mow them to give them a town like respectability to give their home a town like responsibility which shows how aspirational but poor she was and of course her family was moreover she uses alliteration to talk about how in the darkness her eyesight could count on not bumping into anything and of course this alliteration is interesting in the sense that it emphasizes how she's able to really deftly go through her home and sneak out and of course also sneak back in now she sneaks back in when the birds begin to stir and sing and this is a use of sibilance to talk about how the birds in the early morning now come out and wake everybody up and she mentions how the birds she learns through this experience how they woke up earlier than I would have thought possible and this symbolizes her surprise at being up so early showing her insomnia moreover the mention of the superlative earliest shows that actually whilst everybody else was now starting to rise and wake up that's when she would get some kind of sleep now there's the oxymoron that's used to describe the whitening of the sky the dawn is coming in the morning is coming in and this is in contrast the darkness everywhere that enveloped her in the darkness and of course this shows her conflicting feelings but also her conflicting experiences how she able to sleep during the daytime but not to sleep at all during the nighttime moreover she mentions and emphasizes how she's able to now fall asleep in the day when she states our suddenly would be overwhelmed with sleepiness and this simple sentence shows how simply she's now quick to nod off when everybody is rising now there's the description of how she properly carefully silently set the tilted chair under the doormat when she came back in when she snuck back in and the tricolour and suggestives how careful and silent she is she does not want anybody to know about her insomnia now let's carry on I would remember everything then but it was so absurd the bad part of it indeed was so absurd that I could get rid of it fairly easily my brother and sister had gone off to their classes in the public school but the dishes were still on the table a few bits of puffed rice floating in the excess milk absurd when my sister got home from school we would swing in the hammock one of us at either end it was in that hammock that I spent much of the days which possibly accounted for my not getting to sleep at night and since I did not speak of my night difficulties nobody came up with the simple information that I'd be better off getting more action during the day my troubles returned with a night of course the demons got hold of me again I knew enough soon to get up out and out of my bunk without pretending that things would get better and that I would in fact go to sleep if I just tried hard enough I made my way as carefully out of the house as I'd done before I became able to find my way around more easily even the inside of the rooms became more visible to me and yet more strange now in this part of the passage we get description of how she almost is living a double life during the day she would hang out with her brother and sister when they were not in school or when they came back from school that she'd stay with them in the hammock and of course sleep and she didn't of course realise that if you sleep during the day you're probably not going to find sleep very easy to come by at night and also of course this shows just how there's really a lack of communication of secrecy within her family they don't really communicate their innermost fears and of course they don't communicate even simple things such as if she were to open up about her insomnia they would maybe tell her how she can deal with it and of course towards this part of the passage she looks like she's almost resigned herself to this insomnia now she repeats the word absurd and this repetition shows the disorientation that she feels as a result of her insomnia but also as a result of the fact that she now has to live this double life she's hiding this she has this whole other life that's developing at night when everybody is asleep and during the day she tries to have fun with her siblings and act like everything is fine now she describes the dishes the table puffed rice excess milk this is what the brother and sister leave behind once they have breakfast and they go off to school and this is domestic imagery which give a semblance of normality she tries to maintain this semblance of normality helping out with clearing up also there's the colloquial language a few bits again to show the semblance of normality this casual way of referring to all of these normal things but of course then during the nighttime very abnormal things come to her mind she describes how when her sister would come home from school she would swing in the hammock with her we would swing in the hammock and of course the litteration hair of the w shows the routine of the daytime bonding and either of them would be on either end and again this is a really good use of assonance to tie into this feeling of routine and normality moreover the idea of her living a double life is emphasized when she says I did not speak of my night difficulties and what this shows is that she felt like she really couldn't confide in her family communication is a real issue within her family moreover she affirms that my troubles returned for the night and the personification here shows her thoughts followed her around like a devilish spirit and this is further reinforced when the sentence states the demon's got hold of me again and this is a really powerful metaphor to show she felt really really helpless against these thoughts these maddening thoughts about her sister now she shows that she's really resigned to her fate by stating without pretending that things would get better now what this shows is we sense she's reached her nadir the lowest point and she feels really despondent about ever getting better or recovering from her insomnia moreover there's this notion that the rooms this part of her home is more visible to her at night yet all the more strange and this is really contradictory language which shows how disorientated she felt as a result of her insomnia now let's continue the east wall of the kitchen had no windows in it but it had a door opening on a stoop where we would we stood to hang out the heavy wet washing and haul it in when it was dry and smelling all fresh and congratulatory from white sheets to dark heavy overalls at that stoop i sometimes haunted and my night walks i never sat down but it eased me to look towards town maybe just to inhale the sanity of it all the people getting up before long having the shops to go to the door to unlock and milk bottles to take inside the busyness one night i can't say whether it will be the 20th or the 12th or only the eighth or the ninth that i had got up and walked i got a sense too late for me to change my pace that there was somebody around the corner there was somebody waiting there and i could do nothing but walk right on i would be caught if i turned my back and it would be worse that way than to be confronted who was it nobody but my father he too sitting on the stoop looking towards town and that improbable faint light he was dressed in his day clothes dark work pants the next thing to overalls but not quite and dark rough shirt and boots he was smoking a cigarette one who rolled himself of course maybe the cigarette smoke had alerted me to another presence though it's possible that in those days a small tobacco smoke was everywhere inside buildings and out so there was no way to notice it now here there's an interesting change of pace so she describes another typical night having insomnia she steps out sneaks out as usual however suddenly she comes upon her father and now we sense the dynamics are gonna change now in this part of the passage she talks about how she would go out through the east wall of the kitchen and she describes this is where they would hang out the heavy wet washing and this alliteration emphasizes just the arduousness of the task that they had to do when cleaning up different clothes and they'd haul it and again this shows just how heavy and the intensive the home labor can be here furthermore there's this contrast again this oxymoron from white sheets to dark heavy overalls there's always this constant use of oxymoron to show this contradictory state of affairs moreover when she steps out she describes how she just wished to inhale the sanity of it and this contrasts her earlier reference to her madness so sanity of course is opposite of madness what this shows is that she looks out to the town where she knows that people will go about the business he'll have shops and so on and she just simply envies people who don't have the internal struggles that she's facing furthermore the repetition of the third person pronoun there emphasizes just how envious and wistful she feels towards people who're just leading normal lives they don't have these horrible demonic thoughts about killing this sister like she does now she mentions one night she talks about whether she doesn't realize if it might be the 20th or the 12th or the 8th or the 9th again what this is showing is her disorientation and this polycynditin shows she's really lost control of her insomnia this is just yet another date or rather another night that's bled into it she doesn't quite know however we know that something is going to happen now she senses somebody's there however she states i could do nothing but walk right on and this shows that she's somewhat passive and powerless she's just walking towards what she feels might even be her doom now hyperforia is used who was it nobody by my father and this reveals that it was her father that was there now there's the repetition of the third person pronoun he and this anaphoric reference to her father focuses on her shock at seeing him and her intense focus on his reactions as she approaches now she describes her father's appearance he's in dark work pants the next thing to overalls were not quite his dark rough shirt and boots and this emphasizes of course that they are working class and he's a blue collar worker now he's smoking however she notes she he smokes cigarettes one he rolled himself of course and again this shows that they were too poor to afford even simple luxuries like rolled up cigarettes he had to roll them up himself and of course this shows just how sparse their belongings are and of course they couldn't even afford simple luxuries she uses sensory language to describe the smell of tobacco smoke again this sensory language alerts us to the presence of somebody else so let's carry on he said good morning in what might have seemed a natural way except that there was nothing natural about it we weren't accustomed to giving such greetings in our family there was nothing hostile about this it was just thought unnecessary i suppose when we would see each other off and on all day i said good morning back and it must have really been getting towards morning all my father would not have been dressed for a day's work in that way the sky may have been whitening but hidden still between the heavy trees the bird singing too i had taken to staying away from my bunk until later and later even though i didn't get comfort from doing so as i had at first the possibilities that had once inhabited only the bedroom the bunk beds were taking up the corners everywhere now that i've come to think of it why wasn't my father in his overalls he was dressed as if he had to go into town for something first thing in the morning i could not continue walking the whole rhythm of it had been broken having trouble sleeping he said now of course her whole pattern of sneaking out has been disrupted in this part and we now witness the dialogue between her father and herself and the communication between them now in this part of the passage the narrator describes how he's had said good morning now this reported speech gives us a sense of her fearfulness and her childlike demeanour towards her father now the alliteration there was nothing natural this shows that her father is troubled and concerned about something now she reveals we weren't accustomed to giving such greetings in a family what this shows to some to extent that they all have a cold and distant relationship with each other and she further emphasises this by showing that this was just thought unnecessary communication is seen as unnecessary in their family she describes that i said good morning back now this simple sentence shows that she's quite tentative towards her father again emphasising just how fearful she felt of him now she then describes the possibilities that had once inhabited only the bedroom the bunk beds were taking up corners everywhere now the personification of her thoughts show that these dark thoughts of fratricide consumed her not only were they confined to just when she was lying in bed now it consumed almost everything she saw at night and of course she had to get away from it however she asked a rhetorical question why wasn't my father in overalls now what this rhetorical question shows is her realisation that maybe her father might also be living a double life she describes how her whole rhythm has been broken and what this shows is that her insomnia was almost like a trance and now this trance has been broken so let's continue my impulse will stay say no but then i thought of the difficulties of explaining that i was just walking around so i said yes he said that was often the case on summer nights you go to bed tired out and then just as you think you're falling asleep you're wide awake isn't that the way i said yes and you know that he had not heard me getting up and walking around on just this one night the person whose livestock was on the premises whose earnings such as they were laid all close by and who kept a handgun in his desk drawer was certainly going to stir at the slightest creeping on the stairs and the easiest turning of the knob i'm not sure what conversation he meant to follow then as regards to my being awake he seems to have declared wakefulness to be a nuisance but was that to be all i certainly did not intend to tell him more if he had given the slightest intimation that he knew there was more if he'd even hinted that he had come here intending to hear it i don't think he'd have gotten anything out of me at all i had to break the silence out of my own world saying that i could not sleep i had to get out of bed and walk now this part of the passage is interesting because now she starts talking and showing her distrustful nature towards her father but also he seems to maybe be aware that she has been suffering insomnia for a long time so maybe this is his way of intervening now initially instinctively she shows she wanted to lie she states my impulse was to say no this shows of course just how emotionally distant they are however she changes her mind i said yes and this simple monosyllabic sentence shows her fear and trepidation towards her father she also rationalizes that of course he's been hearing her the person whose life circles and the premises whose earnings such as they were all laid close by who kept a handgun to desk drawer was certainly going to stir at the slightest creeping on the stairs and the easiest turning of the knob now this complex sentence shows her father was aware and has been aware of her insomnia despite her best efforts to hide it now she mentions i had to break the silence out of my own world saying that i could not sleep i had to get out of bed and walk and now what this shows is she decides to take pre-emptive action and she can't figure out what her father's intentions are in talking and starting a conversation with her so let's continue what was that i did not know not bad dreams no stupid question he said you can get chased out of your bed on account of good dreams he let me wait to go on he didn't ask anything i meant to back off but i kept talking the truth was told with only the slightest modification when i spoke with my little sister i said that i was afraid i would hurt her i believed that would be enough that he would know enough of what i meant strangle her i said i could not stop myself after all now i could not unsee it i could not go back to the person i had been before my father had heard it he had heard that i thought myself capable of no reason strangling little kathryn in her sleep he said well now this part of the passage is when she honestly confesses to her father and of course we could say that this is one of the key voters within the passage one of the key returning points within the passage now there's this exchange here why was that i did not know not bad dreams no and this hyperforo shows her internal conversation and her internal confusion and turmoil now this is broken by her father's utterance this simple sentence stupid question disarms her she feels almost like her father has become a bit more humanized when talking to her now she states i'm meant to back off but i kept talking now the compound sentence here shows she's really feeling that she can open up to him however even if she's doing so she does so with what she says is the slightest modification this is just a euphemism for just a few white lies she tells him and she opens up but she's still pepper zip with some dishonest uh none truths she mentions how she told her father i said that i was afraid i would hurt her and here of course we can see she's speaking in half truth this is tied to the previous euphemism because she knows that she's not revealing everything that she needs to reveal however she subconsciously decides to just be honest she states strangle her and this confession is shocking it's another volter in the story she realizes just how shocking it is she's even shocked at her own utterance and she states i could not unsee it i could not go back and the repetition of i could not shows she has revealed this really ugly side to her father now her father shows that he had heard it and this alliteration the repetition of this alliteration shows this is damning evidence of her dark truth her father knows what she's been thinking of this whole time which has been causing her insomnia now this tension created because her father simply states well and this clipped sentence builds up tension even we as the readers wonder what's he going to do next it must be really horrific if you're a parent and you hear that your child is considering killing their sibling so at this point we really really intrigued us to what will happen next then he said not to worry he said people have these kinds of thoughts sometimes he said this quite seriously and without any sort of alarm or jumpy surprise people have these kinds of thoughts of fears if you like but there's no real worry about it no more than a dream you could say he did not say specifically that i was in no danger of doing such a thing he seemed more to be taking it for granted that such a thing could not happen an effect of the ether he said ether they gave you in the hospital no more sense than a dream it could not happen in the way that a meteor could not hit our house of course it could but the likelihood of it doing so put it in the category of couldn't he did not blame me though for thinking of it he did not wonder at me was what he said there were other things he could have said he couldn't question me further about my attitude to my sister or my dissatisfactions with my life in general if this will happen in today he might have made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist i think this is what i might have done for a child a generation and an income further on it's now here actually contrary to what we might think that her father might react and also of course what she feared the narrator feared maybe her father might panic and things he actually is very calm in reinforcing that actually maybe he believes it was the effect of the medication she got in hospital that's maybe causing her to have these crazy maddening thoughts now this part of the passage she states then he said not to worry and this reported speech shows she feels really relieved and then we hear directly from her father and when we do hear when he states people have these thoughts kind of thoughts sometimes this shows that he has a lot of empathy which disarms her more now she talks about how father was not having any alarm or he wasn't jumpy and these are the adjectives that she actually anticipated her father would do had he discovered but actually he goes against what she had expected now the repetition of the second person pronoun he or third person pronoun even he shows her intense focus on her father's reaction moreover the repetition when her father is trying to justify that it's the medication ether this places blame on the medication takes away some kind of agency from her and of course this shows that her father is really trying to see it from her perspective now there's the hyperbole a meteor could not hit our house and of course this shows that her father really strongly believes she does not have the ability to kill her sister again this is really really hopeful as a message to her and she feels so much better about herself moreover she states he did not blame me and this shows that there's actually an emotional bridge that's created between them so initially when they first encountered each other there was a massive emotional gap but now his words have made her feel more understood also she states did not wonder at me was what he said and the reported speech here again shows she values how he did not punish her for these thoughts now the conditional clause if this were happening today he might have made an appointment of course shows what most parents probably would have done and probably that would have been a very healthy response to this kind of revelation furthermore there's the use of parenthesis this also shows the narrator herself and of course maybe this could be Monroe's voice speaking they themselves would have taken the child to a psychiatrist had their child thought and confessed in frat frat aside now she mentions he might have made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist and this is of course a conventional response in a modern family so let's continue the fact is what he did worked as well it set me down but without either mockery or alarm in the world we're living in people have thoughts that soon and not have it happens in life if you live long enough as a parent nowadays you discover that you've made mistakes you didn't bother to know about along with the ones you do know about all too well you're somewhat humbled at heart sometimes disgusted with yourself i don't think my father felt anything like this i do know that if i'd ever tasked him with his use on me of the razor strap or his belt he might have said something about liking or lumping it those strappings then would have stayed in his mind if they stayed at all as no more than the necessary and adequate curbing of a mouthy child's imagining that she should rule the roost you thought you were too smart was what he might have given as his reason for the punishment and indeed you heard it that often in those times the smartness of figuring as an obnoxious imp that would have beaten this would have had the sass beaten out of him otherwise there was a risk of him growing up thinking he was smart or her as the case might be however on that breaking moment he gave me just what i needed to hear and what i was even to forget about soon enough now of course this part of the passage as we come to the end of this story essentially shows how she's so relieved of her father's reaction and then she actually reflects on how actually this is not like how he has dealt with them in terms of discipline so we learned that obviously they this is an older time period that this story belongs to meaning that there was a bit more corporal punishment and contrary to what she might have thought her father would have done maybe beat her a little bit for thinking these thoughts actually in this occasion he didn't now what she mentions here what he did worked as well and this shows that the narrator feels her trajectory was changed because of her father's understanding attitude she didn't need any psychiatric intervention her father simply understanding where she was coming from really helped and actually banished those thoughts afterwards now the simple sentence that happens in life shows that the narrator is reflective and she's now stating a truth moreover the repetition of the second person pronoun now brings us in as the audience it makes us maybe feel some empathy it puts us in the position of parents in the position of her own father now she states if you're a parent sometimes you feel humbled at heart and maybe some of your mistakes and of course this is reinforced by alliteration and then she shows her reflection on how her father used to reinforce corporal punishment beating her he has used on me of the razor strap or his belt and again this shows how perhaps traditional the parents were but also how maybe sometimes they're dealt with punishments in a really harsh way in a very strict way but actually in this occasion he didn't moreover her dad would have responded maybe to her not liking the punishment by telling her to like it or lump it and this is a colloquial idiom which shows her father's simplistic working class perspective on beating children now she talks about how it happened in those times things that you heard often in those times and of course this alliteration shows she belongs to an older generation and again this generation would have people having the sass beaten out of him the attitude beaten out of them and this is of course the colloquial reference to bad behavior however she reflects on the breaking morning now this is a use of pathetic fallacies the morning time and what this symbolizes is her hope now her horrible horrendous secret has been let out her father understands she now feels at peace so let's look at the final part of the passage i have thought that he was maybe in his better workloads because he had a morning appointment to go to the bank to learn not to surprise that there was no extension to his loan he'd worked as hard as he could but the market was not going to turn around and he had to find a new way of supporting us and paying off what he owed at the same time or he may have found out that there was a name for my mother's shakiness and that it was not going to stop or that he was in love with an impossible woman never mind from then on i could sleep now in this final part of the passage she starts to speculate about her father's mysterious appearance and again this ties into her discovering that maybe he himself led a double life she's thinking about why she was wearing his better workloads so early in the morning then of course she thinks about perhaps this could be he was getting ready to go to the bank showing their financial difficulties he suffered many financial setbacks and problems and this is further emphasized through the semantic field of money bank loan paying the other reason she speculates is maybe my mother's shakiness and again this is semi-autobiographical because the alliteration my mother is tied also to Monroe's own experience as her mother suffered and later died from unfortunately Parkinson's disease which causes shakiness moreover there's the mention and the reference perhaps her father was having an affair with an impossible woman and this hint at his possible infidelity was maybe a way that he coped with the financial family struggles that he experienced and of course maybe also the struggles he experienced with his wife developing Parkinson's disease however she states never mind and this conversational speech shows that she actually doesn't concern herself too much with her father and then she shows that her issues have been resolved I could sleep and she's recovered from her troubling thoughts so that's all if you found this video useful we do have a course covering all the IGCC anthology text as well as model answers for pass papers so do make sure you check that out in the description box but also make sure you head over to our course and sign up for it and check out our website which is www.firstreetutors.com for English worksheets with different courses and materials to help you in this and other areas of English thank you so much for listening