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Analyzing "Night Women" Through Psychological Lens. 

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Analyzing "Night Women" Through Psychological Lens. 

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Psychological criticism deals with a work of literature primarily as an expression, in fictional form, of the personality, state of mind, feelings, and desires of its author. The assumption of psychoanalytic critics is that a work of literature is correlated with its author's mental traits.

1. Reference to the author's personality is used to explain and interpret a literary work.

2. Reference to literary works is made in order to establish, biographically, the personality of the author.

3. The mode of reading a literary work itself is a way of experiencing the distinctive subjectivity or consciousness of its author.

This theory requires that we investigate the psychology of a character or an author to figure out the meaning of a text (although to apply an author's psychology to a text can also be considered biographical criticism, depending on your point of view). (Mpsaz 2018).

Mpsaz.org. N. p., 2018. Web. 17 Sept. 2018.

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The story “Night Women” has a dreamlike feel to it. This is partly because most of the story’s content consists of stream-of-consciousness-like observations and reflections from the narrator. Her mind jumps from one subject to the next, and she sometimes spirals into tangents. This is like how the content, setting, and/or characters in a dream can quickly change. For example, one moment the night woman is thinking about a firefly that is buzzing around her house, and the next moment she is likening love to a childhood lesson about shoes.

There is also the use of ephemeral imagery and figurative speech further that develops the hazy, dreamlike atmosphere of the story as well. The woman describes how shadows “shrink” and “spread” over the curtain dividing her and her son (Danticat 81). For a moment, her son’s shadow stretches into the silhouette of a grown man, before shrinking back to his own size. When describing herself, the woman says she is stuck in the brief time between day and night, in the fleeting moments of amber-colored twilight. Later, in the story, she compares her son to a fluttering butterfly that momentarily rests on a rock: at any moment, he could fly away from her (Krik? Krak! “Night Women” Summary and Analysis 2018).

"Krik? Krak! “Night Women” Summary And Analysis." Gradesaver.com. N. p., 2018. Web. 17 Sept. 2018.

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Context of the ranges of human emotions. How they come to play in the text? (happiness, anger, depression, indifference, confusion, etc.)

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Context of the ranges of human emotions. How they come to play in the text? (happiness, anger, depression, indifference, confusion, etc.)

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The woman’s emotion is a mixture of sadness and determination. As a single parent, struggling to provide for her child, she goes to great lengths and sacrifices to provide for her son. Sadness is portrayed in the story, because she knows he is too distant for her to protect him. She imagines her son as a butterfly in the middle of a stream. Because in her mind, butterflies are elusive, hard to catch or to control, much like the suffering of the characters. They represent change, and the blossoming of a lowly caterpillar into a bigger, greater creature, just as the characters’ daily pain blossoms into greater, unavoidable tragedy (Danticat 73).

Danticat, Edwidge. “Night Women." Krik? Krak! New York: Vintage, 1996.

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Context: certain characters act the way they do?

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Context: certain characters act the way they do?

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The woman’s character for example, is influenced by love for her son which fuels most of her actions. She has sex with strangers to provide for their living, at great risk to herself and her body. She tries her hardest to hide the truth of her nighttime activities from her son, to preserve his innocence. All these actions are acts of love. Although her vocation makes her stand out from other parents in the Krik? Krak! stories, the night woman’s commitment to and love for her son remind us that she too is a mother trying to provide the best possible life for her child.

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What did I think of the moral/ethical choices that the characters made?  What would I have done?

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What did I think of the moral/ethical choices that the characters made?  What would I have done?

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When I think of the moral and ethical choices made by the characters, such as the woman for example, having little to no option or support to decides from, her choosing the path that she did I could understand. She is extremely close to her son and can provide somewhat of a stable income with her “clients” that she has made a close relationship with. What I would have done, if I were to be in the perspective of the narrator’s, I would probably make the same choice as her. For the reason that when dealing with the situation that she had to face, and having to make sacrifices for her child, and to give up everything, including her body, in order to make sure her child is fine, it is hard, and I respect her decisions and for that alone I would have also done the same.

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Context: broader social issues the text attempts to address.

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Context: broader social issues the text attempts to address.

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Dandicat did an amazing job addressing the social issues that resides in the world, especially in her country Haiti. The story paints the ultimate picture in my mind on how certain people live their certain lives. Women who go into prostitution only go for it for the sake of trying to get by, rather than living on the streets not knowing if they will have food or shelter that day, but even those who do such practices, are just as caring as those who do any type of professional work. Mothers are all built the same no matter where they reside from.

Choosing to read this story from the psychological lens put things into perspective. It gave me a chance to analyze and understand the struggles that the narrator had to face. From taking into consideration as to why she chose to do what she did, and not deciding whether or not it is morally correct. If I were to not have analyzed this story from the perspective of the psychological lens, I know that I would have found it harder for me to understand her struggles and where she was coming from.